The resort community of Whister finds itself with two network build-outs: Do you know the joke from before when the Chunnel was built? The English and French governments solicit bids. The lowest bidder says he can build it for $45. The governments call in the bidder, and ask him how he plans to do it for that price. "Vell," he says, "I have a shovel, and my brother, he has a shovel, and we'll start digging from opposite ends and meet in the middle." "But what if you don't meet precisely?" "Then you get TWO tunnels for the price of one."
Unfortunately, this joke isn't in wide circulation in Whistler, British Columbia, a ski resort town that I personally adore a few hours north of Seattle in Canada. The town itself is a lovely example of site-appropriate development, and, I've thought on previous trips, a natural for Wi-Fi deployment. The combination of condos, often rented out, and visitors, was high, and I was told there's fiber optic running into the town already.
It turns out that not only are a few companies thinking about it, but both the local cable franchise and the city government have both invested in developing Wi-Fi. The cable company raises a familiar and often hard to refute concern: why should the city take money out of private cofferes? The city, by contrast, says they had no idea the cable company was even working on this. Ah ha, says the cable company, then why not issue a public proposal and seek bids? And so on.
We'll see more of this. Many municipalities have already faced these problems in running out fiber or other backbone services, such as Tacoma and Palo Alto. Their claim: a municipal infrastructure makes the availability of service much higher and ubiquitous than a private company would possibly due based on market forces, thus making the area an improved place to do business. [via TechDirt]