Comments on: Make that TWO laptops per child? http://joeduck.com/2007/05/21/make-that-two-laptops-per-child/ Have Blog. Will Travel. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:54:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: JoeDuck http://joeduck.com/2007/05/21/make-that-two-laptops-per-child/#comment-32117 Tue, 22 May 2007 15:53:23 +0000 http://joeduck.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/make-that-two-laptops-per-child/#comment-32117 Yes, Ashland had a pretty concentrated base of about 28,000 I think. I think a key reasons the municipals can do this effectively is because they already have the power poles. However after watching the Ashland experience I think the best strategy for Concord would be to tell the cable or telcos “we want a great fiber network and if you don’t build it we will. I have a hunch that simply waiving fees/helping with infrastructure/etc would go a long way to getting the private sector involved and this would create a win-win deal. It seemed to me that Ashland’s mistake was not the idea of fiber, rather it was failing to use market forcees to their advantage.
The early promo signs for the project spelled it out clearly – a fist raised in the way the “black power” folks used to do. For many it was a battle of virtuous government project vs evil capitalist profiteering.
Caveat: I’m no expert on this and as usual I’m ranting a bit without having researched the topic extensively.

Here’s local coverage of the budget nightmares: http://www.dailytidings.com/localissues/AFN/

]]> By: Tommo http://joeduck.com/2007/05/21/make-that-two-laptops-per-child/#comment-32005 Tue, 22 May 2007 02:03:49 +0000 http://joeduck.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/make-that-two-laptops-per-child/#comment-32005 I don’t know; Concord Municipal Light has “threatened” to enter the ISP biz with fiber to the home, but this does not seem to have given the slightest motivation to Verizon or whoever’s running cable this month. But Ashland has a decently concentrated population, do they not? I think the economics of running fiber to every district in Concord are probably what keeps the project in a perpetual holding pattern.

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