Chattanooga, Tennessee is one of a growing number of U.S. cities to build its own broadband network. The ISP, tacked on to the city’s existing EPB electricity utility, has routinely delivered speeds faster and more affordable than the services provided by regional utilities like Comcast.
While community-run broadband is portrayed as boondoggle socialism by telecom monopolies and the folks paid to defend them, the ISP has generally been a success story. It routinely provides speeds upwards of 10 Gbps to locals, has repeatedly shown the highest consumer satisfaction ratings in the country for broadband, and drove significant economic value to the city.
PC Magazine also recently ranked Chattanooga as one of the best work at home cities in 2021 thanks to its city-owned broadband network.
The city’s now pursuing another first: the first ISP in the country to deliver residential broadband speeds as high as 25 Gbps. It’s not cheap ($1,500 per month for residential, $12,500 a month for commercial users), and it’s a speed few people truly need, but it again demonstrates how it’s community broadband ISPs pushing competitive barriers in the U.S. telecom space:
“We are once again breaking the typical approach for internet service providers by proactively upgrading to the latest technologies in anticipation of future needs. Our goal is to enable new frontiers for technical innovation and job creation for our customers to the benefit of our whole community.”
Studies have routinely shown that community broadband services provide faster, less expensive broadband at more transparent rates than most private offerings. They’re not a mystical panacea, but they can often force stodgy old regional monopolies to improve service. And, contrary to the industry narrative that they’re an inherent boondoggle, there are plenty of very successful efforts.
If you recall, Comcast unsuccessfully tried to sue Chattanooga’s effort out of existence, and lobbied state lawmakers to pass a nonsensical state law banning the operation from expanding. Comcast ultimately buckled and was forced to provide faster broadband at more affordable rates, but not until after it had used a myriad of dirty tricks and lawsuits to try and kill off the effort.
