Our view: A cautious yes on Fort Collins broadband

We encourage Fort Collins voters to approve Ballot Question 2B and allow the city to establish its own fiber optic gigabit internet service.

Not because municipal broadband would fill a major gap in broadband access. Opponents estimate 98 percent of city residents have some sort of broadband access, cellphones included.

Not because the city has put forward a bulletproof plan. We've yet to see satisfactory answers to many details of the business model that includes borrowing $150 million to establish the service.

Among them: Will the city operate this new kind of utility on its own, or will it work with a partner experienced in delivering broadband internet access? What low-cost solution will the city offer in addition to its suggested $70 monthly gigabit service and $50 monthly 50 megabit service? What level of certainty does the city have that it can woo at least 28 percent of residential customers away from Comcast and Century Link to make its plan pencil out?

Honestly, we don't know. We won't unless the city moves forward with its plan.

What we do know is this: The majority of this board supports taking that next step. Here's why:

If Fort Collins is serious about being a place of equity and inclusivity where all schoolchildren can access the same learning tools at home, where workers can effortlessly telecommute instead of adding to Interstate 25 gridlock, and where shut-in and disabled residents can afford a vital link to the outside world, the city has ample incentive to offer its own gigabit internet service to a growing population with increasingly diverse needs.

A yes vote on 2B will give the city the opportunity, at City Council's direction, to establish broadband policies that private-sector providers have little incentive to implement due to their reliance on coaxial cable and reasonable focus on profitability.

Private-sector broadband has served Fort Collins well, aside from shared gripes about customer service. But bringing the city's triple-bottom-line approach to broadband changes the conversation about what is possible.

Instead of being a profit-driven service, Fort Collins broadband has the potential to be the type of barrier-busting community connector that the city's MAX bus rapid-transit system has become.

Here's how:

Construction of the system isn't expected to start until 2019. In the year that Fort Collins will spend finalizing its plan, it should:

• Pursue a true "retail plan" that gives the city the most direct control over the service offered. Fort Collins Utilities has a proven track record of providing quality service and value — themes that will be critical for a broadband utility.
• Build a robust network of early residential and business adopters by taking a page from the city of Longmont's playbook and providing incentives for those who sign up early — and for those who remain loyal in ensuing years.
• Establish a low-cost level of service for families who qualify for housing assistance through Housing Catalyst and for families of schoolchildren who qualify for free and reduced-price meals at public schools within the city's growth management area.

Most importantly, with up to $150 million of voter-approved debt on the line, the city must ensure that broadband service eventually pencils out. Based on revenue and sign-up projections, supporters say municipal broadband will start paying for itself after 14 years, giving Fort Collins Utilities an estimated $27 million in new revenue in year 15.

That's money that could be used upgrade the city's broadband infrastructure — no system is "future-proof," regardless of what anybody tells you — or support other utilities operations.

City utilities customers stand to lose, however, If those estimates don't come to fruition. An additional $17 on utilities customers' monthly bills for the life of bond repayments is a pill no resident should have to swallow for a misguided decision to jump into a new realm of operations.

Even with a yes vote this November, City Council will have the option to pull the plug on municipal broadband in the coming year. It should use that option as necessary.

But in order to avoid that, City Council and city staff must spend the next year vetting all assumptions around this plan and ensuring that the city's "take rate" — the rate of which residents sign up — will mirror Longmont's 51 percent rate for NextLight broadband service sooner than later.

There's reason to believe that Fort Collins can replicate, or even exceed, Longmont's success in the realm of municipal broadband. Fort Collins has a young, well-educated population that prides itself on technological savvy and entrepreneurship — areas that stand to benefit from stable, high-speed internet service.

Fort Collins prides itself on the pursuit of being world-class.

If the city can successful combine the audacity to believe that it can succeed where others have failed with with another year of sound planning before giving municipal broadband the go-ahead, its establishment of a broadband utility that allows its businesses and residents to more freely and efficiently share information would certainly be a world-class endeavor.

This is the viewpoint of the Coloradoan Editorial Board, made up of six community members and Coloradoan News Director Eric Larsen and Watchdog Coach Rebecca Powell. The board meets weekly to set the topic and direction of the Coloradoan's Sunday editorials. News reporters are not involved in the editorial board process.