Great question! My best guess (based on years of work in this industry) is that Baltimore City’s legal department can’t figure out how to legally permit microtrenching, so it’s one of those back-burner things that will never progress beyond “wow, other medium and large-sized cities do this and it’s great for all involved, but we should keep studying it indefinitely [and spend taxpayer dollars to commission a report from a preferred contractor that will result in nothing]”.

Funding a municipal fiber network probably shouldn’t be the goal. Incentivizing market entry for more providers would likely result in the same outcome for customers with very little stress to the city.

Example: Baltimore received $35m in ARPA funding earmarked for Digital Equity initiatives. So far, they’re looking at using these funds to connect rec centers to the city’s fiber ring and to deploy public Wi-Fi zones (which, let’s be honest- how useful will public Wi-Fi actually be?). To date, there’s been nothing earmarked for home broadband service. In addition, unlike almost every other municipality in Maryland, Baltimore does not have a fiber leasing program, so building fiber assets for the city will not result in increased connectivity to residential customers.

If Baltimore used some of this federal funding to establish something like a Conduit Fee Rebate Program through which qualified ISPs could more affordably build infrastructure in the conduit system in order to serve a set number of under-connected neighborhoods/households, they would essentially be unlocking restricted funding and paying themselves while encouraging a broader number of ISPs to deliver residential service.

The complete lack of competition in the internet market in Baltimore is a huge reason available service is so shitty.

Absolutely not. And current conduit division billing issues make water billing look like a well-oiled machine.

FWIW, directional boring is currently not permitted in Baltimore City (and neither is micro trenching, which would be a game changer for fiber-to-the-home service here).

This is a really complicated issue. The City conduit division is understaffed and still struggling with data lost during the 2019 ransomware attack. I recently waited nearly 5 months for a permit to make its way through this office and the final result wound up costing 4x as much as anticipated due to rerouting. My organization builds fiber to serve internet deserts in Baltimore, and provides low-income households with free home broadband. For a non-profit, these delays and revisions have been incredibly burdensome, and represent really significant barriers to entry for other ISPs interested in expanding service to the 40% of Baltimore households who don’t have home internet service.

For context, conduit fees are presently $2.20/foot/year. When you apply for conduit access where there is none, you are then tasked with building conduit on your own dime. After you build this conduit, the city takes possession of it and you pay them to rent what you just paid to build.

The article points out that this will put digital equity efforts in jeopardy. The truth is, the city conduit division (and the conduit fee structure, generally) are putting digital equity efforts in jeopardy already. This has been the case for years. Add the fact that Comcast’s franchise agreement allows them to submit all permits for conduit access in arrears, and equity becomes a really significant concern.

I hesitate to mention this “hot take”, but BGE might be better positioned to operate the conduit system than what we have right now. At minimum, if the city continues to own/operate the conduit system, significant changes need to be made.

Check out the spaces at 1100 Wicomico (Pigtown)! I love my workshop/studio there, and it’s an awesome building with so many vibrant tenants!

Abell reports are a fantastic way to examine some of the very entrenched, yet solvable problems Baltimore faces.

It’s worth reading their recent report on the RAD Program, which is part of the city’s long-term strategy to reduce its high-rise public housing stock.

I used Guaranteed Rate Affinity last year to manage a complicated post-divorce refinance on my home in Howard County. They were great and very professional.

Like others have mentioned, my loan was purchased by Chase 4 months later.

It really depends on the basement.

My unfinished stone wall basement 1 block from Boston St. regularly got wet during rain. Namely tons of condensation which ran down the walls when it was raining or humid. It always dried out thoroughly in pretty short order.

My next door neighbor’s house had a professionally waterproofed/finished basement that stayed completely dry in similar weather.

The basement never flooded during storms (Isabel, Sandy, etc).