This City in Colorado is Fighting Back Against ISPs by Building Their Own Network

The discussion had been in the works since 2010 when the city wanted to team up with Colorado State University in order to apply to the Google Fiber challenge. However, Google didn't pick the city for its program and yet Fort Collins continued to pursue other options. 

"The city hopes to offer 1 gigabit-per-second speed for uploads and downloads," the Coloradoan reported in November. Projected pricing for residential customers is $70 per month for 1gbps and $50 for 50 mbps."

However, the measure didn't pass without a fight from some of broadband's biggest names -- namely Comcast. Measure 2B would make it legal for the city to discuss broadband, but apparently, that discussion was enough for the Comcast-led "Colorado Telecommunications Association" to fund a separate company to make an advertisement against Measure 2B. In the video below, 'residents' of the Fort Collins area talk about how they'd rather have anything else other than fast, reliable, efficient, and low-cost internet. 

The advertisement, in addition to other lobbying and campaigns done by big names in the internet business, actually swayed voters considerably. Over 40 percent of the Fort Collins area voted against having the broadband plan. This was despite the city council itself voting in a unanimous 7-0 decision to enact the policy. 

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National frustrations with broadband providers

Fort Collins is far from the only municipality in the United States looking to take back control of the internet post the FCC's decision. There are 19 cities that voted in favor of a city-owned internet. 

“These cities and counties recognize that they cannot count on Comcast and CenturyLink alone to meet local needs, which is why you see overwhelming support even in an off-year election,” Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said. Mitchell's statement comes from shortly after the city of Fort Collins was in the midst of debating the project moving forward last November. 

In addition to these 19 cities, there are over 500 communities throughout the U.S. wanting to offer some form of local broadband. And most of those communities have also involved discussions about protecting net neutrality on a regional basis. However, the ultimate hope is that Fort Collins would serve as a guide through the logistics and frustrations so that other projects around the U.S. could succeed.