Glasgow Does Not Need Another Broadband Provider

 At the Glasgow Common Council meeting on July 12, 2021, discussion was held, even though the matter was not on the approved agenda, about granting a franchise to OpenFiber Kentucky, to build and operate another broadband network in Glasgow. It is assumed that none of the elected Council Members had heard anything about this before the matter was brought up, since it was not on the agenda as an item to be discussed. But the skids seemed to be greased for the franchise to be granted already. City Attorney, Danny Basil, invited the Council to read the material he promised to distribute that would be provided by the OpenFiber folks, suggesting that such reading would help when the matter was considered “when we award them a franchise.” Councilperson Joe Trigg interjected that perhaps Glasgow EPB should be heard from on the matter, but Mayor Armstrong deflected that suggestion by stating that the EPB interest would be only related to allowing attachments to its poles. Armstrong also echoed Basil’s suggestion that the franchise would be hastily awarded because, “it is pretty hard to turn people down” on such a request. But perhaps a bit more examination of this issue is appropriate. It is also certain that Glasgow EPB and SCRTC have a lot more concerns about this proposal than those relating to space on their poles. They have concerns about competing against an entity that seems to have unlimited access to the taxes paid by the citizens of the Commonwealth.

A franchise is an authorization granted by a company or a government to an individual or a company enabling them to carry out specified commercial activities, e.g., providing a service using city property, or acting as an agent for a company's products (like opening a Papa John’s or even a new Chevrolet dealership). Before a franchise is granted, it is customary and advisable for an array of due-diligence research be done on the company seeking the franchise, and the need for the new agency or product in a community. Has any of this due diligence been performed by local officials? From what we heard at the July 12 meeting, that seems very doubtful.

On the issue of ascertaining the need for another broadband provider in Glasgow, the City should consider the networks already constructed and maintained by Glasgow EPB and SCRTC, and the exceedingly low rates and reliable services they provide. These networks have been in place and delivering services to residences and businesses in Glasgow for thirty years. Due diligence on the matter of need would reveal that customers are being served by both entities and those customers are getting speed, reliability, and customer care from both entities. Research would reveal that the market is mature and there are not unserved, nor under-served customers in the Glasgow city limits. Since there is stability and virtual market saturation, a new provider could only destabilize the economics of the incumbent providers by taking away customers and revenue necessary to cover their costs. It seems there is no new need to be addressed by granting a franchise to a new provider. It also seems clear that there are a lot of reasons why Glasgow does not need another fiber broadband network provider.

It is not hard to see examples of why another broadband network, strung along poles in Glasgow, is a bad idea. Glasgow already knows how an out-of-town network operator (Windstream) disrupts the aesthetics and safety of the poles and networks owned by EPB and SCRTC. On virtually every street in Glasgow one finds two or three poles sitting within inches of each other and cluttering yards and sidewalks. This happens when EPB or SCRTC changes out a bad pole, transfers their cables to the new pole and then awaits the same transfer by Windstream crews such that the old pole can finally be removed. As all can see from these pictures, an out-of-town network operator is often just not motivated to perform the work – sometimes for years.

Yet another out-of-town broadband provider in Glasgow will surely cause more of these problems. There is also the matter of emergency pole replacements. These often come in the wee hours of the morning after an accident wherein a vehicle breaks a pole. For local utilities like EPB and SCRTC, on-call personnel are dispatched by 911 and those utilities respond to restore service and safety – except when their efforts are hampered by cable belonging to Windstream. Those situations create a variety of very real issues, because there is no local office nor presence of Windstream technicians to aid in these emergencies. These are problems that Glasgow does not want to increase.

Should the Glasgow officials perform their analysis of the market and the issues addressed herein and still reach the conclusion that another broadband provider would be good for the community, then the normal next step would be to draft a bid specification (including the ground rules, expectations, and requirements of local government applicable to a successful bidder) and advertise for proposals/bids from all companies wishing to enter the Glasgow broadband market. Obviously, that process would take a lot longer than the two weeks suggested at the July 12 meeting.

Now, should the Glasgow officials ignore due diligence, or if they perform due diligence and still recommend that a franchise be granted to KentuckyWired/OpenFiber Kentucky/Accelecom (they are all really just alter-egos of Macquarie Capital, the Australian bank who is profiting from all of this mess), then the suggestion by Danny Basil that the councilpersons use their computers to study up on Kentucky Wired is a good one. In fact, all citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky ought to know more about this project, which has been labeled a “boondoggle” by many who have researched it extensively.

The whole KentuckyWired project and the far-less-than-transparent deals which are part of it, drew the attention of real journalists at the Courier Journal and ProPublica, and they spent years digging up the facts and printing the results. Click on this link to get the full story on KentuckyWired, just as Danny Basil suggested https://www.propublica.org/series/miswired If you only read one of the articles presented there, please make it this one: Kentucky’s $1.5B Information Highway to Nowhere. Once locals take in some of this excellent reporting and writing, surely everyone in Glasgow will be ready to agree that Glasgow does not want to add itself to the long freight train full of questionable dealings and unquestionable incompetence of the folks behind the KentuckyWired project.