{"id":23613,"date":"2016-03-10T20:16:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T01:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=23613"},"modified":"2016-03-10T22:04:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T03:04:57","slug":"mississippi-should-not-gamble-with-taxpayer-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/23613\/mississippi-should-not-gamble-with-taxpayer-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Should Not Gamble With Taxpayer Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five things Mississippi taxpayers should know and worry about the Gulf Coast \u201cFiber Optic Ring\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0A new plan proposes to use a portion of Mississippi\u2019s British Petroleum (BP) oil spill settlement to build a government-owned broadband network in South Mississippi. The network or \u201cFiber Ring\u201d would, in theory, connect a dozen Gulf Coast cities across three counties. Local officials estimate that it could cost over $100 million.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 So far, the state has promised $5 million of the BP funds towards the Fiber Ring, though it is not a fiscally sound proposal.\u00a0 In fact, there\u2019s no indication of where the additional $95 million needed to finance this project will come from, but taxpayers will likely foot the bill.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 Government-owned networks rarely succeed, and residents already have access to high-speed Internet provided by private companies. Competing with the private sector will only force taxpayers to subsidize a costly failure.\u00a0 Private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) already bring high-speed broadband to 97 percent of Harrison County residents, according to BroadbandNow.com.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0 When the government enters a broadband market, prices for consumers do not decrease.\u00a0 In fact, government-owned broadband networks have been found to charge consumers more than private firms, for similar services.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0 Other regions have tried (and failed) at building and running government-owned broadband networks.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a look at some of the results:<\/p>\n

Burlington Telecom, VT<\/span><\/strong>
\nBurlington Telecom was started in 2008 to provide telecommunications services to the citizens of Burlington, VT.\u00a0 The network floundered, and by 2014, it owed $33.5 million to Citibank.\u00a0 The city reached a final settlement in which it agreed to pay about a third of what was owed, and turned to the private sector for help financing the settlement.<\/p>\n

Memphis Networx, TN<\/span><\/strong>
\nMemphis Networx was started as a public-private partnership by Memphis Light, Gas, and Water Division (MLGW) in 1999.\u00a0 By 2007, the network had failed and MLGW sold Networx to Colorado holding company Communications Infrastructure Investments for $11.5 million after losing about $28 million in public funds on the venture.<\/p>\n

UTOPIA, UT<\/span><\/strong>
\nUTOPIA was started in 2002 to provide Internet services to 11 cities in Utah.\u00a0 The network\u2019s initial capital investment was $135 million, and by 2014 the debt had climbed to $500 million.\u00a0 The cities involved have been looking for a private buyer to take over their network for several years.<\/p>\n

CDE Lightband, TN<\/span><\/strong>
\nCDE Lightband was started in 2007 with a $16 million loan from the Clarksville Electric Power Board\u2019s electric division to its broadband division.\u00a0 In 2009, the utility was approved to take an additional $4.5 million in loans to finance the network, leaving taxpayers and utility ratepayers on the hook for the debt.<\/p>\n

Help CFIF spread the word.\u00a0 Email this link<\/a> to your colleagues, friends and family members in Mississippi and\/or share it on social media.\u00a0 To download a copy of CFIF’s educational fact sheet about the Gulf Coast \u201cFiber Optic Ring,\u201d click here (.pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five things Mississippi taxpayers should know and worry about the Gulf Coast \u201cFiber Optic Ring\u201d 1)\u00a0\u00a0A new plan proposes to use a portion of Mississippi\u2019s British Petroleum (BP) oil spill settlement to build a government-owned broadband network in South Mississippi. The network or \u201cFiber Ring\u201d would, in theory, connect a dozen Gulf Coast cities across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1388,4834,4835,4370,1404,3244],"class_list":["post-23613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-broadband","tag-government-owned-networks","tag-mississippi","tag-municipal-broadband","tag-technology","tag-telecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23613"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23623,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23613\/revisions\/23623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}