A Good Source of Fiber Before Minnesota Court

It's a long drive connecting a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado to a fiber-optics network.

Arstechnica has a story that Bridgewater Telephone filed a lawsuit against the town of Monticello, Minnesota to stop the town from using a city bond issue to fund the construction of a fiber-optic network. According to Law.com it was a project that that both Bridgewater and Charter Communications admitted they would not bring to the town in the near future. Bridgewater evidently didn’t want another competitor in the market, especially City Hall.

Here in Morristown, TN. the city utility district created the MUS FiberNET, a fiber to the home (FTTH) network division, around two years ago. The utility’s website says the system was funded through ”general obligation bonds issued by the City of Morristown“. The city did this to give citizens an economic choice over the local cable franchise, which is Charter. Charter ran a lot of advertisements to fight MUS Fibernet and keep customers when the network launched. I’m not a FiberNET customer myself, but that shouldn’t infer that I think the system isn’t any good. The choice for staying with the cable is mainly been about not disturbing anything I’ve already got.

While Charter is not a party to the lawsuit against Monticello, but does serve the area. It doesn’t keep them from watching the case closely. With a stock that’s trading barely over $1.00, Charter maybe having to watch their pennies and is avoiding heavy legal fees.

I really don’t like the idea of government or a government funded agencies getting into competition with the private sector. In the case of broadband internet, I think this is a gray area. In the world we live and work in broadband is a precious commodity that powers industry and commerce. It is as essential as electrity, water, gas and sewer services. There are going to be cases where the private sector can not afford to deliver affordable broadband service and keep investors happy. Unfortunately the majoritry of the cases are in rural areas like East Tennessee. All communities need to have a broadband initiative if they want to remain competitive in industry, education and overall quality of life. Life would bottom out without e-mail, YouTube and Facebook.  When the court hears outs at the Monticello case it should consider that public owned broadband internet can be an economic engine for any sized town. Having broadband readily available makes it possible to recieve a “Get 250 Free Business Cards Today!” e-mail, open websites like AntiqueCarSales.biz or spark the next Internet giants like Google and Ebay.