Government-built FTTH project nearly ready for launch in Lafayette, Louisiana
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 23rd 2008 7:04AM
posted Dec 23rd 2008 7:04AM
In just a few weeks, Cox Communications will be battling for pay-TV dollars with a new rival. But the opponent won't be sporting the usual private enterprise face; instead, it'll be donning a governmental badge. The Lafayette Utilities System in the fine state of Louisiana has long made known that it was working on a FTTH project that would one day deliver HDTV programming and high-speed internet to local homes and businesses. The rollout is expected to occur in four phases, with everything being complete by 2011. Oddly enough, there are still few details to be had even though the initial rollout phase is slated for January, with LUS Director Terry Huval simply stating that "at the time we're ready to serve customers, we'll also make public our pricing packages." Well then, we guess that settles it.
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Kudos to Lafayette for standing up to the man and delivering service. I am an IT Admin for local government not far from Lafayette. The majority of our constituents in my support area get cable services from Charter Cable. Charter at a recent Council meeting made it clear they will not invest any more money in our community for infrastructure, they will not deliver any HD services and they will not be prepared for the FCC Mandated Digital transition. They also will not renew our franchise agreement. Leaving us with satellite or we have to pick up the pieces and become a government owned and controlled Internet and Cable TV provider.
1. So if we offer these services, which we can do cheaper, how will we ever encourage private ISPs and TV providers to come in and offer these services?
2. If a private company does find a way to profit and compete against us, how will we afford to toss aside a new income stream, shut down our service, all to encourage economic development?
3. What will we do with the millions spent upgrading infrastructure?
4. In the City of Lafayettes case, why are they wanting to compete against a profitable tax payer anyway?
hell yea!
they have been running the fiber lines in my neighborhood for a good two months now.
i'm hoping we will be up and running within the next two months.
i used to work in IT in one of the companies here that had fiber first and all i can say is wow...cox is gonna have a battle on their hands for sure.
I'm interested to see how this project pans out after it's completed... I'm also an IT Admin for a local government in Louisiana not far from Lafayette and would love to do something like it here... We have Charter Cable here also and the service is horrible.
i wish new orleans would try and do something, i mean lafayette come on its a shithole , well atleast they have fiber. I think new orleans's problem is both cox and our mayor. cox is our only cable provider, and our mayor was president of cox for this region before he became mayor.
im not tryin to start anything, but seriously dude dont come on here trashing other peoples cities.
just sating that its a crappy place. the city has nothing really but internet. its not to far from baton rouge if thats saying much. all baton rouge has is a mall and its the newer state capital (new orleans was the original capital)
in all honesty the rest of the state sucks, well some of the cajun towns are ok, but as city for living in, none of the other cities have much in them to do. unlike new orleans.
You can thank the FCC for franchise restrictions so they allow cable and phone company monopolies in each of the markets. In Washington State in a few counties, they offer 100 mbps fiber internet right to the house. All of the providers are local businesses. I think that the government should provide the broadband infrastructure and own it. Then lease it out to private companies in order to regulate competition. I don't believe in one brand hogging all lines in one area, they need to learn to share and compete for the customer instead of having them handed to them
I'm really surprised that Darren Murphy didn't bother to mention that BellSouth, which is now AT&T, is a telephone company that actually filed a law suit against the town and lost. I guess its only worth mentioning the cable company ... for some ignorant reason.
I would like to know the specifics in costs of deployment, services offered, and rates promoted.