So, having a better working alternative means we have to get our act together?
Comcast sued Chattanooga Electric Power Board (EPB)
7 years ago. They lost.
The suit had been filed in September 2007 in the Davidson County Chancery Court. It sought a declaratory judgment that EPB was violating state law by improperly using municipal electric utility funds to subsidize its recent cable/Internet venture.
Comcast lost that suit and the follow-up suit they filed in 2008 was dismissed.
Then Comcast claimed faster internet was too expensive and also pointless. They were wrong about that too. So very very wrong.
Thanks to an ambitious roll-out by the city’s municipally owned electricity company, EPB, Chattanooga is one of the only places on Earth with internet at speeds as fast as 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average.
The tech buildup comes after more than a decade of reconstruction in Chattanooga that has regenerated the city with a world-class aquarium, 12 miles of river walks along the Tennessee River, an arts district built around the Hunter Museum of American Arts, high-end restaurants and outdoor activities.
Comcast held out hope that the FCC wouldn't get rid of the state laws that blocked municipal competition. The
FCC played the sad trombone music on Comcast's answering machine. So what is the latest from
ex-monopoly-in-Chattanooga?
"Comcast today announced it will offer residential multi-gigabit broadband service for up to 200,000 customers in Chattanooga beginning in June, and expects to expand availability locally over the next several months," Comcast said.
[...]
Comcast has charged a whopping $399.95 a month for its existing 505Mbps service but says it will charge less for the 2Gbps plan, which it intends to roll out to 18 million homes nationwide by the end of this year.
Hopefully it will be less than their comical
$300.00 a month for 300Mbps package of a couple years ago. You start to see why these "free market" companies hate free markets.