2015 Could be the Year that Municipal Fiber Overtakes Comcast

With pressure on Comcast growing by irate customers and consumer protection advocates, it would seem that the company is facing severe stress. However, it's corporate policies result in its bottom line growing while ordinary customers get the bottom end of service. Comcast's proposed purchase of Time Warner appears to show the structural weakness opened by grassroots efforts of municipal fiber.

Observe the backlash growing in Minnesota against the potential monopoly of Comcast, as residents fight back.

If the project flies, the $15 million startup loan would be used to draw additional funding of up to $40 million from banks and government agencies to complete the project. Because the cooperative wouldn’t need all the money at once, it would save on interest. It also wouldn’t have to set aside millions for a debt service reserve fund, necessary under the original bonding scenario.

Meanwhile, a group of Connecticut towns is fighting back against the potential coming of Comcast into the Northeast with their own response.

Those 46 towns, out of Connecticut’s 169, represent over a quarter of the municipalities in the state....All have in common that the current options in the state — which is Comcast country — are simply not meeting their needs.

AT&T's own fear is palpable as residents are creating a far higher quality alternative for potential customers, a stunning precedent:

Chanute would charge citizens just $40 per month for its 1Gbps service, which is a mere $5 more than the six-month teaser rate for AT&T’s 6Mbps service.

Similar to a network ten times quicker than Google Fiber:

While Comcast has been offering 50 megabit per second connections to consumers for $77 a month, US Internet has been offering 1 gigabit per second connections for $65 a month.