Monticello municipal fiber now really a go

I wrote about Monticello, Minnesota and its fight with the local incumbent telco TDS last fall. At the time, TDS had its lawsuit against the city thrown out for lack of merit. No big surprise, since the gist of the suit was basically “they are going to compete with us, and they are going to offer better service for less money!”. TDS was considering an appeal to the Minnesota supreme court.

TDS did appeal in the end, and thankfully lost. This is a win for municipal internet rollouts all across the US. It will hopefully make those greedy telcos think twice about trying to stop municipalities from providing their constituents with proper internet access.

A TDS spokesman said the decision “endangers the appropriate relationship between municipalities and private enterprise”. Presumably he means the relationship where municipalities have to allow private telcos like TDS to charge citizens an arm and a leg for sub-par broadband service, because there is no competition. To which I say – good riddance!

Construction starts in 2 weeks, and the first customers should be hooked up sometime this fall.