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October 25, 2005

Exposing Municipal Broadband Franchises: Anaheim on Top

By Glenn Fleishman

Anaheim, Calif., will consider franchising EarthLink to operate a municipal network: This is the clearest proposal I’ve heard to date regarding the franchising and exclusivity aspect of municipal broadband networks. Many requests for proposals (RFPs) hint at or ignore the fact that a winning bidder may ask for or be granted exclusive use of facilities like poles, towers, building tops, and other city resources.

This article from Government Technology notes that Anaheim’s City Council will consider a 20-year agreement with EarthLink that will award the company an exclusive franchise. Anaheim has some fiber, and EarthLink would gain access to that. EarthLink would install a wireless system and pay a franchise rate to Anaheim, much like cable operators do now.

The article states, incorrectly: Unlike other municipal models that have been proposed recently, the Anaheim-EarthLink agreement, if approved, would be the first public-private wireless broadband franchise that grants a private entity the ability to create, implement and maintain a citywide Wi-Fi network.

This is incorrect: it’s unclear whether other proposals allow, require, or forbear this.

Posted by Glennf at October 25, 2005 2:16 PM

Categories: Municipal

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