Loma Linda: Fiber Town, USA?

Loma Linda, a town of 20,000 residents wedged between Riverside and San Bernadino in Southern California, says it was the first city in the U.S. to mandate a building code for residential and commercial structures to include fiber optics. They're inflating the costs to residents, however, to preserve profits for future private deployments. Some comparisons:

• Rotterdam: 30 Mbps upload and download service for $9 a month. That's $0.30 a megabit.
• France: 50 Mpbs upload and download service for $38 a month. That's $0.76 a megabit.
• Netherlands: 30 Mbps upload and download service for less than $9 a month.
• Loma Linda: 15 Mbps download planned for $100. That's $6.67 a megabit.
• Minneapolis: 5 Mpbs upload and download service max for $45 a month. That's $9.00 a megabit.

Esme Vos takes the town's CIO to task in the comments: "I cannot believe they are limiting the bandwidth so as not to undercut the future provider. That’s the wrong approach. LL should be upping the bandwidth, lowering the price to MAKE the provider compete and provide high bandwidth, cheaper service. LL should be setting a high floor, not a low ceiling."