[Davisgig] proposal feedback.

[Bill Broadley]

 "This is a marketing play for the city, and University, as much as a
 great and fast new network. Having the new network will bring more
 medium and larger business and attract and retain graduating talent
 and business to the community."

Considering a fair number of voters in Davis are home owners I'd mention
the study that shows fast internet helps increase home prices.
Something like this study that mentions "Consulting found that fiber
optic internet adds roughly $5,250 to the value of a $300,000 home. "
ref [1]
http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2014/07/InternetSpeed.aspx
ref [2]
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/gigabit-internet-connections-make-property-values-rise

 "We have to convince city council its a good idea. Then, I'm sure some
 sort of ballot measure will ensue or not, that will pass because this
 idea is so Davis-y and there is a lot of enthusiasm for it among the
 populace."

City council controls the ballot?  Would this be consider a city
wide/local initiative?   Looks like we would need to file it, pay $200,
and get signatures from 10% of the registered voters?  I'm guessing that
getting 10% would require something popular, a fair number of volunteers
at tables in front of grocery stores and the like, and probably funds
for mass mailing registered voters.  I seem to recall seeing some city
or county service price list that allowed entities to email all voters.

I found a dated reference explaining California local initiatives:
  http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_904TGR.pdf

Can city council allocate non-trivial funds without passing a local
initiative?

"We have to convince city council its a good idea. Then, I'm sure some
sort of ballot measure will ensue or not, that will pass because this
idea is so Davis-y and there is a lot of enthusiasm for it among the
populace."

Given the economic diversity, worries about how reliable a new service
would be, and widely varying internet costs from omsoft, dsl, uverse,
comcast, and related I'd be surprised if we could get >= 85% buyin
before rolling out in a "fiberhood".  Seems like 50% would be more
likely.  Doesn't seem sensible to try to make things overly profitable
before rollout.  I don't see why a community network shouldn't work well
enough for the adoption rates over time shouldn't increase.

I'd be very careful to mention anything that might imply phone service.
 Google backed off on this very quickly because of 911 related
bureaucracy and onerous regulations.  Acting as a middle man for VOIP
certainly makes sense.

I'd also be very careful about mentioning anything to AT&T and Comcast,
apparently they employ various underhanded tactics to sabotage community
network projects at all scales.... even when they don't provide access
to that area.   I've heard of them paying experts to raise all kinds of
FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and have said experts take their
findings to the local city council.

Other advantages to a community network I'd mention:
1) promote consumer choice and increased value through lower prices and
   increased competition
2) Allow users to pay for what they want, HBO announced services for
   cord cutters and cinemax is following suite.  Consumer satisfaction
   with Comcast is extremely low, to a large degree this is because
   of a lack of competition.  Further restricted by comcast/AT&T data
   usage caps.
3) Improved privacy and freedom of choice.  Verizon and other large
   ISPs have been caught altering traffic to enable tracking of users.
4) Support of network neutrality, to benefit consumers.  AT&T, Verizon,
   and Comcast have been heavily lobbying the FCC to kill network
   neutrality.
5) increased or unlimited bandwidth caps would help netflix and other
   video/audio streaming services compete with typically inferior or
   more expensive services from AT&T or Comcast
6) improved service/support from local organizations catered to the
   local needs.
7) increased local spending improves the local (city, county, and
   state) economy (both directly from profits and indirectly through
   supporting more local companies.  Less money going to comcast/AT&T
   with support staff often in random 3rd world countries the better.
8) more opportunities for improving connectivity for low income folks.
   Google fiber allows a one time cost of $200 (one time or in 12
   payments) for 7 years of connectivity at a few mbit.  Changes to
   end user agreements could allow network sharing and improved
   connectivity in public areas via wifi.  Network sharing is against
   the end user policies of Comcast and AT&T AFAIK.
9) Include improved connectivity for schools and libraries.  Ideally
   enough to support numerous video streams for things like kahn
   academy, MIT courses, Stanford courses, and the numerous online
   coursing becoming rather popular.
10) not sure how common this is, but netflix has a program to send
   a caching proxy to help significantly reduce upstream bandwidth
   needs for free.  It comes in the form of a 4U freebsd box with 45
   large disks, and 2 10gbit connections.  I believe they allow
   community level networks in their program (you don't have to be a
   huge provider).
11) Bandwidth and IPv6 support for future users of IoT (Internet of
    Things) and expected related services to help improve home
    automation, home security, remote learning applications, smart
    meters, load shedding during peak power consumption, easier
    to monitor alternative energy services, etc.  No idea if PG&E
    would participate in city wide network.  Seems like solar
    installations are certainly getting quite common.
12) improved coverage for t-mobile today with wifi calling and AT&T
    and verizon (who announced wifi calling) over the next year or two.
    The helps improve cell phone connectivity which improves safety
    without adding towers.  Doubly so inside energy efficient buildings
    which often have metallic coated windows which block cell signals
    quite efficiently.
13) I've read about various emergency notification systems, not aware
    of any at the city/community level though.  UCD has one that's
    email, voice, and SMS based.  Nextdoor.com has some official
    representation from the police department and city I believe.  Not
    sure if a community network could help improve emergency
    notifications for things like local fires, storms, local flooding,
    road closures, power outages, train accidents, ongoing criminal
    activity, etc.

Wow, sorry for the rant, hopefully there's some worthwhile bits...