# Kansas City, Missouri Based Datashack gets into Gigabit Municipal ISP Business with FREE Services



## drmike (Sep 18, 2014)

Datashack, a company best known for cheap colocation and cheap dedicated server rentals is diversifying.

North Kansas City leaders inked a 10-year deal with Datashack to operate the municipal owned fiber network liNKCity.

For a one time fee of $100 for 100Mbit or $300 for 1Gbit customers get connected by Datashack to liNKCity. After paying the one-time fee, their internet services will remain FREE for the duration of the 10 year period.

*Edit:*

Simple math: $300 / 10 years = $30 a year / 12 = $2.50 a month.

Datashack is providing free connectivity to government, churches and schools.

Their goal and income is selling internet access to businesses in North Kansas City and leveraging the liNKCity fiber for their other ventures in the hosting (namely transit to major regional POPs).

Links:  http://www.nkc.org/newsView.aspx?nid=8341

           http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article2144253.html

           http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2014/09/03/north-kansas-city-free-gigabit-internet-service.html


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## zzrok (Sep 18, 2014)

drmike said:


> Simple math: $300 / 10 years = $3 a year / 12 = 25 cents a month or less than 1 cent per day.


$300 / 10 = $30 / 12 = $2.5

Still crazy cheap.  Do you have links to sources?


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## D. Strout (Sep 18, 2014)

I wonder why they decided to compete with Google Fiber? Kansas City was GF's first location, and now there's another gigabit game in town? Cheaper, that's for sure. Wonder if Google will "adjust" their prices with this?


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## drmike (Sep 18, 2014)

Well it appears North Kansas City is it's own municipality and Google wasn't going there.


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## D. Strout (Sep 18, 2014)

Ahh, makes sense. North Kansas City was jealous, so it came up with a plan to make the rest of the Kansas City gonna be jealous. Google's Fiber's "free" level of service is a one-time $300 fee like this setup, but you get slower speeds. Now, for that same $300, you get the gigabit in NKC. Interesting.


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## Dylan (Sep 18, 2014)

D. Strout said:


> Ahh, makes sense. North Kansas City was jealous, so it came up with a plan to make the rest of the Kansas City gonna be jealous.


LiNKCity predates Google Fiber by about six years, but it's been a financial disaster for the city since it started. Last year Google agreed to pay to use North Kansas City's fiber as a pass-through to other areas, and that was supposed to be a financial turning point, but apparently even that wasn't enough to get the system out of its deficit.

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/linkcity-google-fiber-dark-fiber/Content?oid=3220559


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## drmike (Sep 18, 2014)

Dylan said:


> LiNKCity predates Google Fiber by about six years, but it's been a financial disaster for the city since it started. Last year Google agreed to pay to use North Kansas City's fiber as a pass-through to other areas, and that was supposed to be a financial turning point, but apparently even that wasn't enough to get the system out of its deficit.
> 
> http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/linkcity-google-fiber-dark-fiber/Content?oid=3220559


Although the fiber - most of it dark [unlit and unused] hasn't panned it for lINKCity, the city appears to continue to finance deficits from a gambling funded stash. 

Inevitably, the fiber will see a ROI / local utility justification or it will be liquidated and that money likely thrown into a general slush fund.   I hope they stick to owning the fiber and benefitting the citizens there.

We need more local fiber projects like this in the States.


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## iann_lfcvps (Sep 18, 2014)

This is great news in my opinion. Another gigabit player enters the market on the cheap and hopefully it continues to show the rest of the states that these types of projects are possible and viable.


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## DomainBop (Sep 18, 2014)

iann_lfcvps said:


> This is great news in my opinion. Another gigabit player enters the market on the cheap and hopefully it continues to show the rest of the states that these types of projects are possible and viable.


These types of projects are possible to start but until someone turns a profit nobody is going to be convinced they have a viable business model and are sustainable, or stated another way...it was possible for WebVan to start their little grocery delivery project and it was possible for them to raise $375 million in their IPO but the party ended for their unsustainable business model when they burned through their cash...

Question: will this fiber network be connected to the outside world via DataShack's lovely network mix of GogentHE?


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## Munzy (Sep 18, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> These types of projects are possible to start but until someone turns a profit nobody is going to be convinced they have a viable business model and are sustainable, or stated another way...it was possible for WebVan to start their little grocery delivery project and it was possible for them to raise $375 million in their IPO but the party ended for their unsustainable business model when they burned through their cash...
> 
> Question: will this fiber network be connected to the outside world via DataShack's lovely network mix of GogentHE?



Or for that matter, will it be connected to anything. I have a server at datashack and I might hook it up to it, just not sure yet.


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## drmike (Sep 18, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> These types of projects are possible to start but until someone turns a profit nobody is going to be convinced they have a viable business model and are sustainable, or stated another way...it was possible for WebVan to start their little grocery delivery project and it was possible for them to raise $375 million in their IPO but the party ended for their unsustainable business model when they burned through their cash...
> 
> Question: will this fiber network be connected to the outside world via DataShack's lovely network mix of GogentHE?


Well, this porkject was government payoff reshuffling.   It was a tax on the gambling industry that bankrolled the metro fiber.  Unsure if there has been ANY real local chip in.  Ideally someone else can reference that info to confirm either way.

Their main website fails to address any of the gorey details:

http://uniteprivatenetworks.com]

Unite runs a network mix of Level3, Telia and Qwest.

Hopefully, with this deal some of these other upstreams start getting mixed into the Datashack mix.

PS: Appears United Private Networks is going a good bit of hiring, for anyone in the Kansas City area:

http://uniteprivatenetworks.com/careers/



> *Current Position Openings:*
> *Customer Operations Team*
> 
> Senior Project Coordinator – Fiber to Tower Initiative – Kansas City Metro
> ...


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## eva2000 (Sep 20, 2014)

woah that's cheap.. beats me paying AUD$123/month for cable with Telstra Australia !


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## drmike (Sep 20, 2014)

eva2000 said:


> woah that's cheap.. beats me paying AUD$123/month for cable with Telstra Australia !


Beat the pants out of the cable / telco lack of throughput duopoly I call home and pay 2x+ for ahhh... I won't even say how pitiful my upstreams are.   I probably move packets faster and with less errors with a urine stream.


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## MCH-Phil (Sep 20, 2014)

And now I wish I never moved!  Damn stuck with this crap wireless that's 5/5 on a good day.    Miles ahead on upload than a lot of the US.


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## drmike (Sep 20, 2014)

5 on the upload side?  Yeah the local telcos don't offer such speeds, nor do the cable companies most of us suffer under.  Exceptions are their newest McRipoff plans and fiber. 

Don't go trying to get Static IPs or business access from the incumbents either.  Unless you like being robbed.


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## MCH-Phil (Sep 20, 2014)

I have TW Telecom, some legacy crap they don't really advertise any longer.  Sort of a PTP wireless.  It feeds back to an Intel facility close by that we piggyback off of.  This is what we are provided.  I may move to cable shortly, as ADSL in my area is a ripoff (7/1 for ~$50).  Cable will be also though with CableOne (50/unknown for ~50), I know that CO is oversubscribed here like nothing else though.  Thus I stick with this PTP wifi lol.

Centurylink is able to offer decent upload here.  I have a few DSL links that are closer to 10Mb up.  Comcast as well, as we know by looking at their site also does.  I have a few 5Mb up links with them also.  These are all business accounts.  Alas nothing like 1Gb.


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## drmike (Sep 20, 2014)

TW Telecom and a 5Mbps upside?  Is this business class?     TW Telecom = biz unit spun off from Time Warner Cable years back and recently sold to someone...

I use to have a PTP wireless link 10 years ago.  I loved it.   3 hops and 20+ miles in all weather with mere milliseconds end to end.  Quite sick on 5.8Ghz band I do believe it was.   Best bandwidth one can have unless you get fiber directly to your place.


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## MCH-Phil (Sep 20, 2014)

It is provided via an affiliation with Intel, this is business class.


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## BrianHarrison (Sep 24, 2014)

How is the fiber run in North Kansas City? Telephone poles? Underground? I would think it'd cost a lot more than $300 to bring connectivity into a house...


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## drmike (Sep 24, 2014)

BrianHarrison said:


> How is the fiber run in North Kansas City? Telephone poles? Underground? I would think it'd cost a lot more than $300 to bring connectivity into a house...


Kansas City is an old city.   Can't see them running most of it any other way than telephone poles as right of ways would be littered and non existent in most places.

I know Google was being blah about pole fees with KC proper and some early special treatment / franchise whining from others.   I expect the same there in N KC.

Fiber typically is already there in such a project.   If they intend on towing it down every street in town, well that gets pricey.  

Looking at maps, the town appears to be a rather simple grid.  The streets to the South start at 10th and go up to 32nd.  East to west looking at maximum of about 20 blocks... so something like 20 x 32.

Total area in their borders: Land area: 4.36 square miles.  Bunch of that is industrial, traintracks, water related stuff, etc.

Rolling a truck for this, yeah it's pricey.   If it is pole/line to home, still adds up, but doable.   I know from FIOS rollout what a fiasco rolling trucks was, high gear costs and installs that often take many hours.  Think Verizon put per customer FIOS start costs up north of $700 per and that was where fiber already was on that street running by the structure.

Should note there appears to be a casino in the N KC city limits.

Very very strange town though.  Never saw anything like this.

The town appears to own and bankroll the local hospital to the tune of:

1610 full time employees @ $7,360,536 per month spent

and

1,029 part time employees @ $2,324,381 per month spent.....

Hospitals: $285,000,000 ($66480.06 per citizen)

Their police department totals 43 employees. Or 7.48 per 1k citizens.  Compare that to Missouri per 1k citizens rate of 2.42.

Quite a bit of handouts seemingly going into NKC.... can't see the local tax coffers @ 4287 residents total financing all this largess.


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## MattKC (Sep 26, 2014)

Harrahs NKC pays for a bunch of it, it's a fairly "large" complex for the Midwest, 2 hotel towers, 4 or 5 restaurants, live ent pavilion, etc. They bounce in and out of the #2 spot for casino revenue for the 6 casino KC market. NKC is also corporate headquarter of Cerner so big tax generator there as well compared to the actual small population base.


I always laugh when I pass the hospital as it seems they are always adding another few floors or new wing onto it. Most of the rural hospitals feed priority patients to NKC on the Missouri side. Cerner is across the street (and owns the old Sam's town casino complex just up the road...and MANY other buildings in the city). Harrahs is across the highway and rail tracks from there. Most residential in NKC is over 20 years old, somewhat rundown. Definitely pole to house here, most streets don't even have curbs (pre-date casino revenue from the two casinos opened in early 90's, Harrahs then bought Sam's Town to reduce competition and moved the boat upriver, sold the facility off to Cerner. A lot of train/truck/river traffic. Used to be many factories, they tore down two old massive abandoned food plants in past two years. Trying to get the city updated a bit, it tends to be over shadowed by it's bigger neighbors.


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## drmike (Sep 26, 2014)

Interesting spot @MattKC  welcome aboard.

Could be a mini boom for North Kansas City if they have affordable and vacant housing available.   Price of the fiber makes it a lure for technology focused folks and there aren't many places about to offer fiber to home.

Definitely a strange town with the city-owned hospital (and a big one at that).... and the casinos...

Certainly a corporate town that leans on said corporations for their existence to a big degree.

In my younger days, yeah I would have considered moving there if fiber was then offered.


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## tdale (Oct 3, 2014)

I want a gig eachway at home  I can't get fios here it sucks.


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## drmike (Oct 3, 2014)

What are you still in in Buffa-hell or what @tdale ???  FIOS rocks.  Where you can actually get it 

Verizon took billions in universal service fees for high speed bandwidth for many years...

Unsure why Attorney Generals in Verizon territories aren't demanding the money back to consumers.


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## tdale (Oct 4, 2014)

@drmike I'm in Lockport No FIOS. I had FIOS when I first moved here in Kenmore but i moved out of my apartment since then and now have crap TWC.


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## drmike (Oct 4, 2014)

tdale said:


> @drmike I'm in Lockport No FIOS. I had FIOS when I first moved here in Kenmore but i moved out of my apartment since then and now have crap TWC.


Poor you!  Time to escape from New York.   Time Warner monopoly and local telco option just stinks.

That's enough to make a #HOSTRESS


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