[rayiner]

$35 is too low for gigabit service with high northeastern labor costs. It might be reasonable for France or Spain, where the workers on the lines make $40,000 and taxes pay for benefits, but it’s not doable for the USA, where skilled labor like maintaining fiber lines pays $80,000+ with employer-paid benefits.

Verizon’s RPU is about $100/month for FiOS. Year after year (for the 15 or so years since they launched FiOS) the operating margin of the wireline division is under 5%.

Chatanooga’s public electric utility offers a gigabit tier at $68/month. It’s financially viable with some subsidy from the electric utility, which also uses the fiber network for smart grid. And also they have cheaper labor in a right to work state.

[pdxandi]

I believe $35 is their subsidized rate for students and whatnot. Their standard rate is around $70.