High-speed Internet must be a part of Carrboro’s infrastructure

Something like what they've done in wide awake Wilson?Indy:
Mighty, mighty broadband—"The small city of Wilson is leading the way in providing faster, cheaper Internet service"

Brian, you're a good explainer.  I have a few dumb-feeling questions, the answers to which would help me visualize this renovation.  "Construction" of fiber optic internet connections: what does "construction" mean in this context?  Does it mean physical building, with burying of new cable under streets, for example?  Who does it?  And are existing switching systems rendered obsolete?  Can the telephone poles come down?  I wrote at least a million words about dial tone as a Nortel contractor (plus half a million about automated operator services), but all of that comes in brown boxes. 

While I cannot speak directly to the issues with Infrastructure in downtown Carrboro (my experience was mostly with D.C., Morrisville, Wilmington, China and parts of Europe), I can at least talk a little about the problems with trying to wire an established area versus a new one.The biggest issue with Carrboro and Chapel Hill is that the infrastructure will have to be put into older buildings that may not have easy access and where to put the wires. Obviously, above ground is easiest, but it has inherit risks (e.g. a squirrel took out the phone service for the a large part of Landfall area of Wilmington back in the early 2000's when he/she electrocuted him/herself and fell on the phone line). It was, in fact, easier to get high-speed Internet service in China than it was in Wilmington. The cost for Infrastructure, switching equipment and expertise in building out the network is not plug-and-play. As for this being a feel-good idea, I think that is dismissive and wrong. People used to think extending the telephone infrastructure was a "feel-good" thing. Now, the first question businesses ask is about phone and Internet service. One reason China attracts business is that it took two phone calls for me and a little paperwork to get a high-speed Internet connection (new construction). In 5 years in Paris we could barely get a dial-tone (beautiful walk-up from the 18th or 19th Century). Having worked as an IT head for most of my adult life, I can honestly say that by investing in the technology in Orange County, we could begin to attract the kind of businesses that bring high-paying, low-impact jobs that will benefit from proximity to UNC and the skilled workers in our area that make the daily commute to RTP.I think it is a great idea and should be a regional effort, involving the University and all of the municipalities. It would be an excellent opportunity for our towns and the University to work side-by-side on something that will benefit all of us and as a consequence help firefighters, police and the poor.  During the Depression, we built roads that paved the way (quite literally) to bringing the country together. Let's use this moment as the opportunity to build the Bridge (Fiber Optic in this case) to a more connected future.  

The need for  high speed, broad band access cannot be overstated when it comes to business recruitment and development.   It is as much a part of infrastructure needs as water, sewer, and electricity in our Economic Development Districts and other areas where we want to encourage economic development.     

The idea was proposed, in detail, more than 3 years ago as a collaboration between the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the Chapel Hill Carrboro City School System, the University and Empowerment. The only thing lacking was political will on the part of elected officials. Since then the town of Chapel Hill, who manages all the traffic signals for the southern section of Orange County, has funded a project to lay extra fiber for a municipal network in  conjunction with DOTs analog-to-digital conversion of all traffic signals. The question is no longer when, but how. With the fiber in place, how will the system be designed and who will manage it? 

Back in the days of the Chapel Hill IT advisory committee, there was a split in thinking about how the town should move forward in setting up town-wide broadband access. One group wanted to use the opportunity to stimulate local economic development by setting up a local network provider. The other side wanted to take advantage of the economies of scale offered by one of the Fortune 500 companies, like Time Warner. Wally Bowen, one of the driving forces in North Carolina for rural networks, has a column in today's N&O that reinforces the ED value of a local network:http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1397931.html This would be a perfect idea for Carrboro, especially since they have the  small business loan program. 

1. A 50-100 dollar a month subsidy for a product that would not help most businesses do anything more than surf the web during business hours is crazy.  There is ZERO ROI for the city gov on a project like this.  What person or business is going to locate in Carrboro purely because of internet access? 2.  A fiber loop does not provide any more speed per dollar, it just allows an area to pool the cost of internet bandwidth into one big connection that the fiber loop would have to connect to.  the cost of an internet connection that would supply each person in Carrboro with a steady 100Mb/s is around a million bucks a year.3.  There is absolutely NO need for anyone to have 100Mb/s in a home and for that matter, any Carrboro businesses.  Some major corporations do not have that much.4.  The model of free muni wifi has fallen on its face more than any other muni stunt.  It doesnt work and the costs of supporting such a network are always more than anticipated.  Shoudl Carrboro build a call center and hire telereps to field all the support calls when the wifi wont reach into the back of my house?  The way to do this is to build the network, tie it to an existing internet pipe that can be downgraded if the idea fails, and pay for the maintanance of it by metering how many connections to the internet are made at which access points- then charge the business(es) at those access points a larger piece of the pie. just my $0.02