Why is Spectrum the only internet provider in the City of Buffalo?
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Colligan Law
Colligan Law
While Verizon has installed FIOS in some neighborhoods in the City, it abruptly stopped laying the infrastructure needed when the company at large decided to no longer provide or install landline internet services. They calculated that rolling out faster networks and competing with Time Warner would result in little to no profits. Verizon is essentially done rolling out or improving the FiOS system.
Anyone looking to open up the City to other internet service providers should contact their councilperson and City Hall. You can check your district here. You can email your Common Council member asking what they will do to investigate and correct the issue. Or send a separate email to the Mayor's office (mayor@city-buffalo.com) and the DPW commissioner (Michael J. Finn: mfinn@city-buffalo.com).
The current franchise agreement between the City of Buffalo and Spectrum expired in 2017 and to date, has not been renewed. Most of the infrastructure that was put in place when Adelphia Communications was the operator in the city has not been updated.
Buffalo is also behind other similar-sized markets in terms of options.
Municipalities like Chandler and Scottsdale, Arizona, Madison, Wisconsin, Lubbock, Texas all have multiple internet providers offering consumers a variety of high-speed broadband packages.
Buffalo remains one of the last vestiges of an old franchise agreement system that only allowed one cable and internet provider in a municipality.
The city refuses to talk about the issue to the degree that they are currently in violation of a Freedom of Information Law request that was filed by WGRZ on October 15, 2019.
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