Street Roots • Jan. 12-18 2018
Page 7
News
Should Portland have
publicly owned internet?
O n the heels o f the F C C ’s ruling on net neutrality, advocates
have renewed their efforts for a city-owned internet utility
BY EMILY GREEN
Building its own network
is an idea the city looked
into about 10 years ago,
rganizers behind a new campaign want
but determined would be
the city to lay and operate its own fiber
too expensive. The
optic network to ensure that all city
residents have access to an open and free upfront cost of roughly
$500 million would have
internet.
been funded with revenue
Municipal Broadband PDX wants the city to
bonds.
become an internet service provider that
In 2007, the city
operates like any other public utility. The
examined two options for
group plans to hold its first public rally at City
collecting funds to pay for
Hall this Sunday.
those bonds once the
Campaign organizers believe that if Portland
network was built: It could
were to have its own public internet utility, it
either sell access to any
would protect users and businesses from the
number of internet
censorship and paid prioritization that have
providers who shared the network, or the city
become a threat since the Federal
could become the internet provider itself,
Communications Commission recently
charging individual households a monthly fee
repealed its net neutrality rules. That repeal is
to connect.
being challenged in court and in Congress.
“We decided not to move forward as the
Members of the Municipal Broadband PDX
results of the study concluded it was too risky
campaign include people working in
for taxpayers,” said Brendan Finn,
technology, government and advocacy. This
Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s chief of staff.
includes Russell Senior, president of Personal
Saltzman’s office was overseeing Portland’s
Telco Project, a nonprofit that’s been providing
Office of Community Technology at the time.
free wireless hotspots around Portland since
While there is renewed support for
the start of the millennium.
re-examining the possibility of a city-built
“The problem is larger than net neutrality,
network among staffers at City Hall, there’s
it’s a cost thing,” said Senior. “Every year we
less enthusiasm around the city becoming an
have a cable service, it’s like $1,000 going out
internet service provider once it’s built.
the window.”
“There’s a lot of things that public agencies
He said that long after the upfront
do well. Being nimble competitors in fiercely
investment in building infrastructure has been
competitive marketplaces is not what the
recouped, cable companies continue to raise
public is good at,” said Marshall Runkel, chief
prices. But if internet service were a public
of staff to Commissioner Chloe Eudaly.
utility, subscribers would ultimately pay less
In the late 1990s, Runkel was the liaison to
per month for higher quality service.
what is now the Office of Community
While in the past Portlanders have not
Technology when he worked as an assistant to
shown a lot of support for internet service as a
former city commissioner Erik Sten.
public utility, campaign spokesperson and
He said he was thrown into telecom policy
game designer Garrett Hour thinks the tide
when A T & T challenged in court Portland’s
has changed.
right to require open access to its cable lines.
“Comcast has been providing awful,
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately
unreliable, expensive service, but we all just
found that Portland did not have that right, but
kind of got used to it,” he said. “Now they have
the case laid the groundwork for the net
successfully lobbied to strip away our internet
neutrality debate.
freedoms, and that’s the point in which people
In the years that followed, Portland began to
are finally saying that they’ve had enough.”
look at other options, such as contracting with
Hour and other campaign backers say if
an internet provider to build an open-access
Portland had publicly owned internet service,
network or building such a network itself.
consumers wouldn’t have to worry about their
Infrastructure the city originally considered
internet provider selling their personal
building would have connected each home to a
information, such as browsing history.
cable network, costing roughly $3,000 per
Another core principle of the campaign is to
home.
ensure a network that is accessible to all
But Runkel said in the current market, it
Portlanders. This would mean a pricing system
would make more sense to build a system that
that correlates with income and free Wi-Fi in
connected fiber optic cables to poles that
public spaces and on public transportation,
would in turn send out wireless signal to the
according to the campaign’s website.
surrounding area. And that would come in
But the campaign may be in store for quite
with a significantly smaller price tag.
a fight if it gains any traction. In a state where
Hour suggested that Portland could have
Comcast has made $1.4 million in campaign
additional cost savings if it figured out a way to
contributions to local politicians since 2007 -
use pre-existing public infrastructure, such as
including to several members of Portland City
along M AX routes.
Council - creating a public-owned internet
While Commissioner Eudaly is supportive of
service will be no easy feat.
revisiting plans to build an open access
That being said, it’s not a new idea.
S E N IO R S T A F F R E P O R T E R
/ ;
O
t
network, Runkel said,
“We don’t have the organizational
ability to have this conversation in a
competent way right now.”
That’s because today the city’s Office of
Community Technology is a shell of its former
self. He said the first step would be
establishing a city office to oversee strategic
technology.
But there are reasons why it’s a
conversation the city should be having.
“Right now access to the internet is 100
percent predicted by income,” Runkel said,
with a large percentage of the people left
behind being kids that go to public schools and
the elderly.
Secondly, he said, “as network owners are
given more and more power, there is a threat
to free speech, and there is a threat to
innovation.”
Additionally, an open-access network where
providers had to compete with each other
would spark innovation. Locally-owned internet
service providers would pop up, bolstering the
local economy, and consumers would have
access to more options.
But the idea that Portland could go one step
further and become an internet service
provider itself is not so far fetched.
Portlanders need look no further than 20
miles southeast to Sandy, which has been
operating its own broadband utility since 2003.
Tacoma, Wash., also offers its residents quality
internet service.
In these municipalities, subscribers pay
anywhere from $40 to $75 per month for
internet, depending upon speed. In Tacoma,
the public utility Click! employs 90 people and
offers combined internet and cable T V
packages starting at $52 per month.
Hour said he expects roughly 50 to 100
supporters will attend the campaign rally,
which begins at 2 p.m. at City Hall this
Sunday, Jan. 14. Those in attendance will hear
from a variety of speakers before marching
around downtown and returning to City Hall
for more speeches.
emily@streetroots. org
@greenwrites
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