There’s been a lot of debate over whether the United States should treat Internet service as a utility . But there’s no question that Internet service is already a utility in Sandy, Oregon, a city of about 10,000 residents, where the government has been offering broadband for more than a decade. “ SandyNet ” launched nearly 15 years ago with DSL and wireless service, and this summer it’s putting the final touches on a citywide upgrade to fiber. The upgrade was paid for with a $7.5 million revenue bond, which will be repaid by system revenues. Despite not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, prices are still low: $40 a month for symmetrical 100Mbps service or $60 a month for 1Gbps. There are no contracts or data caps. “Part of the culture of SandyNet is we view our citizens as owners of the utility,” City IT Director and SandyNet GM Joe Knapp told Ars in a phone interview. “We’ve always run the utility on a break-even basis. Any profits we do have go back into capital improvements and equipment upgrades and things like that.” Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Where broadband is a utility, 100Mbps costs just $40 a month
An anonymous reader writes: Inkjet printer cartridges have been the bane of many small businesses and home offices for decades. It’s interesting, then, that Epson is trying something new: next month, they’re launching a new line of printers that come with small tanks of ink, instead of cartridges. The tanks will be refilled using bottles of ink. They’re reversing the economics, here: the printer itself will be more expensive, but the refills will be much cheaper. Early reports claim you’ll be spending a tenth as much on ink as you were before, but we’ll see how that shakes out. The Bloomberg article makes a good point: it’s never been easier to not print things. The printer industry needs to innovate if it wants us to keep churning out printed documents, and this may be the first big step. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
