There are a number of different conceptions of what "public broadband" means, and what it would include (organization, business model, services), especially in the case of Syracuse. There is the idea of having an up-to-date fiber to the home (FTTH) system that the city would own and would compete against Time Warner Cable and Verizon for all services. Then there are more limited approaches such as city-wide WiFi, or an institutional network, i.e., municipal connections between various sectors (education, tech, gov, non-profits), which could be part of an FTTH network. And how does all this relate to the new initiative coming from the FCC and the administration (stimulus money etc.)? I'll touch on each topic and then answer the question on stimulus.

"Some causes are worth fighting for and Net neutrality is one of them. Last week, a bill was introduced in Congress that would require Internet service providers to "not block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use an Internet access service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service through the Internet." Congress has shot down similar measures twice before. This time we should make it stick."

Municipal power has a 100+ year history in this country. It has consistently provided higher quality, lower prices, and better coverage than private utilities. All the reason for establishing municipal power apply to municipal broadband. There are also economies of scale for a municipality that offers both power and broadband service.

Clearwire is teaming up with Comcast and Time Warner Cable and others---who purchased 25% of Clearwire---to offer Wimax wireless Internet access as a supplemental service to their cable customers. Clearwire advertises 4Mbs service at $30/mo. Customers may access their account from any city served by Clearwire. Read the full article here