<story><title>Boulder moves to fund citywide fiber buildout through debt</title><url>http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_31941127/public-support-high-boulder-moves-fund-citywide-fiber?source=mostpopular</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Some back of the napkin math. $140 million for 40,000 households in Boulder = $3,500 per household. If 50% of people subscribe (typical for municipal broadband), that&amp;#x27;s $7,000 per subscribing household, or higher than Charter&amp;#x27;s market cap per subscriber.&lt;p&gt;A quarter of the population of the city is below the poverty line. If the intent is to offer them subsidized broadband, let&amp;#x27;s assume we get no capital recovery from those households. That brings the cost to $4,666 per household, or $9,300 per subscribing household.&lt;p&gt;This is high, but not out of the ballpark. Verizon spent about $3,500 on average for each paying subscriber for FiOS. Chattanooga&amp;#x27;s system was about $5,500 per household.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gonzo</author><text>$1.1m&amp;#x2F;year payback (20 years)&lt;p&gt;$1,100,000&amp;#x2F;year, 40,000 households, so $27.50&amp;#x2F;year mean income per household to service the debt.&lt;p&gt;If only 50% of households (you said people) subscribe, then $55&amp;#x2F;year mean income per household to service the debt.  If, again, as you state, no capital contribution from households below the poverty line, then, using your math (which, btw, double counts these), we&amp;#x27;re talking $110&amp;#x2F;year, or $9.16&amp;#x2F;sub&amp;#x2F;month to service the debt.&lt;p&gt;Here in Austin, there are three providers of 1gbps&amp;#x2F;1gbps FTTH internet, and all are priced just under $60&amp;#x2F;mo.&lt;p&gt;I think someone can probably figure out how to build a similar service in Boulder, paying the City of Boulder $10&amp;#x2F;mo per subscriber household, and still make fat rolls of cash.</text></comment>
<story><title>Boulder moves to fund citywide fiber buildout through debt</title><url>http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_31941127/public-support-high-boulder-moves-fund-citywide-fiber?source=mostpopular</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Some back of the napkin math. $140 million for 40,000 households in Boulder = $3,500 per household. If 50% of people subscribe (typical for municipal broadband), that&amp;#x27;s $7,000 per subscribing household, or higher than Charter&amp;#x27;s market cap per subscriber.&lt;p&gt;A quarter of the population of the city is below the poverty line. If the intent is to offer them subsidized broadband, let&amp;#x27;s assume we get no capital recovery from those households. That brings the cost to $4,666 per household, or $9,300 per subscribing household.&lt;p&gt;This is high, but not out of the ballpark. Verizon spent about $3,500 on average for each paying subscriber for FiOS. Chattanooga&amp;#x27;s system was about $5,500 per household.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>julienchastang</author><text>Repaid over twenty years, as I understand it: &amp;quot;A 20-year debt structure would require annual payments of $1.1 million from the city, according to staff estimates. That could be supplemented with money from the city&amp;#x27;s general fund and, perhaps, revenue generated by early customers of the fiber network.&amp;quot; Though there is some math discrepancy since that would not cover the $140 million. Nonetheless, as a Boulderite, I am happy to finally see this happening.</text></comment>