lafayette

Content tagged with "lafayette"

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New Yorkers Envious of Lafayette and Chattanooga? Yes.

In a recent New York Daily New article, Scott Stringer wrote about the Big Apple's tech employment trends. He noted that more tech related positions now come to the city but those jobs still tend to elude women and people of color. He suggests looking at New York's own workforce and offering better science and technology training. How do they do that? Improve curriculum, of course, but:

Ultimately, the new workforce is only as strong as the infrastructure that supports it. Today, fast, reliable Internet access isn’t a luxury — it is a core utility of the modern age.

Stringer notes the antiquated copper throughout the city and looks south for a model:

Lafayette, La., constructed a municipal fiber network in 2005, linking fiber to every home and business. In Chattanooga, Tenn., the city worked with the public electric company to build a fiber network that not only helped modernize the energy grid, but also linked 150,000 homes and businesses to a gigabit connection that is 20 times faster than connections in much of New York City.

London-based Foreign Direct Investment recently recognized Lafayette as one of the top 10 Small American Cities of the Future, in part due to its fiber infrastructure. Chattanooga has received multiple recognitions for it innovative municipal network.

Publicly Owned LUS Fiber Network Attracts Another Business to Lafayette

We recently learned that Tapes Again, a company that specializes in media reproduction and packaging, is moving to Lafayette, Louisiana, from Boulder, Colorado. The company is leaving its 20 year home to take advantage of LUSFiber's incredible network. According to a Business Brief from TheAdvertiser.com:

Tapes Again, a company started in Boulder, Colo., more than 20 years ago is moving to Lafayette next month. The decision to move is attributed to the bandwidth capacity available in Lafayette through LUS Fiber, according to a news release.

The company's clients include musicians and others that have a need for media reproduction and packaging. Much of the company's interactions are through the internet, so the time that it takes to upload and download large files has a direct impact on daily production schedules.

While the presence of a high-speed network is often citied as one contributing factor enitcing businesses to move, less often do we see connectivity as the sole reason. Tapes Again is also changing its name to Lafayette Media Services.

Special thanks to the Lafayette Pro Fiber Blog for sharing this story.

Lafayette Republicans and Democrats Joined Forces for Fiber

Earlier this year, we published a case study that examined the LUS Fiber network and its origins. In it, we noted that both Republicans and Democrats backed the plan but here we focus on their resolutions in support. Back in early 2005, Lafayette was preparing for a referendum on whether the city owned utility should issue bonds to build a FTTH network. Though Cox cable and BellSouth (now AT&T) were running a fierce campaign to scare voters, both Republican and Democrat parties in the community came together to support the community owned network -- both found ways of incorporating this important investment into their political philosophies. In February, the Democrats were the first to pass a resolution supporting the city's fiber optic plan [pdf]. Recall that Joey Durel (the mayor then and now) is an ardent Republican.
We, the members of the Lafayette Democratic Parish Executive Committee, believe the project will enhance businesses, enrich our lives, and prepare our children for the future. With proper planning, future generations will see profits generated by this project stay in this community and improve businesses and lives for generations to come. Improving local communities has been the traditional purpose of the Democratic Party. With that in mind, we commend City-Parish President Joey Durel for his bold initiative to make this plan a success.
A few weeks later, the Lafayette Republican Party endorsed the network [pdf] as well: Lafayette Republican Party seal
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On the Media Devotes Segment to Municipal Broadband Networks

You may recall that we reported on Johnston's last book, The Fine Print: How big companies use plain english to rob you blind. In this short interview from On the Media called "America's Lagging Internet," Johnston and Gladstone touch on how gigantic corporate interests and their political affiliates try to put a stop to municipal networks.

The two also discuss successes in municipal networks, proposed policy changes, and how we need to recognize that access to broadband is a key to our future economic health. Johnston stresses once again how our refusal to accept the value of broadband infrastructure contributes to our slow networks, our low adoption rates, and the lack of competition.

Worth listening to!

Community Broadband Bits 19 - John St. Julien from Lafayette

Today we invited John St. Julien, of Lafayette Pro Fiber fame, on episode 19 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. John was an essential piece of the organizing effort in Lafayette's efforts to build its own community fiber network. In many ways, he has worked to ensure the "community" piece is emphasized over the "fiber" piece. John and I discuss the organizing effort in Lafayette that led to their successful referendum in 2005, including some lessons for others who want to organize their own communities. We also talk about some of the lengths that big cable and telephone companies will go to stop communities. In the course of our discussion, we talk about a push poll that backfired on those trying to scare voters -- we made the full audio available here. John will be back on a future show to offer more thoughts on how local activists can work within the community to encourage a local, publicly owned solution. For background on the LUS Fiber network in Lafayette, we strongly recommend our Broadband at the Speed of Light report, which features a case study of the network. Also, four episodes ago, we interviewed Geoff Daily about his work to develop apps on the LUS Fiber network. Read the transcript from this interview here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 25 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment! Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Audio of Dirty Trick Push Poll in Lafayette from 2005

We sometimes fail to communicate the great lengths to which big cable and telecommunications companies will go to intimidate and scare voters into opposing a community broadband projects. They have deployed a variety of dirty tricks and we have done a poor job of cataloging them. But a recent phone call with John St. Julien in Lafayette, Louisiana, reminded me of a push poll that an alert citizen recorded back when Cox, Bellsouth (now AT&T), and/or other opponents of the municipal broadband project commissioned a "push poll" to scare voters into opposing a referendum on whether the City should build its own network. We tell the full story about this campaign in our Broadband at the Speed of Light report. But in anticipation of our interview with John St Julien tomorrow, we thought we should make sure our readers/listeners had a chance to hear this 30 minute call. In it, a pollster is asking a series of questions commissioned by opponents to the community broadband network and responding to it. The audio is sometimes hard to make out, but well worth it as the person recording it has some pretty funny responses to some of the questions being posed. This is just one of the reasons that referenda are a poor tool for measuring community support of a project. While the big companies can dump unlimited funds into their self-interested "vote no" campaigns, the city itself cannot encourage voters to go one way or another. And local groups supporting a community broadband network have far fewer resources. For instance, when Longmont, Colorado, had its first referendum, Comcast blitzed the community with something like $250,000 in ads and misinformation (setting a local record for expenditures) -- resulting in a pretty significant majority for the "nay" voters. After citizens realized they'd been had, they clamored for another vote. Two years later, Comcast dropped $400,000 on Longmont but the grassroots successfully out-organized the cash-dump. If you want to know more about how your community can win a fight like this, read more about Lafayette and listen to our conversation with John St. Julien tomorrow (the first of several). Here is the push poll and response.

Community Broadband Bits 15 - Geoff Daily - FiberCorps

Geoff Daily is an old friend of ours at Community Broadband Networks and he joins us for our 15th installment of the Community Broadband Bits audio show. He created a nonprofit organization, FiberCorps in Lafayette, Louisiana, to maximize usage of the LUS Fiber network owned by the community. Geoff and I discuss the importance of early planning and building social relationships to help local businesses and community anchor institutions take full advantage of new community fiber networks. We discuss his efforts to get local leaders around the same table to find ways of taking full advantage of their new high-capacity network. Lafayette is one of many communities to realize that a "build it and they will come" attitude is not sufficient to maximize the benefits of public investments in this infrastructure. Communities need to help drive usage or risk losing important benefits that can arise from a new, next-generation network. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment! Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 file directly from here. Read the transcript of this episode here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

New Book Investigates How Big Companies Like AT&T Rip Us Off

A  recent book by David Cay Johnston, The Fine Print, examines specifically how big companies have found ways to take advantage of the tax and regulatory systems to their benefit and to the detriment of consumers. The sad part - we don't even realize it.

Johnston discusses how big companies and their leaders exploit tax rules to re-distribute wealth upwards. Johnston also examines how this exploitation is almost never covered in the media, encouraging big companies to stoop to new lows in ripping off consumers. Telecommunications is one of the industries he covers in the new book.

In the first chapter (read the first chapter via Democracy Now!), Johnston describes how friend and journalist, Bruce Kushnick, came across twenty years' worth of telephone bills in his elderly aunt's possessions. Kushnick tracked the changes in her bills, systematically reviewing and comparing every charge. Kushnick found an array of confusing and cryptic "fees," "charges," and "taxes." The end result:

When he cross-checked his aunt’s telephone bills over the years, he could hardly believe the numbers. His aunt paid $9.51 for her local phone service in 1984. By 2003 her bill had swollen fourfold to $38.90. In the two decades since the breakup of the AT&T monopoly, even after adjusting for inflation, his aunt’s telephone cost $2.30 for each dollar paid in 1984. And that was without any charges for long-distance calls.

Johnston notes the method used by telecoms to increase prices over time:

Lafayette's Community Fiber Video Discusses Local Benefits From Network

The LUS Fiber network owned by the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, was profiled in this nine minute video from the FTTH Council Conference. LUS Fiber has been an inspiring network - overcoming tremendous opposition from Cox cable and AT&T (formerly BellSouth). It has long offered what I consider to be the best deal in broadband in the nation - $28/month for 10Mbps symmetrical. And it has been incredibly innovative -- offering 100Mbps to all in-network transfers. So if my buddy and I are on opposite sides of town and only pay for the most basic connection, we can transfer files between each other as though we were on the same local network in our houses. This idea is being copied by other communities as well. Finally, this LUS Fiber network was one of the three we profiled in our Broadband at the Speed of Light report on gigabit municipal networks. Enjoy!

Open Technology Initiative Report Shows U.S. Lagging in Broadband

The Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation just released a report titled "The Cost of Connectivity." The report, authored by Hibah Hussain, Danielle Kehl, Benjamin Lennett, Chiehyu Li, and Patrick Lucey examines 22 cities across the planet for speed, triple play offerings, and what consumers can get for $35. The results, unfortunately, are not surprising. From the Report Summary:

The results indicate that U.S. consumers in major cities tend to pay higher prices for slower speeds compared to consumers abroad. For example, when comparing triple play packages in the 22 cities surveyed, consumers in Paris can purchase a 100 Mbps bundle of television, telephone, and high-speed Internet service for the equivalent of approximately $35 (adjusted for PPP). By contrast, in Lafayette, LA, the top American city, the cheapest available [triple play] package costs around $65 and includes just a 6 Mbps Internet connection. A comparison of Internet plans available for around $35 shows similar results.  Residents of Hong Kong have access to Internet service with symmetrical download and upload speeds of 500 Mbps while residents of New York City and Washington, D.C. will pay the equivalent price for Internet service with maximum download speeds that are 20 times slower (up to 25 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 2 Mbps).

The results add weight to a growing body of evidence that suggests that the U.S. is lagging behind many of its international counterparts, most of whom have much higher levels of competition and, in turn, offer lower prices and faster Internet service. It suggests that policymakers need to re-evaluate our current policy approaches to increase competition and encourage more affordable high-speed Internet service in the U.S.

Forbes' Bruce Upbin reviewed the report and the implications and, once again, pointed out what we all know: