Broadband Reports has news on the Muni battle in Lafayette, Louisiana:
The city of Lafayette, Louisiana is trying to get a triple play fiber-optic network off the ground, despite legal opposition from Cox and BellSouth (USAToday has an excellent primer on the fight).Bellsouth has now informed the city that if they move forward with the plan, they might consider pulling their Cingular Wireless call center out of Lafayette (the center employs 1,300 people). BellSouth, unlike Verizon, has no plan to deploy fiber to the home.
BellSouth Louisiana President William A. Oliver told The Daily Advertiser that he made no threat to move the call center:
“I didn t say it, Oliver said. “I never made a threat that I would pull any center out of Lafayette or Louisiana in retribution to what LUS is doing.
In a hearing connected with a lawsuit filed by BellSouth, District Judge Byron Hebert ruled that LUS and its governing authority must start over as it goes through the process of issuing up to $125 million in bonds to finance the expanded fiber network. Hebert ruled that citizens must be able to petition for a popular vote on the bond issue.
Lafayette has a city-wide wireless cloud, thanks to Syndeo Communications and Tropos. The network covers 13 square miles using Tropos Networks 5110 Wi-fi cells. Syndeo provides 1 Mbps broadband to residents and businesses in Lafayette.
According to Chris Drake, project director of the mayor’s office of technology in New Orleans, which runs a similar Tropos mesh network in New Orleans, the neighborhood’s murder rate was down 57% and auto thefts were down 30%, thanks to the network.
There’s a pro-LUS blog and an anti-LUS blog (with, apparently, links to the Progress and Freedom Foundation). MuniWireless has additional backgrounders. PBS Now reviews the issues of the “Philadelphia Experiment, tonight at 9pm.
Of course, Philadelphia’s $52 million 800 MHz public service radio network is not without glitches.
Related DailyWireless stories include; DailyWireless Testifies for Muni Networks, Broadband: A National Scandal, High Noon for City Clouds, Cities are Getting Virtual and Oregon is Getting Google.
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