Stockholm: 19 years of municipal broadband success

Stockholm: 19 years of municipal broadband success

The Stokab report should be required reading for all local government executives.

Stockholm is one of the top Internet cities in the world -- how do they do it? Wholesale communication infrastructure in Stockholm is provided by AB Stokab, which is owned by the Stockholm City Council. Stokab leases dark fiber and space in nodes/hubs where customers can install communication equipment and interconnect networks since 1994. Stokab's goal has been to build a competition-neutral infrastructure capable of meeting future communication needs, spurring economic activity, insuring diversity and freedom of choice and minimizing disruption to the city’s streets.

How has it worked out?

Quite well, as you see in the following figure, taken from Stokab's report on the socio-economic cost and benefit of the project:

Accumulated investments and socio-economic return in million Swedish Kronor.

The returns shown here reflect increased property value, returns of the municipal housing companies (currently breakeven, due to large investments), value for tenants, increased employment, Stokab’s profit, saving for the municipality’s and county’s data and IT costs, and increased economic activity in the supplier industry. To drill down into the details, see the Stokab report summary or the full Stokab report.

via cis471.blogspot.it