If Manassas Councilman Jonathan L. Way had his druthers, he'd shut down the city's low-cost Internet service as soon as possible, because it's costing the city more than $100,000 a year.
In 2003, the city introduced broadband over power lines, or BPL, to bring low-cost Internet access to city residents. Since then, the city has spent $1.6 million on the project, Way said.
The service has continued to shed customers while expenses have continued to rise.
"I think we need to get out of BPL forthwith," Way said Tuesday at a city council special meeting. "It's not a good product. The whole business is not financially sound and it never has been."
Forecasts by the utilities commission show that the service is likely to lose between $100,771 and $171,353, or an average of $151,825 each year over the next nine years.
Way said that's money the city could ill afford to lose. He said the service "should go and be over and done with."
Some of the initial cost of bringing the service to city residents and businesses included money to lay the infrastructure to include Internet signal over the power lines, said Michael C. Moon, the city's director of utilities.
With the $24.95-a-month service averaging fewer than 600 residential customers and roughly 50 business customers a month, there was not enough money coming in for salaries, maintenance and recouping the initial investment.
"It's costing a little more to maintain the system than we projected in the budget," Moon said. "The original projections were that the customer base would be double this."
Councilman Mark Wolfe agreed with Way and wanted the shutdown of the system to be completed by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
Councilmen Marc T. Aveni and Andrew L. "Andy" Harrover want to let the decision to shut down the service go through the budgeting process.
Way said that waiting until the end of the fiscal year to make the decision would cost more money because the city couldn't just turn it off the service overnight once the decision is made.
Manassas Bureau Chief Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.
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