Conway, Arkansas (pop. 66,000) is in the midst of upgrading its hybrid fiber-coax network, and enjoying phenomenal take rates and pursuing economic development with a strong eye to the future. It has seen a steady increase in usage during the pandemic, and is looking to leverage its infrastructure to fuel an innovation center and downtown data district, bringing jobs and better connectivity for the benefit of all.
Cummington Connect Turns One Massachusetts Town From a Broadband Desert to an Oasis
Cummington (pop. 800), which straddles the banks of the Westfield River thirty miles northwest of Springfield and twenty miles east of the New York border, has just completed its municipal Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. It has been almost a decade in the making, and despite seeing its share of obstacles along the way, residents can now look forward to years of fast, affordable Internet access.
Broadband Beckons for Becket in the Berkshires
What Becket Town Administrator William Caldwell called “one of the most anticipated news [events]” in town was announced at the North Becket Village fire station weeks before Christmas. But town officials weren’t there to roll out a shiny new ladder truck or to bring their kids to meet Santa. They were there to bring glad tidings of the launch of construction for Becket Broadband, a municipal Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network that will usher high-speed Internet connectivity into this small Massachusetts hill town.
Le Sueur County, MN Hitting on All Cylinders
Over the last three years, Le Sueur County, Minnesota has assembled a task force of citizens, local officials, and business leaders which have succeeded in dramatically improving broadband for thousands of residents who previously had poor or no connectivity. In doing so, they’ve also forged relationships, inventoried local resources, and created a model which is likely to see the landscape go from one where nearly all residents in the county were under- or unserved by basic broadband at the beginning of 2018 to one where the vast majority of the community will have access at 100/20 Mbps in the next couple years. And if efforts continue to succeed, it’s possible we might see full fiber coverage in Le Sueur by the end of the decade, making it one of the most connected counties in the state.
Tags
at&t
audio
broadband bits
cable
chattanooga
christopher mitchell
colorado
comcast
competition
consideration
cooperative
dark fiber
digital divide
economic development
fcc
fiber
financing
FTTH
gigabit
legislation
local
massachusetts
media roundup
minnesota
muni
north carolina
open access
partnership
podcast
policy
preemption
rural
school
state laws
stimulus
tennessee
transcript
utility
video
Wireless