City of Lakeland Broadband Business Plan: Analysis and Key Findings

Lakeland’s Gigabit Plan: An In-Depth Analysis Part 1 An Overview & the Plan’s Impact On Lakeland Right now in Lakeland, there is only major provider to bring us the internet. That provider is Spectrum. They are a monopoly that offers poor service at a high cost. Most of us pay 65+ dollars a month for internet whose speeds, reliability, and service is sub-par. Many of us would choose another provider if we could. The city of Lakeland has been looking into providing internet service to its citizens as an alternative to Spectrum. A report was recently released that examines the possibility of such a network. Ultimately, we have to come together as a community to decide whether this is good for our community. The purpose of this blog post to take a closer look at the subject and provide commentary on the process. Key Findings Lakeland commissioners are thinking about creating a new ISP, VOIP and TV service This may reduce costs to citizens substantially, with the lowest tier only being 20 dollars a month The plan wants to utilize Lakeland’s existing fiber network A phased rollout Pilot Program is suggested Data Speed will be symmetric for residential access, but the upstream will be significantly limited for businesses TV based services should be outsourced to a third party provider but still sold through Lakeland’s ISP The City should create a separate department to service customers How it Started Deploying fiber has been on the Lakeland commissioner’s mind for quite some …

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