{"id":941,"date":"2019-07-20T03:08:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=941"},"modified":"2019-07-20T03:08:21","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T03:08:21","slug":"the-city-of-lakeland-considering-entering-internet-services-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/07\/20\/the-city-of-lakeland-considering-entering-internet-services-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The city of Lakeland considering entering internet services business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

City commissioners in Lakeland are considering connecting\nthe city\u2019s hundreds of miles of fiber optic cables to homes and businesses,\nresulting in the city government becoming an internet provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur infrastructure is here. We\u2019ve paid for it as taxpayers\nand I believe that every resident and business should be able to take advantage\nof that infrastructure that they paid for. We shouldn\u2019t pick winners and\nlosers,\u201d said Justin Troller, a city commissioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more than 330 miles of publicly-owned fiber in the city\nis used by the city and also leased to Lakeland Regional Health and the Polk\nCounty school board, according to Kevin Cook, Lakeland Director of\nCommunications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe already have the backbone. However, the real cost is\nwhat\u2019s called the last mile and that\u2019s getting that fiber from that backbone,\nthat infrastructure, to the homes and that\u2019s where the real money is,\u201d said\nCook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan would cost less than previously thought, at least\n$80 million, according to new cost analysis from Magellan Advisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions are in their early phases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioners were shown three options Friday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, referred to as \u201cmost risky\u201d, would include\noverlap with FiOS service areas and cover 112,000 customers total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second option excludes areas where FiOS already exists.\nIt includes 71,402 customers in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would minimize competition with Frontier, which\nprovides FiOS in Lakeland, Magellan Advisors concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third option also excludes areas where FiOS already\nexists and takes into account if the city has restrictions on providing\nservices outside the city limits. Forty thousand customers would be impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Troller said the funding could come from\n\u201cbonding\u201d or users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHomeowners and businesses would invest in the \u2018drop\u2019 to get\nthe internet to their premise and then we could finance that on their tax bill\nfor 10 -15 years so an extra $60 \u2013 $70 a year and they\u2019re paying for the drop\nwhich reduces the financial risk to the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Scott Franklin said he was happy the city went\nforward with the study and went in with an open mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCost is certainly a factor. To me, it\u2019s a matter of cost\nversus risk. It\u2019d be a new venture for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city of Chattanooga, TN has been providing internet to\nits residents for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commissioners will get a full report on recommendations\non August 5th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, Troller says, the city would gather community input\nfor about six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope we can make the decision ourselves as the seven of\nus elected officials but if we have to go to a vote and have a special election\nfor the constituency to put the final step of approval then I absolutely\nsupport that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City commissioners in Lakeland are considering connecting the city\u2019s hundreds of miles of fiber optic cables to homes and businesses, resulting in the city government becoming an internet provider. \u201cOur… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":942,"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":"0","_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":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","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=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}