A hole in the dike

The victory in Lafayette, Louisiana may be the first hole in the dike for the telcos v. do-it-yourself cities and towns around the country.

I know that in our town of Concord, MA the city (which runs the electric company in town quite successfully) has been laying fiber for years, primarily to control the power grid, but have also been laying the groundwork for a town-wide rollout. Verizon only covers about 1/3 of the town space with DSL, but Comcast has high-speed cable access, so the town is mostly a monopoly from the point of view of broadband.

Needless to say the telcos and cable companies won’t go quietly - stay tuned to this, its and important fight…