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Similar questions are: Comcast and Charter don't open up their network, why should the city? The simple answers are: Because unlike private business, the city should not be profit-driven but citizen-centered. And, choice is always good from the consumer, but rarely good for the provider. The more providers; the stiffer the competition; the better the price. I understand the reason for this question and the confusion behind it. The difference is who owns the network. In our case, the citizens own the cable network.

After watching the KFVS story, my wife asked, "What did you mean by 'the City has forgotten who helped them get to where they are today?'." In 2002 when City Cable announced that it was considering doing Internet service, our company had thousands of dialup customers in the Poplar Bluff area. MyCityCable had 0 customers at that time. The City Council voted to open their Cable Internet service up to all ISPs and encourage companies like semo.net to bring their dialup customers onto the network.

On Friday, I was contacted by the local channel 12 report, Tyler Profilet, saying that the station had received numerous requests to run the story. He interviewed me on the phone in the morning and arranged for a video interview yesterday afternoon. The story appeared very accurate and I was very pleased with the piece. KFVS Story on Friday's Six O'clock News (both the transcript and video versions are available)

semo.net has been around since 1995. Long before City Cable provided Internet service...semo.net was here...and for years to come, semo.net will continue to provide great Internet service in our area. Of course this move by the city is disappointing. And in this economy, it would not be fair to say this isn't going to be detrimental to our current business model. But remember that the same ingenuity that created & sustained semo.net is still at work within our staff.

The city of Poplar Bluff just passed an ordinance that says a Megabit on their network costs $1051 when sold to an ISP. Yes, that's right, a business can purchase a 3Meg Cable Account from MyCityCable for $99/month (or $33 per Megabit), but when sold to an ISP, that 3 Megabits costs $3153. AT&T charges ISPs and large businesses $22 per Megabit Level3 charges $45 per Megabit in Poplar Bluff Level3 charges $12.50 per Megabit in St Louis