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Is a Publicly Owned Minneapolis Information Network A Wise Public Investment?

Minneapolis Wireless Broadband Initiative Information Packet - neighborhood and community groups

City Council Actions on the Wireless Broadband Initiative

City Working Group Reports

Minneapolis Broadband RFP

Ten Myths About A Publicly Owned Information Network in Minneapolis, and the Facts

David Morris and Becca Vargo Daggett on municipal broadband - December 6, 2005, Wendy Wilde Show, Air America Minnesota (Part 1 and Part 2)

Ownership Matters With Wireless Systems - published November 15, 2005 in the Pioneer Press

Publicly Owned Broadband Would Serve Minneapolis Best - published August 1, 2005 in the Star-Tribune

Who Will Own Minneapolis' Information Highways? a fact sheet - August 2005

Who Will Own Minnesota's Information Highways? - a white paper from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, June 2005

Wireless (and Wired) Minneapolis

Who Should Own Minneapolis’ Information Highways?

A Fact Sheet

1. In November 2004, the Minneapolis City Council voted to “initiate a program that will provide Citywide Broad Band Wireless Internet Services to all residential, commercial and institutional users”. Bids were due on July 18, and City staff is expected to recommend finalists to the Council in September.

2. The Council resolution supported a network owned and operated by a private sector partner. There was little or no public discussion regarding the possibility of public ownership.

3. In the past, Minneapolis has suffered from its dependence on a privately owned information network. Time Warner has never honored its original franchise agreement to provide Minneapolis with 25 percent of its network capacity for municipal use. The City’s recently issued Request for Proposals is intended, in part, to create a system to which the City felt it was already legally entitled. In June 2005 the City filed suit against Time Warner in part over the company’s failure to provide access to its high-speed networks. The relationship with Time Warner shows how little influence the City has over a private network once it has entered into a long-term contract.

4. Currently two companies dominate the Minneapolis market for high-speed communications: Time Warner (Comcast will soon take over this system) and Qwest. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that companies owning high-speed communications networks do not have to offer space on their network to competitors and have the sole right to decide what they will transmit and what they won’t. Independent and locally owned Internet service providers will no longer be able to provide competing services.

5. A municipally owned information network would not be a monopoly. The phone and cable systems would remain in place.

6. The municipally owned network can act as a common carrier. It would sell space on the system to many companies, which in turn would compete for the retail customer’s business.

7. Several hundred cities throughout the country, including half a dozen in Minnesota, have established widely supported municipally owned information networks. No city has built a network using the model Minneapolis is currently considering.

8. A public network provides a yardstick against which to measure the quality of private networks. In Chaska, Buffalo, and other cities throughout the country, the creation of a public network has also spurred private companies to add services and moderate prices.

Download Report: Who Will Own Minnesota's Information Highways?

Institute for Local Self-Reliance, New Rules Project

Contacts: Becca Vargo Daggett, 612.379.3815 x209 becca@ilsr.org

David Morris, 612.379.3815 x208 dmorris@ilsr.org

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