{"id":1233,"date":"2019-08-06T11:18:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T15:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2019-08-06T11:18:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T15:18:57","slug":"internet-for-20-a-month-can-lakeland-offer-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/08\/06\/internet-for-20-a-month-can-lakeland-offer-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet for $20 a month? Can Lakeland offer that?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Lakeland commissioners were told the city could offer internet services starting as low as $19.99 a month, $99.99 for gigabyte speed if 38 percent of residents agreed to sign on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Justin Troller believes Lakeland residents will\nbe excited, if they aren’t already, after seeing suggested monthly prices to\nreceive city-operated internet services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioners learned that the city may be able to provide\nbasic internet services starting at $19.99 a month, up to $99.99 for gigabyte\nspeed, according to a business plan prepared by Magellan Advisors, the city’s\nbroadband consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The goal is to be competitive as possible while being\nsustainable, servicing as many potential customers and businesses as you can\nwith this pricing,” John Honker, CEO and president of Magellan, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city commission received a detailed 94-page business\nplan from Magellan on Monday that outlines multiple paths to how Lakeland could\nconstruct a new municipal-owned broadband utility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by Troller, the commissioners expressed the most interest in two plans presented for Lakeland. It would require a roughly $89.5 million investment to provide internet to those neighborhoods not serviced by FIOS versus approximately $96.8 million to construct a full citywide network. These estimates include the costs of construction and operation, according to Honker, with 15% to 20% in contingency built-in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you compare no FIOS versus with FIOS, I think we go\nwith the FIOS plan, as they’re who we are looking for alternatives to their\ncurrent services,” Troller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the competitive risk with FIOS, the city’s\nconstruction of a larger network could mean a bigger payout after the initial 4\nto 7 years. Magellan’s estimates project the citywide build-out would produce\nnearly $4 million more in annual revenue for Lakeland \u2014 jumping from $6.7 to\n$10.5 million \u2014 if at least 38 percent of residents sign up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyle Hollifield, Magellan’s senior vice president of Sales & Marketing, strongly encouraged Lakeland commissioners to offer a triple-play package \u2014 internet, telephone, and cable \u2014 if it plans to move forward with building municipal broadband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You don’t want to go in with one arm tied behind your\nback,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly 62% of Lakeland residents surveyed by Magellan\ncurrently still pay for a triple-play bundle, according to Hollifield. He said\nthe capital cost of providing streaming video has rapidly dropped in recent\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you don’t have all those three, you don’t get into\nthe business,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business plan provided to the city recommended triple-play\npackages be priced starting at $119.99 a month up to $199.99 a month for a\npremium package that would include gigabyte-speed internet service. Troller\nsaid based on his own personal household’s monthly bill of roughly $183, he\nwould be saving money if the city chose to offer a comparable plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m sure the competitors are watching and will begin\nlowering their prices,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland commissioners unanimously agreed to instruct city\nstaff to work with Magellan in providing financial details on how the city\nwould move forward in funding the build-out of a full fiber network covering\nall within city limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have zero competitors in fiber in Lakeland. No one is investing in fiber, no private companies are investing in fiber for Lakeland,” Commissioner Stephanie Madden said. “If you believe as a municipality that fiber is infrastructure versus a means of making a profit, it benefits you to have a full grid of fiber within your city.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Phillip Walker stressed he wants to see affordable\ninternet service offered to those neighborhoods that are either underserved or\nnot connected by current private providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an estimated cost of still more than $220 million to build out a fiber network that would serve all Lakeland Electric’s customers, commissioners agreed to put off building outside city limits until a possible later date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Building out to the entire services area is a\nlong-term vision of success for future commissions to expand just like our\nelectric utility expanded over time with the city’s growth and\ndevelopment,” Troller said. “The infrastructure is there but it’s\nabout putting up the next pole or wire.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lakeland commissioners were told the city could offer internet services starting as low as $19.99 a month, $99.99 for gigabyte speed if 38 percent of residents agreed to sign on.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}