Municipally run wireless networks for accessing the Internet have infuriated for-profit operators of communications services, such as cable companies. Now comes wired access, in at least one small Midwestern town.
Bedford Park, Ill., says it will give digital-subscriber line service to any of its 520 residents who want it.
The service will be paid for from city coffers. Village president David Brady said he hopes 100 residents will take the community up on its offer. The cost: $31,000 a year, he said.
The winner in the deal? Local consumers, who get tax-supported high-speed data service, and AT&T Inc., which has contracted to provide the service as if Bedford Park were just another bulk account.
The loser? Comcast Corp., the town’s cable provider and a high-speed data competitor.
Bedford Park is a six-mile-square community, where housing stock is old, with some units built 80 years ago. The median home price is $135,400 and the median income is $49,000, according to census data.
The village president said city officials wanted something to improve educational opportunities for local kids, give residents a sense of pride and help the community compete for potential home buyers.
Bedford Park already has access to high-speed data products. For instance, Comcast completed its regional upgrade in 2004 and offers service at speeds of 6 and 8 Megabits per second, including free McAfee antivirus software, according to Patricia Andrews-Keenan, Comcast’s Chicago area vice president for communications.
Comcast does have a small number of data customers in the community and will continue to offer a superior product there, Andrews-Keenan added.
Bedford Park is not the first community to treat residents to broadband services paid for out of city coffers. In 2002, officials in the city of Colma, Ca. — nicknamed “The City of the Dead” because of all the cemeteries and related businesses in the San Francisco Bay area town — decided to use some of the tax money from those businesses to buy basic cable service. Reasoning that local youth had few entertainment alternatives, city officials opted to buy basic cable at $35 a pop from then-AT&T Broadband for any local resident who wanted it.
Brady said village officials approached both AT&T and Comcast more than a year ago seeking proposals for a community-wide data product. Comcast did not respond, he said. Though other communities contemplate launching wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, Internet-access services, Bedford Park officials want a more secure, proven technology for its residents, according to Brady.
Consumers must provide their own computers, and Internet users who want speed faster than the one offered through the community are welcome to subscribe to another provider, Brady said.
