community broadband networks

A growing number of electric coops are providing Internet access to residents and businesses in areas of the country where big providers don't offer services. It’s not a big leap because many electric coops already use fiber for communication between electric substations. Expanding in order to offer high quality Internet access is a logical next step.

In Nevada, the Valley Electric Association (VEA) is bringing Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to members in 2016 and helping create new jobs in Pahrump and Fish Lake Valley. The coop's subsidiary Valley Communications Association (VCA), will operate the network.

Details on speeds and rates are yet to be determined, but the coop plans to offer Internet access up to 1 gigabit.

Community Job Creators

Currently, VEA employs 107 full-time staff and has 31 new job openings; they intend to add a total of 38 positions over the next year. The subsidiary VCA employs 10 full time and contract employees and anticipates adding another 50 employees by the end of 2016.

Municipal networks draw in new businesses and bring new life to communities. For instance, the network in Chanute, Kansas, helped draw in a new manufacturing facility with 150 jobs from Spirit AeroSystems in 2012. And in Thomasville, Georgia, the municipal network revitalized the downtown bringing more than 200 jobs to Main Street. With the addition of high-speed Internet access, this community in Nevada is well positioned for economic development.

From Small Coop to Big Dreams

In 1965, the VEA started off as a small rural coop, but now it has expanded to serve over 45,000 people across 6,800 square-miles of service area. Tom Husted, VEA's CEO, expressed his expectations for the new fiber network: 

“It’s going to add jobs, enhance communications and revolutionize Internet service in our territory.”

The city of Albany, New York (pop. 100,000) recently hired a consulting firm to study the high-speed Internet needs of the community, including possibly the municipality building its own fiber optic network.

The study will, among other things, “assess the strengths and weaknesses of Internet access currently available in the city,” according to a city news release. 

According to Albany officials, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of children in Upstate New York communities live in households that cannot afford broadband service in their homes.

The Albany study will also “investigate the extent of a digital divide in Albany that prevents some residents from getting fast and affordable Internet service at home or elsewhere,” and “recommend a prudent path, including funding opportunities, to ensure the City has a broadband network that is affordable and provides high-speed Internet access for all.”

Albany expects the consultant to complete its work before this summer. The Albany Community Development Agency is contributing $20,000 toward the study with the city pursuing additional funding.  

We asked officials at Albany City Hall if the feasibility study will include the city possibly building its own municipal network.  An official from Albany’s Broadband team responded, “The language in the broadband feasibility study purposely did not include specific solutions.” But, they added, “One of options certainly could be a municipal fiber network.”

Affordable Internet Service a Problem

In a January 22, 2016 press release, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said: 

 “Whether you’re a student or a business owner, we live in a world where high speed connections are essential to success. This study will provide the lay of the land of broadband in Albany and outline how we can move broadband service forward in a cost-efficient and timely manner, making sure we bridge any digital divide that prevents residents, especially schoolchildren, from getting affordable and fast broadband access.”

Study Follows Working Group Initiative 

The city’s study comes in the aftermath of work from Albany’s Broadband Initiative Working Group, which is comprised of representatives from the Albany Public Library, the Downtown and Central Ave BIDS, the City School District of Albany, Green Tech Charter School, the Albany Housing Authority, the Albany Promise, and the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany, as well as business leaders, according to the city. 

Councilman Still Seeking Commission

Despite the new feasibility study, Albany Councilman Judd Krasher told us he is still pursuing his ordinance proposal to form a city commission comprised of residents whose specific charge would be studying the feasibility of the municipality building its own high-speed Internet network. Krasher contended Mayor Sheehan’s Working Group really hasn’t given much consideration to a municipal built and owned network. 

“I believe that Internet access is a necessity for people and not a privilege,” Krasher said. “For many people, it (Internet access) is out of reach.” 

Krasher suggested Albany might want to participate with one or more neighboring towns to build and operate a joint municipal high-speed Internet network.  His commission proposal comes out of frustration with Albany’s existing Internet service.

“Time Warner has a monopoly,” Krasher said.  “I don’t know any of my constituents who are happy with their customer service and pricing. They are not pleased with what they are getting from Time Warner.”

Internet speeds in Albany are also lackluster, with the average download speed just a shade over 20 Megabits per second (Mbps), Krasher said. And there are wide pockets of areas in Albany where upwards of 50 percent of poor residents cannot afford to have any Internet service, he said. In Albany, about 30 percent of the city’s population is black with 8 percent Hispanic and 4 percent Asian. 

Major Gaps Exist in New York’s Internet Service  

This latest news from Albany comes as major gaps persist in high speed Internet access in many parts of New York. Previously, MuniNetworks.org reported that FreeNet, Albany’s free wireless network, received a $625,000 state grant in 2009 earmarked to expand its service. But neither FreeNet nor Time Warner Cable and Verizon, the two biggest providers of broadband service in Albany, provides the fast, affordable, reliable connectivity a municipal fiber-based network could provide. 

We also noted that at hearings last year before the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC), political leaders and consumers from the cities of Poughkeepsie, Buffalo, and Bethlehem expressed particular frustration with Verizon’s unwillingness to build its FIOS (a FTTH) fiber service out to underserved parts of New York. In some cases they asked the state’s Public Service Commission to strengthen regulations and require private companies to bring better Internet service statewide.

Across his state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has set a goal of bringing broadband to all New Yorkers by 2018.

A recent report by Victoria Rideout and Vikki S. Katz from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Sesame Workshop delves into detail on the experiences of lower income families and Internet access. The report, “Opportunity for all? Technology and learning in lower-income families,” points to the promises of digital inclusion for educational opportunities, but also to the current inequalities in Internet access. 

The researchers highlight several key findings from the study in an effort to inform policymakers of the root causes, and effects, of these inequalities on lower-income families. They include issues of race (families headed by Hispanic immigrants are less connected), of access (mobile-only and inconsistent connectivity), and of affordability (despite the existence of discounted programs).

Discounted Programs Not Working

We’ve written several times about the failings of the large corporate providers’ discounted programs for Internet access. Over the past few years, Comcast’s Internet Essentials program has been a prime example. We reported on the Consumerist article that highlighted how the program benefits Comcast more than lower-income families. In 2013, our Lisa Gonzalez shared her own family’s experience with the program. 

Rideout and Katz’s report again show the real impact of these programs’ failures. Only 5% of those surveyed had ever signed up for the programs although many met the eligibility requirements. Even those that did receive the service sometimes found that it could not meet their needs. After all, the program only provides up to 5 megabits per second (Mbps) in download speeds. A parent of a seventh grader in Colorado explained to the researchers (page 11): 

I had (Internet Essentials) because (my children) had assignments that they needed the computer for... I hated it. It wasn’t working. It was too slow, it would freeze and they couldn’t get anything done. We had it for almost a year. I just got rid of it. I was paying $10 (a month) to not use it.

A Better Solution: Community

The report from Rideout and Katz at the Sesame Workshop found that the largest barrier for Internet access in lower-income households is financial. The researchers detail the many ways that better Internet access would provide better education opportunities for lower-income children, and the survey shows that parents know this too.

So, why haven’t these discounted programs been effective in bridging the digital divide? The programs aren’t readily available. Enrollment is confusing. And, more importantly, people outside the community run these programs - people who don’t know what the community needs. 

Chattanooga’s municipal network offers a better solution. Chattanooga took the best aspects of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program and combined them with a deep understanding of community needs. An effective policy for providing affordable Internet access must be rooted in the community.

Ting has chosen the Greater Sandpoint, Idaho, region as its next Internet access service area. The partnership will allow Ting to provide gigabit Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Internet access to residents and businesses in Sandpoint, Dover, Ponderay, and Kootenai. The four communities are located in Bonner County, in the panhandle area of the state; approximately 9,700 people populate the proposed service area.

Rural Subscribers Want It, Need It, Will Use It

Potential subscribers can pre-order right away as part of Ting's "demand assessment" phase. Construction will begin later in 2016 when Ting determines there is sufficient demand in the region. 

In a March 2nd announcement:

“Internet speed and infrastructure is an issue that is on the national agenda,” said Elliot Noss, CEO of Ting and its parent company Tucows. “While it’s obviously very important to get major metros connected with fast fiber Internet, Ting Internet is proving that the fastest Internet access available isn’t just for city centers. Smaller cities and towns need faster, more reliable Internet too. Maybe even more so.”

Ting has made it known that it is looking for more communities that are willing to lease their publicly owned fiber to the company. Ting hopes to build upon municipal fiber assets to bring FTTH to cities, towns, and villages of all sizes. We are pleased to pass on news of this plan to bring high quality Internet access to one of many less populated communities in the U.S. One should not have to live in a metropolitan area just to get fast, affordable, reliable Internet access.

The Ting Community Is Growing

Westminster, Maryland, already works with Ting; the provider offers gigabit service over its publicly owned fiber network. Sandpoint has publicly owned conduit and fiber that likely played a part in attract Ting to the community. Ting will also be deploying its own fiber in Holly Springs, North Carolina and integrating its assets with the town's fiber backbone. In Sandpoint, as in these other communities, service will be symmetrical so speeds will be the same for both the download and the upload.

Jesse Harris over at FreeUTOPIA is noting an important shift in the discussions and controversies that surround Utah’s UTOPIA open access network. For starters, as the network is increasingly showing signs of financial success, he’s noticing that critics of the network have gone silent. Meanwhile, more and more people in the region seem to be interested in getting connected to the network. 

After almost a decade spent covering the UTOPIA open source network, Harris declared victory for UTOPIA and for local authority over broadband access in Utah.

We’ll let Jesse take it from here:

UTOPIA is probably in the best shape it has ever been in. They have or will soon hit operational break even, where all operating expenses are now covered by revenues. Between remaining UIA money and the RUS settlement, they have operating capital they can use to expand the network. In fact, expansion is now underway in Perry, Layton, Midvale, and West Valley City. All of the expansion is being done to demand and the cost is landing squarely on subscribers.

Even the public attitude is different. I don’t see baseless fact-free editorials against it with any notable frequency. Even the Utah Taxpayers Association has gone uncharacteristically silent. Orem elected pro-UTOPIA candidates. Murray has been actively working on ways to maximize the network in their city. Payson reportedly even shows up to board meetings with regularity now. From many sources, I hear less “how do we get rid of it” and more “how do I get it in my house”. The importance of competitive, fairly priced, and high performance broadband has entered the mass consciousness in a way that I haven’t seen it before. Most importantly, highly visible failures by incumbents to deliver the kind of broadband nirvana they’ve been promising for decades has made the public highly cynical to their claims.

There is still work to do. UTOPIA has a lot of network to build to serve every address in member cities. There are a lot of areas badly neglected by incumbents that don’t have any kind of viable competition. Google is great for those that have it but creates a lot of have nots and replaces one duopolist with another. The companies who are doing interesting competitive things can’t really do it at scale. Despite these challenges, one thing is certain.

We won the war.

Yes, I’m declaring victory. It’s taken nearly 10 years of running this blog, but the hearts and minds part of the game is more-or-less over. It’s all mop-up operations from here, scattered battles that I think we’ll have little trouble seeing through to victory.

In Jesse’s decade of diligently tracking all things UTOPIA, he’s covered good news (see here and here), setbacks, the network’s tumultuous history, and he’s been a voice of reason in the face of misinformation efforts.

We’d like to salute Jesse for 10 years of effective advocacy for UTOPIA and for the municipal broadband movement as a whole. Thanks Jesse!

Next Century Cities (NCC) is hosting Digital Northwest: A Broadband Summit for Regional Broadband Leaders at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, Washington. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is co-hosting the event.

The summit will bring together federal, state, and local officials, industry representatives, and community leaders to celebrate successes and share resources. The summit will examine gaps that remain and strategize on how to expand high-speed Internet access.

After a welcome reception in the evening of Sunday, March 20th, there will be a daylong summit on Monday, March 21st featuring workshops on a variety of topics ranging from rural Internet access to the digital economy. 

Conference attendees are invited to stay a little longer. In the morning of Tuesday, March 22nd, government officials, industry representatives, and other experts will be on hand to answer questions in an “office hours” session.

What: Digital Northwest: A Broadband Summit for Regional Broadband Leaders 

Where: Bell Harbor International Conference Center, Seattle, Washington, 98121. 

When: March 20-21, 2016 (optional: the morning of March 22, 2016)

Register online for the summit.

Last week, we were excited at the announcement from Huntsville Utilities in Alabama. Huntsville is building a municipal dark fiber network to every premise in its territory that will be open to multiple service providers. Google has already committed to using it to bring real connectivity to the community.

In this week's episode, 191, we are talking with Tom Reiman and Stacy Cantrell to understand the model. Tom is President of The Broadband Group, the consultant that is working with Huntsville on this project. Stacy Cantrell is the Vice President of Engineering for Huntsville Utilities.

We talk about how the model originated, some of the technical details behind the network, and what benefits they expect to see. This is an excellent discussion with many implications for the thousands of communities that want to improve Internet access locally but would prefer not to offer services directly.

The transcript from this episode is available here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 33 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."

Starting this spring, the City of Springfield, Massachusetts will offer free municipal Wi-Fi and new dark fiber capacity to a 7-block area of the city’s downtown known as the “Springfield Innovation District.”

As Masslive.com reports, the new dark fiber will create a connection between the city’s Springfield Innovation Center and an existing network of dark fiber capacity in this part of downtown. The publicly owned fiber currently provides gigabit connectivity to municipal buildings but the city will lease out excess capacity. The new Wi-Fi and dark fiber services are part of a broader plan aimed at boosting economic development and innovation in Springfield, the state’s third largest city at 150,000 and the fourth largest city in all of New England. 

The project is phase one of a broader plan to soon expand the network even further in order to reach an additional downtown area and all of the city’s public parks. Springfield’s Chief Information Officer Kevin Kennedy estimates the project’s phase 1 total cost between $50,000 and $100,000. While users interested in connecting to the dark fiber will contract with a private provider for Internet service, the city will be the service provider for the free downtown Wi-Fi.

Preparing for New Tourism, Increased Economic Development, Better Livability

Over the next two years, the city will welcome a new Union Station transportation center and an MGM Casino in the city’s downtown area. With the increased tourism, Kennedy told WAMC Radio that it would be “embarrassing” for Springfield not to have free downtown Wi-Fi.

Delcie Bean, the founder of a Springfield IT company and the creator a downtown-based tech training organization called Tech Foundry, believes the new network capacity is essential to attracting people to work, live, and play in downtown Springfield:

"Connectivity like this is like what electricity was to an earlier age," he said. " It opens up the possibilities for other things to happen because we will have this fundamental base." While pointing at a downtown park near his offices, Bean added, "If we are ever going to activate that park as a public work space, we are going to need to have Wi-Fi. Even food trucks use Wi-Fi these days to process credit cards. There is just so much you can't do without it."

Local coverage:

Alabama

Google Fiber joins forces with municpal broadband network by Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica

Google to use city-owned network to bring fiber to Hunstville by Wendy Davis, Media Post

This private-public model for broadband could spread far beyond Huntsville, according to muni-broadband proponent Christopher Mitchell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Community Broadband Networks Initiative.

"In many ways, I think this is a tremendously hopeful development," Mitchell tells MediaPost. "It gives cities a great confidence that if they build passive infrastructure, they will be able to work with ISPs."

Google Fiber is coming to Hunstville, Alabama by Kent Wallace, Financial CV

Google Fiber is bring its ultra-fast Internet service to Hunstville by Lee Roop, AL.com

Hunstville's model for Google Fiber is the future of broadband by Kari Paul, Motherboard

Missouri

AT&T gave $62K to lawmakers months before vote to limit muni-broadband by Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica

Missouri already has a law from 1997 that says municipalities may not sell telecommunications services to the public with the exception of “Internet-type services.” This made it difficult to build a financially sound Internet service because it couldn’t be bundled with other telecom products like telephone calling, municipal broadband advocate Christopher Mitchell told Ars. Mitchell is director of the Community Broadband Networks project for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Arkansas

Little Rock, it's (past) time to begin a conversation about bringing next generation Internet to our city by Tim Freeman, Hark

California

Google Fiber - high-speed Internet - seeks to narrow digital divide with free service in SF by KTVU

New York

Smart City Commission to develop plan for city-wide high-speed Internet 

Virginia

Virginia Beach, VA., bolsters its broadband network by Stacy Parker, GovTech

West Virginia

West Virginia senate OKs bill to expand rural broadband by Herald Dispatch

General

Why Comcast is wrong to shrug off latest Google Fiber announcements by Chris Morran, Consumerist

Anti-Charter/TWC form complaints flood FCC by John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable

Mayors must step up for broadband by Jennifer Roberts, Next City

One year later, net neutrality still faces attacks in court and Congress by Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica

Officials in the City of Ammon, Idaho, are moving closer to expanding their municipal network to residents with a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. The FTTH expansion is the latest phase in their incremental approach in this community of 14,500 people in the southeast corner of Idaho.

Ammon’s Director of IT, Bruce Patterson, told us the history of the network’s development in a 2014 Community Broadband Bits Podcast. After starting the network several years ago with just a single link between two municipal buildings, the network gradually expanded the network to community anchor institutions. They also decided to serve businesses on a case-by-case basis. Since the beginning, the city kept its eye on its goal: to offer fiber access to every home in Ammon.

Ammon's FTTH Expansion Process

Ammon officials are acting prudently to gauge customer demand and wait for the necessary funding mechanisms to fall into place prior to additional construction. As we reported in August 2015, officials are asking residents to submit an online form to express their intent to sign up for service. City officials also held meetings with residents in September and October to explain the proposed expansion plans and give residents a chance to test out the gigabit speed service.

The city plans to extend residential service one large neighborhood at a time, letting customer demand dictate the direction of the expansion. The city will pay for the expansion entirely through service commitments from residents who choose to have a fiber connection extended to their home. This method will allow the city to expand without contributions from non-subscribers.

Patterson told us that the city is currently in the process of getting legal approval to bond on the FTTH expansion phase. He said he is confident the city will soon be approved for the bonding and anticipates that they will be able to put a shovel in the ground by May or June of this year.

What Will Residents Pay?

Ultimately, the exact price of getting an FTTH connection in Ammon will depend on how many people sign up; the more residents who sign up, the lower the prices will be. Details are still being hammered out, but Patterson gave us an estimate of what the city has in mind.

First, the city will secure a bond to pay for the expansion construction process. The city will then ask residents who want fiber connections to their homes to pay a fee that will go toward paying off the bond. The connected resident could pay this connection fee over a 20-year period as a property tax assessment of about $15 monthly. As Patterson told Chris in their most recent podcast interview:

"...[I]n terms of the financing for it, it seems logical that since fiber to your home raises your property value that we'd find some way to bond for that and put the payment for that bond as on assessment on your property tax because it does actually increase your property value so that's our goal. We do that with what they call a local improvement district."

In addition, the resident would pay a utility service fee to the city for operations and maintenance costs of the network estimated between $15-$25. Finally, the resident would pay a service fee to one of multiple ISPs that would provide service over the open access network.  

Patterson estimates the total cost to a subscriber for a 100 megabit per second (Mbps) symmetrical connection would initially be about $60 monthly, similar to the price that Ammon residents currently pay for slower and less reliable connections from incumbent ISPs.

“I tell people they’ll be getting better service at about the same prices that are currently available for residential service in Ammon,” Patterson said.

The Ammon Model

Patterson created a new model for the network in Ammon called an Open Access Virtual Infrastructure (OAVI).  According to a white paper describing how the model works, Ammon’s OAVI model allows consumers greater choice and control than traditional open access network models.

For example, a customer who’s unhappy with their ISP or their service package for whatever reason in Ammon will be able to visit the network website and quickly select a new ISP or make service changes from a highly customizable set of options. Patterson believes additional benefits of this OAVI model will emerge in future years as Internet service evolves.

More details about the unique Ammon model are also available in our Community Broadband Bits podcast #173 from October. There, you’ll hear Chris talk to Patterson and Ty Ashcroft, Ammon's Systems Network Administrator, about some of the unique freedoms this business model affords end users.