{"id":105746,"date":"2025-12-10T15:16:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/chattanooga-saw-billions-in-economic-benefits-after-building-a-community-owned-fiber-broadband-network\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T15:17:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:17:27","slug":"chattanooga-saw-billions-in-economic-benefits-after-building-a-community-owned-fiber-broadband-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/chattanooga-saw-billions-in-economic-benefits-after-building-a-community-owned-fiber-broadband-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Chattanooga Saw Billions In Economic Benefits After Building A Community-Owned Fiber Broadband Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

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from the radical-socialism<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

Again in 2008, Chattanooga, Tennessee determined to construct its personal city-owned fiber broadband community on the again of its current electrical utility, EPB. Within the years since, the community has develop into some of the common within the nation, providing inexpensive, 25 gigabits per second fiber access to local residents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It nearly struggled to be, because of the standard bullshit conduct by regional telecom monopolies like Comcast. Comcast tried repeatedly to sue the network out of existence<\/a>. As we\u2019ve seen elsewhere, additionally they used co-funded \u201cfree market assume tanks,\u201d pretend shopper teams, and for-hire pundits to seed lies within the native populace about how neighborhood broadband was a harmful, inevitable boondoggle. <\/p>\n

Spoiler: it didn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n

Years later and Chattanooga isn\u2019t simply offering cheap, affordable fiber<\/a>, it continues to funnel vital monetary advantages again into the neighborhood. A new study by researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga<\/a> has generated $5.3 billion in web neighborhood advantages for Hamilton County since 2011. <\/p>\n

Advantages vary from financial savings on upgraded sensible metropolis meters, native shopper financial savings on broadband entry, free advertising and marketing because of the community\u2019s recognition, improved well being care outcomes, expanded enterprise and distant work alternatives, improved tourism to revitalized elements of town, and direct income from the community itself:<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor the reason that mission was absolutely accomplished in 2011, it has returned greater than six occasions the unique value of the funding,\u201d\u00a0said Bento Lobo<\/a>, Ph.D., lead creator and director of the Division of Finance and Economics on the UTC Rollins Faculty of Enterprise \u2013 describing Chattanooga\u2019s fiber community as \u201cone among our neighborhood\u2019s most significant and impactful investments.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Telecom monopolies (and the assorted lecturers, consultants, lobbyists, and assume tankers) spent many years insisting these types of networks can be a socialist nightmare and inevitable boondoggle. They did this, as a result of they know that this kind of method \u2014 treating broadband entry as a community-owned utility and public good \u2014 is extraordinarily efficient and intensely common. <\/p>\n

And whereas telecoms have tried desperately to seed partisan division within the discussions surrounding municipal broadband viability, in actuality they see broad, bipartisan assist throughout the citizens. As a rule, they wind up getting in-built Conservative cities and counties, thanks partially to frustration with Republican insurance policies on telecom (which nearly at all times contain coddling the regional monopoly).<\/p>\n

Republicans and their telecom allies (together with pretend \u201ctaxpayer safety teams\u201d) will breathlessly insist that is all a harmful waste of taxpayer sources. However when you listen, you\u2019ll discover they by no means<\/strong> have a single<\/strong> dangerous phrase to say concerning the billions taxpayers throw at regional giants like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon in trade for broadband networks which are at all times, curiously, left half-completed. <\/p>\n

Open entry fiber networks come in a variety of flavors<\/a>, together with immediately municipally owned, an extension of the present metropolis utility, a cooperative, or a public-private partnerships. These artistic, domestically managed options actually do work and are very fashionable; however routinely get derailed as a result of the U.S., when you hadn\u2019t observed, is commonly too corrupt to perform within the public curiosity. <\/p>\n

Sixteen states nonetheless have legal guidelines, ghost written by telecom monopoly legal professionals, both banning neighborhood owned networks or limiting how they will fund or the place they will broaden. And on the warmth of COVID lockdowns, when these networks had been showcasing their vital advantages to native communities, Home Republicans responded by trying to ban them country wide<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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\tFiled Underneath: chattanooga<\/a>, fiber<\/a>, gigabit<\/a>, internet<\/a>, muni broadband<\/a>, municipal<\/a>, telecom<\/a>, tennessee<\/a>
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