- The city of Vineland, New Jersey, has started the process by commissioning a feasibility study conducted by open access fiber company Bonfire.
- City says current broadband offerings in Vineland are inadequate
- Now, a dark money group is complaining about the city’s process.
The mayor of the city of Vineland, New Jersey, says his city’s residents do not have broadband services currently available. And he’s moving forward with a plan to create a municipal broadband network. This has already led to pressure against the prospect from a dark money group called the Alliance Foundation for the Protection of Taxpayers.
Comcast currently serves 98.9% of Vineland with its hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network, and Verizon and Earthlink serve fiber broadband to approximately 50% of Vineland locations, according to Broadband Now.
In a February letter, Vineland Mayor Anthony Fahucci wrote that many residents cannot afford the cost of broadband services and those who subscribe must “face inadequate speeds, service and reliability.”
According to the city’s initial proposal, Vineland is suffering from a major economic crisis with some areas having unemployment rates as high as 9% and poverty rates as high as 19.2%.
The city says current providers have no plans to expand or improve their services in Vineland. So the city plans to address the problem itself by funding a $35 million to $40 million project to build a city-owned fiber broadband network. It plans to build a fiber ring around the city and make high-speed, competitively priced broadband available to all residents and businesses.
The city has begun the process by commissioning a feasibility study, conducted by open access fiber company Bonfire, which concluded that “at least 42% of the city does not have access to a viable, quality service.”
A lobby group denounces misconduct
Now, the nonprofit group Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation (TPAF) claims the city is not being transparent about its process.
In a May press release, TPAF complains that it sent an open records request to Vineland, requesting a copy of the feasibility study prepared by Bonfire, along with the raw data underlying the study and any additional documents related to the financing of taxpayers for the potential project. But the city denied the open records request.
In its open records denial, Vineland said the 54-page feasibility report could give competitors or bidders an advantage if disclosed.
It is unclear who TPAF represents in this matter because it does not disclose its donors. But the group praised Comcast in its press release, saying, “Comcast covers nearly 99% of Vineland with speeds up to 2 Gbps.”
A detailed Ars Technica article last week noted that private ISPs, such as Comcast, Charter, and others, often use dark money groups to attack municipal broadband.
Bonfire
According to TPAF, Bonfire received $221,400 for the feasibility study it provided to Vineland.
TPAF stated that it has written extensively about government-owned networks (GONs) over the years and that consultants such as Bonfire often offer turnkey services. “What typically happens is that cities request feasibility studies, consultants tell them they should build a GON, and then the city hires the consultant to build said GON,” TPAF said.
Brian Hollister, executive director of Bonfire, told Fierce: “It’s up to the municipality to say how much control they want to have. Do they want to operate the network? Do you want to market it? There could be an open access network that the municipality owns but sells wholesale to private companies. We really like that model because it guarantees that everyone receives the service.”
According to him, the cost of capital for municipalities is usually much lower than for private builders. Cities can often create public-private partnerships in which the private company takes on some of the responsibility.
Hollister said that in the long term, a private entity cannot reduce the costs of its broadband services because it needs to continually increase its profits. But a publicly owned network, once it has come to fruition, can dramatically reduce costs.
Seventeen US states have laws against municipal broadband networks, according to Broadband Now. But New Jersey is not one of those states.
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