New Analysis Shows Community Owned Broadband is Cheaper and Faster
Contact:
Christopher Mitchell
christopher@newrules.org
612-276-3456 x209
Read the Analysis [pdf]
Minneapolis, MN – Twin Cities Internet subscribers pay more money for slower Internet than even small towns with community owned broadband according to a new analysis by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Over the past several years, communities in the Twin Cities have considered building their own community owned network to increase competition, lower prices, and ensure everyone has access to the connections required for success in the digital economy. The failure to do so is costing consumers and businesses millions and the Twin Cities untold amounts in lost business opportunity.
“The Twin Cities are falling behind in the race to be a leading tech center,” said Christopher Mitchell, Director of ILSR’s Telecommunications as Commons Initiative. “While other communities are speeding on the Information Superhighway, we’re sticking with the dirt roads that companies sell us.”
The New Rules Project’s latest analysis compared the Internet service options and costs available to residents of the Twin Cities to those available to residents of Monticello, a town of approximately 12,000 residents 50 miles northwest of the Twin Cities.
New Rules Project analysts are concerned that the slow and high priced Internet service will harm the Twin Cities economy. Internet speed, cost, and reliability are already drivers of business location—and can only be expected to increase in importance. Upstream and downstream speeds impact the effectiveness of digital age business necessities that increasingly depend on “the cloud.”
“The reliance on big national phone and cable companies isn’t working for us. They are too reluctant to invest in the broadband infrastructure we need to remain competitive, which is why we have seen communities step up to build their own faster, more reliable, and less expensive broadband networks,” continued Mitchell.
The new analysis, Twin Cities Broadband No Match for Community Network, is available at www.newrules.org/publications
About ILSR’s New Rules Project
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) proposes a set of new rules that builds community by supporting humanly scaled politics and economics. The rules call for:
- Decisions made by those impacted communities accepting responsibility for the welfare of their members and the next generation.
- Households and communities possessing or owning sufficient productive capacity to generate real wealth.
NewRules.org discusses the importance of rules and catalogs the best. We make the rules and the rules make us.
