Seeing Past Light Poles: Plotting a Smart City Strategy for Energy and Connectivity

San Leandro, Calif., is drafting a fiber-optic master plan — an effort sparked by an upgrade to LED streetlights.

"What should we be doing with our poles that will help our community move into the era of environmental health, of self-driving cars, of better living in cities?" Acosta asked. "We’re on that journey right now to figure out what we can do with that."

by Noelle Knell

Full Story: http://www.govtech.com/fs/Seeing-Past-Light-Poles-Plotting-a-Smart-City-Strategy.html

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Thought you might be interested in this from U. Penn Law School. The Exec Summary alone outlines the risks involved with muni broadband nets, even Chattanooga–which would take 412 years to pay off.

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-fiber-in-the-united-states

An examination of the NPV covering the five-year period from 2010 to 2014 reveals that of the 20 municipal projects that report the financial results of their broadband operations separately, 11 generated negative cash flow. Unless these projects substantially improve their performance, they will not be able to cover the costs of current operations, let alone generate sufficient cash to retire the debt incurred to build the project.

For the nine projects that are cash-flow positive, seven would need more than sixty years to break even. Only two generated sufficient cash to be on track to pay off the debt incurred within the estimated useful life of a broadband network, which is typically projected to be 30 to 40 years. One of the two success stories is an industrial city with few residents that is unlikely to serve as a model for other cities to emulate. Regression models based on the data and the case studies of individual projects underscore the difficulty that municipal fiber projects face in becoming financially viable.

As reported in Multichannel News:

http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/muni-broadband-study-half-are-red/413063

Geoff Feiss

Montana Telecommunications Association

http://www.telecomassn.org

406.442.4316 (office)

406.594.0424 (mobile)

[email protected]