Terry Huval -- taking on Bell South at $85/month

Terry Huval is taking on Bell South. He's the director of the Lafayette, La., public-owned utility. It serves over 55,000 electric customers, 44,000 water customers, 35,000 wastewater customers and offers wholesale telecommunications services.  But when Huval tried to float a bond issue to offer broadband internet service to consumers -- Bell South took issue. Duval described the experience -- ongoing -- at a March 30, 2005, conference in Silver Spring, Md., Freedom-2-Connect.net.  Why is Bell South concerned? Because Duval thinks the Lafayette public utility can offer 70-channel cable TV, basical local phone service (including call forwarding/waiting) and super-fast Internet connectivity for $85 a month. "We're very comfortable with that number," Duval told conference attendees.  Typically U.S. subscribers to cable or telecom "high-speed" Internet connectivity receive service at no more than 1 megabits per second -- way behind many other countries.  "Our system will be capable of 10 megabits on day one, and 100 megabits very soon after that," Duval said in Silver Spring.  Now there is a referendum scheduled on whether the utility should be allowed to float a $125 million bond to install the fiber-optic cables necessary for the competitive service. Bell South argues that kind of money is too great a risk for the taxpayer-owners of the utility. Huval is at: (337) 291-8280.

Comments

[docsharp01]

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing.
T1 internet is the future of broadband communications.