Muni Broadband Hall of Shame

Dalton, Georgia (est. population 32,140) has the dubious distinction of being the nation’s top municipal broadband “money pit,” accounting for $171 million, or $5,320 per capita, of the $840 million spent across the 52 cities studied in the February 2007 Pacific Research Institute study, Wi-Fi Waste: The Disaster of Municipal Communications Networks.

The other nine cities with the highest spending on broadband are:

Tacoma, Washington.............$110.9 million
Grant County, Washington...............$76.4 million
Jackson, Tennessee.........................$63.7 million
Alameda, California......................$59.3 million
Provo, Utah.............................................$45.7 million
Newnan, Georgia.....................................$41.8 million
Bristol, Virginia........................................$37.8 million
Marietta, Georgia......................................$25.9 million
Muscatine, Iowa.......................................$22.9 million

Together, these 10 systems account for 78 percent of total government-initiated spending in the U.S. telecom industry.

-- Steven Titch