Municipal broadband in Quincy? It's coming to 2 neighborhoods soon

QUINCY − Parts of Merrymount and Quincy Point will be the first to have homes served by a municipal internet utility in the coming months as Quincy tests its broadband network in the two neighborhoods.

City Councilor Ian Cain gave an update on the plan to bring public internet service to Quincy as councilors approved the creation of the Municipal Broadband Enterprise Fund at this week's council meeting.

Establishing an enterprise fund will help the city "treat it like any other utility" when it comes to paying for operating expenses through rate payments, said Chris Walker, Mayor Thomas Koch's chief of staff.

"We view this as an essential infrastructure project," Cain said. "When we do complete it, this project will bring national recognition. This is innovation at its finest here for a municipality, and it's taking local control over essential infrastructure."

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It has been five years since Cain first floated the idea of municipal broadband to councilors as a way to expand affordable internet access to more residents.

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Currently, Comcast owns its own infrastructure in Quincy. Under the proposal to offer municipal broadband, Quincy would build and maintain more than $75 million in infrastructure – such as fiber optic cables and servers – that could be used by any number of companies to bring internet to residents, making it another player in the marketplace of providers.

Cain said the broadband program is in the engineering and facility phases and studies should be completed in the next two months. He'll come back before city councilors at that point and ask for money to launch a pilot program in Merrymount and Quincy Point.

Walker said they don't yet know how much the pilot program will cost. No specifics were given on which parts of the two neighborhoods will be part of the test.

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"Quincy Point in particular has a lot of economic and cultural diversity, and I think that's really important to emphasize as we move forward," Ward 2 City Councilor Anthony Andronico said. "Quincy Point and Merrymount will have an opportunity to see what works with this program, what we can improve upon and help expand it to the whole city. What we saw during the pandemic is that internet isn't a luxury, it's a utility."

The establishment of the enterprise fund comes a year after city councilors voted to establish a municipal light plant, a process city officials said was legally required to provide broadband. In the time since, Walker said, the state has allowed communities to establish enterprise funds instead − a simpler process that does not require a ballot vote of residents. The city's water and sewer systems are also run with enterprise funds.

The municipal broadband service will be paid for by ratepayers, like the sewer and water services are. Homeowners who decide not to participate in the public internet service will not have to pay into the enterprise fund.

"This isn't a mandatory program, it's opt-in," Cain said. "Folks will subscribe to participate in this program as if they'd affixed a water pipe to their home and paid for that over a certain period of time."

Cane said state and federal programs will provide financial assistance to families that cannot afford municipal broadband service.

Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Quincy to test city's own internet in Quincy Point, Merrymount