The problem is that when a company owns the last mile it has a natural monopoly. An incumbent being overthrown isn't the same as having long lasting competition.
Provo actually already has a fairly significant fiber rollout from multiple failed local and municipal coalitions to bring 100Mbps+ residential connections to the area. I believe these lines are owned by the city, and that Google plans on utilizing the extant network as far as possible. It is pretty likely that this won't be the typical municipal telecom monopoly that we've seen to attract cable providers and the like.
It is a really bad deal because it eliminates municipal ownership of the infrastructure that would facilitate competition. Instead they are installing a new monopolist which will only seem to improve things in the short term.
There are still other ISPs in the area that will be competing. The change will be from a bankrupt fiber provider that the city cannot afford to a well-funded provider undergoing network enhancements and expansion. Stop complaining.
I'm actually somewhat against the purchase of a municipal line. I think the cities should be running the fiber. This feels like a move in the wrong direction. The problem is there arn't enough noisy people who know to ask for it.
Presumably those competitors won't have access to fiber to the home. Besides the fact that it doesn't make sense to roll out separate fiber for each provider it is clear that municipal owned fiber would decrease barriers to entry and therefore increase competition. You simply cannot expect good outcomes in situations of monopoly/oligopoly regardless of who the monopolists are.
Why would this prevent anyone else from accessing fiber to the home? I thought the whole neat reaction from the Austin, TX fiber announcement was that ATT was planning on doing just the same.
They wouldn't have access to that fiber, they would have to do their own fiber drop and I point out why that's bad in the remainder of my previous post.
Regarding ATT/Texas: Having a competitor is not what economists mean when they refer to competition.
Any large company should have a policy document which states the absurd rules including installation of French software versions and use of French keyboards, hiring and e-mail policies. I believe the policies only apply to businesses with over 50 employees so you would not have encountered them in the public sector.
