istayquiet t1_j64c3ui wrote on January 27, 2023 at 4:55 PM

This is a really complicated issue. The City conduit division is understaffed and still struggling with data lost during the 2019 ransomware attack. I recently waited nearly 5 months for a permit to make its way through this office and the final result wound up costing 4x as much as anticipated due to rerouting. My organization builds fiber to serve internet deserts in Baltimore, and provides low-income households with free home broadband. For a non-profit, these delays and revisions have been incredibly burdensome, and represent really significant barriers to entry for other ISPs interested in expanding service to the 40% of Baltimore households who don’t have home internet service.

For context, conduit fees are presently $2.20/foot/year. When you apply for conduit access where there is none, you are then tasked with building conduit on your own dime. After you build this conduit, the city takes possession of it and you pay them to rent what you just paid to build.

The article points out that this will put digital equity efforts in jeopardy. The truth is, the city conduit division (and the conduit fee structure, generally) are putting digital equity efforts in jeopardy already. This has been the case for years. Add the fact that Comcast’s franchise agreement allows them to submit all permits for conduit access in arrears, and equity becomes a really significant concern.

I hesitate to mention this “hot take”, but BGE might be better positioned to operate the conduit system than what we have right now. At minimum, if the city continues to own/operate the conduit system, significant changes need to be made.

Xanny t1_j64loel wrote on January 27, 2023 at 5:54 PM

This would make sense in a city and state totally bereft of funds to support its own infrastructure, maybe, and even then it would be horrificially shortsighted.

Baltimore and Maryland are honestly awash in cash. The city claims to have no money but that is after they earmark over a billion dollars for the schools and the cops. In truth priorities are just horribly misaligned, and selling off public infrastructure for what amounts to a drop in a bucket of corruption is just throwing away the cities future.

The conduit division is underfunded and understaffed not because there is no money left, but because politicians deprioritized it. How about we fund the conduit division and actually build a fiber network so we can get off fucking Comcast.

istayquiet t1_j64nqnp wrote on January 27, 2023 at 6:07 PM

Funding a municipal fiber network probably shouldn’t be the goal. Incentivizing market entry for more providers would likely result in the same outcome for customers with very little stress to the city.

Example: Baltimore received $35m in ARPA funding earmarked for Digital Equity initiatives. So far, they’re looking at using these funds to connect rec centers to the city’s fiber ring and to deploy public Wi-Fi zones (which, let’s be honest- how useful will public Wi-Fi actually be?). To date, there’s been nothing earmarked for home broadband service. In addition, unlike almost every other municipality in Maryland, Baltimore does not have a fiber leasing program, so building fiber assets for the city will not result in increased connectivity to residential customers.

If Baltimore used some of this federal funding to establish something like a Conduit Fee Rebate Program through which qualified ISPs could more affordably build infrastructure in the conduit system in order to serve a set number of under-connected neighborhoods/households, they would essentially be unlocking restricted funding and paying themselves while encouraging a broader number of ISPs to deliver residential service.

The complete lack of competition in the internet market in Baltimore is a huge reason available service is so shitty.

Xanny t1_j65numm wrote on January 27, 2023 at 9:56 PM

> Incentivizing market entry for more providers would likely result in the same outcome for customers with very little stress to the city.

Lol, ISPs are the most hated companies in the country. Its infrastructure capture to give a private corporation exclusivity in your conduits, cough cough Comcast. No, hell no. If the city wants to lay fiber, it should be our fiber, publicly owned, and the only private entity should be the backbone connection. The city does our water and our trash, it can do our Internet. Like, sometimes city services suck, but do you know what suck way more? Private water and trash cos literally everywhere.

The city could always get a... leasing program, rather than ya know, giving away infrastructure to private corporations again, when that always goes so well every time it happens.

The government being shit isn't made better by giving away the city to private companies to also run like shit. You really can't get out of fixing a shit government if you want anything to get better.