by Thomas Breen | Sep 30, 2022 3:57 pm

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Fiber internet? City embraces fed subsidies, private service.

City of New Haven slide

City's next steps for internet expansion plan.

Because the Biden Administration has chosen to ​“ build back better,” the Elicker Administration has chosen not to build its own new municipal broadband network after all.

Mayor Justin Elicker and city Economic Development Officer Dean Mack explained that shift in plans during an internet-focused interview with the Independent.

They said that, instead of pursuing tentative plans to build out a new municipal broadband network, City Hall intends to focus its internet-access-expansion efforts on boosting existing, mostly private, services. 

That includes promoting underused federal subsidies for low-income residents, encouraging current providers to follow through on their citywide expansion plans, trying to attract new high-speed internet companies to come to town, and using a wealth of federal dollars to improve equitable internet access across New Haven, particularly for residents of multi-family houses and apartment buildings.

The interview took place roughly eight months after the city hired a consulting firm called Magellan Advisers to conduct a ​“ broadband feasibility study” to better understand current internet access in New Haven, and to recommend specific steps the city should take to improve that network. That study was pitched at a January public meeting as a potential first step towards the Elicker Administration building out a municipal, publicly-owned broadband network. 

The interview also took place more than a year after alders approved $1 million in the city capital budget to help kickstart a municipal broadband pilot program and master planning process — and nearly a decade after the then-Harp Administration tried in vain to craft a statewide fiber-optic pilot that would provide faster and less expensive internet service than offered by the cable and phone companies.

Mayor Elicker: Rolling with changing funding landscape.

During the Independent interview on this latest ​“ broadband feasibility study,” both Elicker and Mack said that, after reviewing Magellan’s findings, and after assessing current private internet service providers’ expansion plans, and — most importantly — after taking stock of the surfeit of federal dollars dedicated to improving high-quality internet access in an ​“ equitable” way, the city has largely dropped any plans to build its own public broadband network.

“ We are realizing now that there’s market interest in doing what we were thinking of doing ourselves,” Mack said. ​“ That made us put a pause on that.”

“ When we started this process, there weren’t billions of dollars going into broadband expansion focused on equity,” Elicker said. Now, thanks to the federal government’s passage of large public-spending bills like the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, there are indeed billions of dollars available nationwide for improving internet networks — with tens of millions of those federal broadband bucks en route to Connecticut.

Mack agreed. ​“ We want to make sure we’re not spending local tax dollars on something the federal government will already be covering,” he said.

So. What exactly did Magellan find during its months-long consulting gig with the city? And what does the Elicker Administration plan to do now in its effort to boost internet access around town?

Mack said that the city initially had a $125,000 contract with Magellan, but that it ended up paying them only around $40,000 for the first third of their contracted work.

“ They did far more interviews than they had signed up for,” Mack said, and they ​“ spent a lot more time doing” investigative work into the city’s current internet offerings and access levels than they had initially planned for. 

After holding 50 meetings with 34 different organizations and putting together some ​“ key findings,” Mack said, the city decided to end its contract with Magellan in May and pivot away from the rest of the scope of work, which included studying and putting forward recommendations around a potential municipal broadband network.

Some of Magellan’s key findings included that the existing telecom giant Comcast already does cover the full city with its internet service, and the fellow telecom giant Frontier ​“ told us they are going to be building out a citywide fiber network, which does not exist today,” Mack said. (The smaller-scale fiber provider GoNetSpeed currently covers roughly a quarter of the city, according to a city slide-show presentation provided to the Independent by Mack.)

Mack said Frontier plans to build out its citywide fiber network throughout 2023 — with one big caveat being that that network will be made available to single- and two-family homes, but not necessarily to larger, five-unit-plus apartment buildings.

Which was another key finding of Magellan’s. It is much ​“ more difficult to install fiber in those types of [larger apartment] buildings,” Mack said, because of ​“ outdated” copper wiring inside of those buildings. 

“ There may not be as much of an incentive by the private market to serve” those larger apartment buildings, he said, even as Frontier does plan on a pretty significant fiber expansion. ​“ We found that the lack of internet access has to be addressed intentionally.”

Mack also said that the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP ) does already provide a level of subsidy to low-income residents that is high enough to make internet access essentially cost-free for those most in need. That program is ​“ underused right now,” Mack said.

And he said that there are other high-speed internet companies — like Google Fiber, UTOPIA , and SiFi Networks — that don’t currently operate in New Haven, but that may be interested in moving into the city’s market.

As for the Elicker Administration’s next steps, Elicker and Mack said the city plans to: 

• Identify exactly how widely used the Affordable Connectivity subsidy program is, analyze what gaps remain, and then conduct a public outreach campaign to encourage eligible residents to sign up.

• Negotiate with other fiber internet companies that don’t currently operate in New Haven to see if and how they’d be willing to bring their business to the city.

• Work with the city’s current fiber partner Crown Castle to see if and how to boost publicly accessible internet at municipal buildings. (See below for slides providing more details about the city’s next steps.)

“ Magellan really helped us out with the discovery phase of this project,” Mack said. ​“ It was definitely helpful to have experts by our side, asking the right questions of stakeholders, helping us to identify what the gaps are.” Up next, he said, is finding ways to use all of this federal money and working with private internet partners to expand fiber access as much as possible citywide.

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Large apartment buildings can easily run their own Cat5e Ethernet cable ($1/ft) from a tiny central basement location to each apartment. And they should do that to meet market demand unless they’re idiots.

The federal government should be helping with funding and pushing for the expansion of internet infrastructure much like it did historically for telephone lines and the US mail delivery and the highway interstates and train lines. Infrastructure that helps us to communicate, to move people and goods, and to get information and services, and helps people to access what they need to fully participate with society and improve their lives, and improves the economy, and helps move our society into the future.

This is all fine but not less expensive. More expensive. Also, I've been receiving phone calls, mailings via USPS and emails about my Frontier internet service. The calls and mailings are pushy - urging me to transfer my current internet service at $40.00 per month (that I'm perfectly satisfied with) to the fiber service, which was quoted to me at $58.00 per month. More expensive! I'm ignoring them as long as I can, knowing that Frontier will probably force me to upgrade. Internet should not be more than $30.00 per month now. It's not a luxury service. Comcast is absolutely horrendously expensive - just for basic internet. Frontier will do the same. The start off affordable, then force upgrades or dramatically increase monthly service charges. Not certain that a municipal service wouldn't do the same - with bad money management incurring higher taxes, higher service charges, etc. Frontier has PLENTY of cash and should keep the internet very affordable.

Frontier was in bankruptcy in 2020 until its bondholders agreed to a haircut.

Thank you, robn. Bankruptcy does not always reflect honest/actual financials. (I think of Trump, who inflates his value, but he has also declared that he is the king of bankruptcy, or some such bull-shi* in order to continue to avoid his financial obligations, etc.). I doubt that Frontier does not have the funds, but I might be wrong. In any case, basic internet is too expensive, and it should be capped at a reasonable rate that all can afford.

We just moved to Philly, where Verizon Fios and Comcast Xfinity both have good coverage & speeds, and I'm realizing that personal internet in New Haven is 40% more expensive for the same speeds (except in the neighborhoods where GoNetSpeed operates faster & cheaper service than Comcast). Business intro prices in Philly seem about the same, but it looks like the cost only goes up about 10% after the intro offer ends, not 50-60% like in New Haven; I'm guessing this is because a business can pretty easily switch to the competitor if they don't like their rates being jacked up. There have been analyses of Europe vs US wifi price/value that have come to the same conclusion: competition is a great thing when you're talking about internet providers. The city should plan to keep an eye on coverage & options, and if there isn't enough of either one by a set date (say, end of 2025?), then the city should have a plan in place to go ahead and install its own broadband.

@robn They potentially have an even simpler solution! With the installation of MoCA adapter(s) ( Multimedia over Coaxial Allience ) internet can be sent over the existing cable infrastructure of the building. The adapters are as cheap as 5$ and support up to 2.5 Gbps. I utilized this methodology in my house so I did not need to run additional cabling AND the adapters allow the normal cable TV signals to be sent as they utilize different transmission frequencies.

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