PAGE 2 | September 21, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
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... Municipal Broadband: Fast, cheap, and union
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self and cost taxpayers nothing.
Known as Municipal Broad-
band PDX, the campaign is the
brainchild of Multnomah County
data engineer Michael Hanna.
Hanna is a former president and
now chief steward at AFSCME
Local 88, which represents em-
ployees of Multnomah County.
He also serves on the statewide
political action committee of Ore-
gon AFSCME.
Unionism and technology are
Hanna’s twin passions, and mu-
nicipal broadband would com-
bine both. In Hanna’s vision, a
new public Internet utility would
provide good service, good
prices, and good jobs. IBEW
members would install the fiber
optic cables, and AFSCME
members would administer the
network, just as they do in the
Portland Water Bureau.
Internet access, it turns out, is
what’s known in economics as a
“natural monopoly.” Some prod-
ucts and services — think gro-
ceries or home repairs — are
most efficiently provided by mar-
kets with lots of sellers. But oth-
ers — think electric utilities or
railroad transportation — come
with high initial investment costs
that it makes no sense to dupli-
cate. [Imagine multiple natural
gas suppliers digging up the pub-
lic right-of-way to install compet-
ing pipelines.]
Natural monopolies can be
publicly owned, like Eugene Wa-
ter & Electric Board, or privately
owned but publicly regulated,
like Portland General Electric.
Unfortunately for the American
public, Internet access has up to
now mostly been provided by pri-
vately owned monopolies that are
very lightly regulated. Monopoly
internet service providers have
faced no requirement to upgrade
from coaxial cable to fiber optic
cable, and as a result, the United
States has fallen far behind coun-
tries like France, Korea, and even
China in access to affordable
high-speed Internet connections.
At the national level, the Com-
munications Workers of America
has been trying to raise the alarm
about this for over a decade, in a
campaign called Speed Matters.
Seeing the missed opportunity,
Google even briefly dabbled with
the idea of rolling out fiber optic
networks in cities around the
country, but pulled back after
launching networks in eight loca-
tions.
There are reasons the public
sector is better suited to roll out
fiber networks than the private
sector. For one, the cost of capital
is lower: By issuing revenue-
backed bonds, public bodies can
borrow money at much lower
rates than private companies can,
and pay it back over a longer time
frame. Also, public fiber net-
works don’t need to earn profits,
pay dividends to investors, fill the
pockets of high-paid executives,
or even pay income taxes. All
those savings are passed onto the
customers via lower rates.
In fact, the idea of municipal
broadband is catching on. Na-
tionally there are now at least 55
city-wide municipally-owned
fiber networks. Sandy, Oregon,
is one of them. For $39.95 a
month, Sandy residents get a
300 Mbps fiber connection (five
times as fast as Comcast’s simi-
larly priced “Performance Plus”
service) and can add phone
service with unlimited nation-
wide calling for another $20 a
month. Hillsboro, too, now is
charging ahead, and expects
next spring to begin offering
1,000 Mbps service (16 times as
fast as Comcast) for $50 a
month, or just $10 a month for
low-income residents.
Will Portland, Gresham, and
other cities in Multnomah County
be next? Hanna and the Munici-
pal Broadband PDX campaign
aren’t proposing that the munici-
palities leap before looking. In-
stead they’re asking local juris-
dictions to pay for a thorough
feasibility study that looks at ex-
isting infrastructure and what it
would cost to install fiber door to
door. That proposal has been en-
dorsed by the Northwest Oregon
Labor Council, IBEW Local 48,
Oregon AFSCME and AFSCME
locals 88, 189 and 328.
Since Municipal Broadband
PDX held its public campaign
launch Aug. 1, the Multnomah
County Commission and the City
Councils of Fairview, Gresham,
Troutdale and Wood Village have
voted to share the costs of the
proposed feasibility study.
The campaign has saved the
biggest for last: Portland City
Council is expected to hold a
hearing on it Oct. 30 and vote
Nov. 7 on whether to join the
other jurisdictions in the feasibil-
ity study. If they give the go-
ahead, Multnomah County will
move forward with the study, lay-
ing the groundwork for a decision
next year.
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