City approves ordinances to provide broadband services to residents

Ponca City’s Board of Commissioners and Utility Authority Trustees have approved ordinances to offer broadband services to city residents as a utility.

The service, named Ponca City Broadband, is 100 percent fiber to the home, Technology Services Director Dave Williams said at Monday’s commission meeting.

One ordinance established the rates the city will charge for the service.

A $200 account application fee can be paid in either a lump sum or paid out at $10 a month over 24 months. The additional $40 will be added as a convenience fee for the payment plan, Williams said.

The basic service plan offering 50 Mb per second is $60 a month.

An advance service plan offering 100 Mb per second is $100 a month, and

A full Gig plan offering 1 Gb per second is $200 a month.

These speeds are for download speeds to the customer. Upload speeds will be somewhere between 7 and 10 percent across all three plans, Williams said.

“The rate structure doesn’t match what existing providers in Ponca City charge for their services, but we’re not trying to,” Williams said. “It wouldn’t be fair to match their price — because we’re certainly not going to match their levels of service. It’s important to keep in mind this new utility has several distinctions which will considerably improve high-speed internet access:

1. First of all, the entire outside plant will not only be brand new — it will be state-of-the-art and professionally engineered,
2. The system is 100 percent fiber optics. Nothing else, anywhere in the network, and you absolutely cannot beat the speed of fiber optics,
3. There are no asterisks in any of these plans. Customers won’t get “up to” the speeds they pay for — they’ll actually get the bandwidth they pay for, every time and all the time,
4. There are no data caps in any of the plans, either,
5. Nor will customers of this new utility be faced with any hidden fees, or fees that escalate unexplainably from one month to the next,
6. There is no long-term contract. If this new utility does not live up to these promises, customers can cancel at any time, without penalties,
7. Lastly, every dollar paid into this service will remain in Ponca City. It won’t be a dividend to shareholders.

Another ordinance allows city staff to purchase a block of IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. Each individual home using the service will get a public IP address. Through a router, each home can set up private IP addresses for individual devices in the home.

A third ordinance will allow for the purchase or construction of necessary supplies, including two structures and needed electronics.

The final ordinance sets the name of the utility as Ponca City Broadband and authorizes a marketing campaign. This is the same name that has been used for business broadband for 13 years.

Installation will be done in phases, starting with the area bounded by Bradley Avenue and Highland Avenue, and 14th Street and Union Street.