Community Broadband Media Roundup - January 8

Minnesota

Building a 21st century broadband infrastructure by Senator Amy Klobuchar, Walker Minnesota Pilot

Minnesota Governor recommends $100 million rural broadband funding by Colin Wood, GovTech

 

Oregon

Survey to gauge public's interest in a city-owned fiber network by Phil Favorite, Lake Oswego Review

By operating its own fiber broadband network as a utility, the city would be able to set and control consumer costs and services while giving citizens a voice in pricing and content. That wouldn’t be the case if the city offered no alternative to for-profit companies such as CenturyLink, Comcast or Frontier, which currently operate broadband networks in the area, or Google Fiber, which is considering moving into the market.

Although Lake Oswego was identified in 2014 as a potential “fiberhood” — an area that could receive Google Fiber’s high-speed Internet service — the timeline has been vague. In March, Lazenby suggested to the council that the city didn’t have to wait for Google to make up its mind; instead, the city could build out a fiber-optic infrastructure through a public-private partnership, ultimately creating a city-owned utility.

 

Tennessee

Libraries lend mobile Wi-Fi hot spots to those who need Internet service by Tony Gonzalez, National Public Radio

Tennessee to evaluate broadband access by Jamie McGee, The Tennessean

 

Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin eyes muni-broadband network by Bailey McCann, CivSource

Explaining the city of Madison's broadband initiatives by Kristian Knutson, WORT-FM

 

General

FCC narrowly misses its Gigabit deployment goal by Karl Bode, DSL Reports

Home broadband use falls as consumers go mobile by David Jones, Tech News World

FCC gets more Comcast complains than AT&T, Verizon combined by Karl Bode, DSL Reports

FCC: broadband is not being deployed quickly enough by Karl Bode, DSL Reports