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Comment Re:Craziness (Score 0) 408

What's really crazy is the number of smaller towns across the midwest who get suckered into forming a municipal telecommunications utility by some Harold Hill types who promise "fiber to the home" at dirt cheap rates, "more jobs" and other snakeoil.

Many of you seem to ignore the fact that Monticello only has around 12,000 residents and yet a small fraction of voters approved the $25 million in bonds to pay for the muni telecom. That's several thousand dollars per household on the hook, you know. And not everybody is going to sign up. Some people are happy with their satellite dish, DSL, rabbit ears, or, gosh by golly, don't even have a computer!

So what happens when not enough people sign up for Fiber To The Home to cover the nut? Eh???? Did you ever think about that?

I'll tell you what will happen. Expenses will mount up, costs will be more than projected, and the city will cajole residents into signing up for service OR ELSE taxes will have to be raised. And raised they will be, whether or not you have the service.

Oh, and who is running that fiber backbone to the city? Do you know who that is? It's a FOR PROFIT company, not some non-profit ma-and-pa muni telecom. They are going to get paid because the city SIGNED A CONTRACT. First with the bond money, and then after the property taxes are raised when not enough people sign up and when expenses mount and equipment needs to be upgraded down the line. Oh, and who runs the FOR PROFIT? Why, gee, it's by the same people who lobbied the town to pony up for Fiber To The Home, said it would bring more jobs, rain gold, and other bullshit.

Seriously, the knee jerk reactions by some of you is outstanding. It is clear that most of you don't know the first thing about the gigantic scam that is "fiber to the home" and the abuse of local bonding going on in order to finance it. You think that this other company is big bad and evil? No, THEY REALLY ARE trying to save the taxpayers money! Maybe you ought to do some research on the subject before typing away. I've been watching this issue since 2004. Several years down the road there is going to be small towns all over the place that will be in big fucking financial trouble because a small number of idiots drank the Kool Aid.

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