When Tacoma Power decided to build the network itself, it submitted its plans to a consulting group at the Stanford Research Institute, which pointed out that a small increase in investment could provide enough extra capacity to let them lease out service. And fast, at 128 kilobits with an increase soon to 256 kilobits. The rest is icing on the cake. Klein does not want to expand his electrical company to be in the market for all possible services a network can carry. So more competition is coming soon, as network capacity will leased to any and all interested ISPs.
Cities are well aware of their social impact when they build data networks.
Over and over I heard people say that their students, their businesses, and their workers need high-speed Internet access. Glasgow, Kentucky is home to a passionate advocate of public infrastructure, William J. Ray. Still bearing the old American pride in the Tennessee Valley Authority, Ray says that municipal utilities are a key part of what government is meant to do. The Glasgow data network was in the red for nine years, but last year for the first time it started to show a profit. The proponents of municipal networks I interviewed were united in their disappointment over the 1996 Telecom Act.