Concord should embrace municipal fiber optic network

[Commentary] The online world that most of us have come to depend upon for information, communication, commerce and entertainment is changing in ways that could leave Concord residents paying more for less.

In response, the city should prepare to create a municipal fiber- optic network of its own. That means that every time a city street is dug up and repaved, high-capacity fiber-optic cable should be installed.

Compared to the cost of laying open and repaving a street, the cost of the cable is small. While the Comcast and Time Warner merger needs regulatory approval and may never happen, other factors suggest the city should, as technology expert Susan Crawford suggests, see high-speed Internet service as a basic utility like the provision of electricity or water.

Concord does not have a municipally owned electric company, but it does have a municipal utility known for dependable service and a high-quality product at a fair price -- its water department. Who’s to say that it couldn’t someday provide Internet service as well as water?

All these developments bear watching. But in the meantime, the city is about to dig up Main Street and repave Loudon Road. When it does, it should lay down the cables that could eventually connect Concord to a future free of exorbitant cable bills.