Not sure if this is the place to discuss this but it's probably close enough. Cochrane is looking into offering Internet connectivity as a utility. They think they can offer better service and for much less than private companies. Could be a huge selling feature if they can pull this off.
A grand vision for connectivity in Cochrane
As the rapid pace of growth continues in Cochrane, many within administration and council want to see the town take control of its own internet destiny.
At last week’s regular council meeting, the most comprehensive vision to date of what that would look like was presented to those in council chambers.
The proposal from the town (and partners like Cochrane-based Velocity Networks) includes two distinct elements: a large network of high-speed fiber optic internet, and a comprehensive, all-encompassing app and online platform intended to make Cochranites better neighbors with one another.
“We're saying that fiber and connectivity is like a utility, it should be a municipal utility similar to water and wastewater,” says Dave Devana, the town’s chief administrative officer. Devana and his team are proposing a municipally-operated service including both free wireless public connectivity and home service at a rate significantly lower than the private sector. Projections within the plan for monthly internet rates certainly sound enticing.
"We calculated that if we did provide this internet service, that the current citizen would save anywhere between sixty to ninety dollars a month,” Devana said of the proposed municipal service, which is estimated to cost households about seven dollars per month.
“This is a net gain for every citizen.”
Mayor Jeff Genung agreed with the sentiment.
"If we take sixty dollars, and I'm just using the low end of somebody's internet or wifi cost per month, times twelve, times 11,400 or so households in town, we are saving our citizens 8.25 million dollars a year,” he said. “They're already paying out. So my hope is that money would actually go back into our economy, somewhere.”
The exact details over project funding are still being hashed out, but Devana and Genung said a large portion would come from that seven dollar monthly fee, currently being called a “utility surcharge.”
Councilor Morgan Nagel voiced his own doubts that the town could, in fact, offer internet services at such a low fee.
“I feel like it's just going to be too good to be true. How is it that the town of Cochrane can deliver internet at one tenth the cost of Telus, Shaw and Rogers?” said Nagel.
“These companies are competing with each other, if you can just build internet and sell it for way cheaper, why isn't the private sector doing that, there's got to be something we're missing."
Devana told Nagel that there are good opportunities to capitalize on Cochrane’s current development, saying “It's not that easy for the other companies to provide this at as competitive a price."
“Because we're only thirty thousand people and we have just a couple of key roads, that's actually part of our advantage,” said Devanna, adding that six of the planned 39 kilometers of fiber optics are already in the ground, and much of the rest could piggyback on the digs from current development and the new wastewater pipeline towards Calgary.
The base internet would come through at a relatively-speedy 100 megabits per second (that’s an “up to” figure, however). If any residents or businesses are engaging in internet activities that require service a little quicker, like storing large amounts of data in out-of-town servers, they will have the option to go a step or two up.
Genung hopes the project could entice new firms to join operations like Garmin in Cochrane’s emerging technology industry.
“It will put us on the world stage to attract more tech to our community,” said Genung.
“This community wants to be a player, we are thinking differently about things. The old way of doing things is not our way of approaching it anymore.”
Development of the project was spurred along in January by the prospect of winning a prize in the Smart Cities Challenge, an Infrastructure Canada program offering $5 million, $10 million and $50 million prizes to cities and towns that have implemented a unique, internet-based initiative for bridging real in-person social gaps within their community.
"If it wasn't for Smart Cities, we wouldn't have explored this to this extent,” Devana said.
The town has decided their chances are best with the $5 million prize, and have already sent in their initial proposal to the competition panel. Later this summer, Infrastructure Canada will release a list of finalists for the contest. Those who make that shortlist will be awarded $250,000 for the creation of a more developed final proposal. According to administration, this initial funding would play an important role in research and confidence in the project.
Source:
http://www.cochranetimes.com/2018/05...ty-in-cochrane
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