Do the right thing, Chattanooga.

I've watched the EPB telecom experiment from a safe distance over the past several years and am continually amazed how the citizens of Chattanooga and their representatives vote more and more debt onto the city for the purpose of propping up a government subsidized competitor.

I think it is great that EPB wants to provide "fiber to the home," and I would be enthusiastically for it if they were not asking the taxpayer of Chattanooga to guarantee the plan. Let EPB get their money in the private sector. If the plan is indeed as easy as Mr. DePriest says, and he is as confident as he appears, he ought to be able to get the numerous private capital markets to invest in the plan. After all, they specialize in taking on and evaluating this kind of unique, speculative, risk.

EPB telecom is not an "entrepreneur." They are a government subsidized entity that is involved in private business. If it were not for the City propping up EPB Telecom Chattanooga would have more competition in the telecom and Internet space. Continuing to prop up EPB with taxpayer dollars will keep the gate closed and locked for new companies wanting to enter Chattanooga who do not wish to compete with their government.

EPB Telecom should be "spun off" and the city needs to get out of the business of private business. Let EPB Telecom stand alone, without danger of cross-subsidies from the supply of power and without making the taxpayer guarantee their business plan.

David N. Snyder

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Mr. Snyder fails to understand the difference between "government subsidized" and "government oversight" (the EPB is a profitable and efficient company with zero taxpayer help).

Further, if he did a little research, he'd quickly learn about the actual subsidies that "Big Telecoms" (like AT&T and Comcast) have received from the government, due in no small part to their massive lobbying entities, which are more concerned with suckling from the Nashville power-teat and fleecing the consumer than with providing the best services at market rates.

And anyone who's ever had to deal with Comcast or Bellsouth can testify to the poor quality of their products and customer service. They run a monopoly in our area.

But all of that is beside the point: access to the Internet is rapidly becoming a utility or infrastructure commodity, like electricity and like roads. To compete economically, everyone must have access to the best internet connectivity possible. Other nations, even countries with economies "more free" than our own, have already implemented similar plans, with huge benefits to their economies.

I applaud the EPB, and hopefully in a week, the City Council, for "doing the right thing" by pursuing this plan. It shows foresight and a solid understanding of what it takes for Chattanooga to compete in the 21st Century.

Josiah Roe

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I've long thought since the 80's that cities should lay fiber optics and rent access to all companies. That way the general user could choose between cable companies, phone companies etc.

Right now I live in an area that Bellsouth can't service with DSL. Comcast has not wowed me with their customer service but I have no choice.

In the modern world broad bandwidth should be a public utility.

I would love to be hooked up to fiber optics and be able to choose my service.

R.W. Young
East Chattanooga

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Finally, someone speaks with reason on this issue. Large telecom businesses (like Verizon and AT&T) are still wary to get into FTTH ventures. Their forays have been limited to large metro areas with a proven market base. Municipal efforts in the telecom industry have been mixed at best. The most successful being UTOPIA - a joint public/private FTTH initiative. Many efforts have failed at a substantial loss - the most notable being Memphis Networx and Marietta FiberNet. EPB officials claim that those failures are due to poor business models, ignoring the fact that the central premise may be wrong.

Today, EPB announced that a 2% price increase in electricity will be necessary if they don't garner enough subscribers for the FTTH service. Thirty-five percent of Hamilton Co. has to adopt FTTH for an unspecified amount of time to pay back the debt of this program. There are no public statistics available for how many local citizens currently pay for high speed internet. Nor has there been any indication as to how a publicly owned utility company plans to negotiate with media behemoths like Viacom, etc. to deliver a quality cable service.

The final white elephant in the room stems from the rapidly-changing telecom business itself. The outcome of the FCC's 700 MHz auction in January will dramatically alter the current landscape. A likely Google bid could result in cheap-to-free wireless broadband service. Even though fiber is faster and more resilient, consumers aren't going to adopt the cow when they can get the milk for free.

EPB Telecom has a place in our economy. It should stick to servicing businesses. A good start would be to modestly expand the existing 60-mile fiber infrastructure. A several million dollar debt is leaps and bounds better than $209 million. But therein lies the crux of the issue: a modest proposal is not grandiose enough. "Fiber to every man, woman and child" looks a lot better on a website or a press release or an election poster than fiscal responsibility ever will.

Mr. Snyder makes an excellent point in that "EPB Telecom is not an entrepreneur." When private businesses remain cautious to get into this arena, it makes one wonder why a government entity is so eager to dive in head first?

David Morton
david@safeguy.net

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Most businesses do not understand what it is like to have your local city government collect taxes from you and take that money and compete against you.

I would like to point out that there are more providers who can offer high speed Internet at a reasonable price. EPB wants you to think that there are only two choices in high speed Internet. They claim that we need fiber to the home so we can work from home and that we will be more creative. If we don't have it then we will have high unemployment rates and businesses will not come to Chattanooga. This is simply not true.

In the long run it's not really saving anyone any big money. They are just spreading the cost out among all of the taxpayers. If they elect to use the service or not they are paying some portion of it. If you choose to not buy service from any of the below providers you are not paying a dime for it. It's nice they have a backup plan in the event that the system fails. They will just stick a 2% rate hike on everyone.

Just off the top of my head I can think of six, locally owned and operated, taxpaying ISPs. All can deliver high speed Internet over various mediums. Here is a list of service providers who offer high speed Internet in the Chattanooga calling area.

Locally owned/operated

Airnet Group
America Internet
Chattanooga Online
Networks Inc
VolState Internet
VPNtranet

J. Haywood

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I have been following this string with interest and I also am watching the topic from a distance (like Mr. Snyder I live just across the state line in Georgia). However, I work in Tennessee - on Chattanooga's Southside - at the sort of young creative company that Chattanooga says it would like to attract.

Our company, Tricycle, Inc., serves multi-billion dollar manufacturers in Dalton and farther afield, using digital tools to reduce the environmental impact of product manufacturing and merchandising while increasing profit margins (Tricycle has gained international recognition for design and environmental leadership, including the Tennessee Governor's Environmental Steward Award for Pollution Prevention earlier this year).

Digital tools are the core of our business products and services, and require a tremendous amount of bandwidth to operate - both between our Chattanooga headquarters and our acquired satellite office in Leeds, England, and with our customers in Dalton and around the world. EPB's fiber has enabled us to grow and prosper in Chattanooga, rather than moving elsewhere.

As someone intimately involved in market-driven environmental impact solutions, I support the environmental story of fiber. For example, its ability to track unusual spikes in usage - in the words of the EPB website: "allowing EPB to notify users so they can fix a problem before it results in a surprise high bill." Also for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, not EPB)'s recent case study on glassmaking, showing how manufacturing that is energy-intensive and difficult to control can use fiber connectivity to measure process efficiency and reduce energy use.

But even more, I am enthusiastic the economic development story here. Tricycle has grown from two founders to 24 Chattanooga jobs (plus nine in the UK) within five years... in the Southside, an area where economic and cultural development can make a tremendous difference. However, entrepreneurs don't always start in an office, they often start in a garage apartment or spare bedroom. Fiber to the Home makes this possible for hundreds, even thousands, of Chattanoogans in all sorts of neighborhoods.

While I appreciate Mr. Morton's skepticism, I think that skepticism is best defined as hope that is afraid of being disappointed. He points out that fiber to the home's central premise may be wrong, that Google might make a bid for cheap broadband, that modest growth might serve Chattanooga well... I prefer to be informed and hopeful, pointing to known elements such as quantifiable reduction of energy usage and the 20+ Chattanooga jobs that I've seen added to the company where I work.

Caleb Ludwick

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Mr. Snyder admits it is "great" that EPB wants to provide fiber to the home to Chattanooga and would even be enthusiastic about the venture if EPB were not asking the taxpayer to foot the bill. That's just it, taxpayers aren't being asked to foot the bill. The project is a self-funded one and EPB will sell services to pay for it.

There are so many people, ready and waiting for this option, who will gladly pay for this project by buying up internet, cable and phone services. In fact, having a technologically advanced option in Chattanooga will actually generate tax dollars which can then be used on all the things that make up a strong, economically healthy community – schools, libraries, airports, transportation.

Creating jobs is the key component to growth in Chattanooga and we will never be able to compete on a national scale, much less a global scale, if we continue on with a low rate of broadband penetration. I hope that City Council understands the importance of this opportunity and what a difference it will make for our community.

Mrs. S. Moore
Red Bank

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Comcast has had its way with us for far too long. They have violated anti-trust laws for decades and used our fees to fight state legislative efforts to end the problem. They have raised rates and cut services year after year.

And now, it's their turn to "reap the whirlwind."

Brock Bennington
East Ridge