Wireless

Content tagged with "Wireless"

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In Missoula, Montana, a Wireless Mesh Network Builds Community and Connections

A year after a group of local broadband champions got together to see how they could improve Internet access in Missoula, Montana, the Missoula Valley Internet Cooperative has successfully raised funds and designed, deployed, and launched a wireless mesh network delivering 150 Megabit per second (Mbps) symmetrical service to more than 50 of 550 pre-registered households for, on average, $40-60/month. The community-owned option has injected some welcome competition to a stagnant local broadband market, with a second network already in the planning stages in a community to the north.

Both efforts are being driven by the Pacific Northwest Rural Broadband Alliance (PNWRBA), a Missoula, Montana-based nonprofit aiming to build resiliency, local capacity, and expand quality Internet access to the region by making use of a variety of community-oriented business models. The nonprofit serves not only to coordinate grassroots organizing efforts, but provide technical assistance and lead policy engagement with local leaders. It is running a dual mission. First, to bring faster and more affordable Internet access via a community-owned model to the area. And second, to prove out a series of models in the region with the hopes of generating additional community-based approaches to improving broadband in the region and beyond.

Grant Creek 

Leader from Yurok Tribe in California Explains the Impacts of Digital Sovereignty At Broadband Bootcamp

Back in July, with the support of the Internet Society and a crew of community broadband advocates interested in increasing digital sovereignty across Indian Country, five tribes participated in the first ever Tribal Broadband Bootcamp

The Yurok Tribe (northern California), Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria (northern California), Hoopa Valley Tribe (northern California), Pueblo of Laguna (New Mexico), and Nation of Hawaii have all applied for and received a 2.5 GHz license to build a community network for their tribes. 

In this video, Jessica Engle, IT Director for the Yurok Tribe speaks in more detail about the connectivity challenges her community has faced historically, and how she is returning home from the bootcamp ready to put her newfound knowledge to work. 

“When you bring high-speed Internet, that’s when development happens and opportunity happens. So, you know, making sure that (tribal) council and everyone’s aware this is going to cost money, and it probably won’t have a huge return on investment directly. But there are a million different indirect benefits of bringing the access,” Engle says in the video. 

Currently, the standard connection for residents is 1 Megabits per second (Mbps) download. The premium is 5 Mbps.

Both her and Linnea Jackson, General Manager for Hoopa Valley PUD stress the importance of tribes in their region being able to build and operate their own networks. 

“You do have the ability to provide service for your own people,” said Linnae Jackson, General Manager of the Hoopa Valley PUD. 

Watch Jessica Engle speak further with Chris Mitchell, Travis Carter and Matthew Rantanen on Episode 17 of Connect This!

Learn more about how to build LTE networks with our four-part educational video series

Watch This Four-Part Educational Video Series on Building Wireless Networks

With support from the Internet Society, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has produced a video series to help tribes meet the requirements set by the FCC in getting their 2.5GHz networks up and running. Featuring participants from this summer's inaugural Tribal Wireless Bootcamp (including Spencer Sevilla and Deb Simpier), the series offers an introduction to key terms before walking viewers through the necessary steps from inception to connecting end users to a new network.

Christopher wrote a retrospective of the event at the end of September, so head there if you're curious about how it all came together, the lessons learned, and more about the wonderful people who took part in the effort.

The educational series is split into four parts: 1) Why LTE? 2) An Intro to EPC 3) Setting up the eNodeB, and 4) Configuring SIM Cards and Adding Users. 

Watch the videos below, or view the full playlist here.

Mapping Broadband Access With Garbage Trucks, and Other Innovative Municipal Initiatives in Shreveport, Louisiana - Episode 19 of Connect This!

On Episode 19 of the Connect This! Show, co-hosts Christopher and (a partly there) Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Keith Hanson (Shreveport, Louisiana Chief Technology Officer) and Angelina Panettieri (National League of Cities) to talk about how some cities place themselves at the vanguard of innovation by undertaking projects designed to improve local conditions using existing infrastructure and know-how. Keith shares Shreveport's efforts to map the digital divide by connecting low-power computing devices to GPS sensors and cell phone batteries on garbage trucks to map broadband access across the city. He also talks about other edge computing initiatives, like video for public safety. 

The group also discusses the newly released Treasury rules on the $10 billion in infrastructure funding coming down the pipeline, and how cities can position themselves to take advantage.

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback, ideas for the show, or your pictures of weird wireless infrastructure to stump Travis.

Watch here, or below.

Join Us Live on Thursday at 5pm ET for Connect This! Episode 19 - Mapping Broadband Access With Garbage Trucks, and Other Innovative Municipal Initiatives

On Episode 19 of the Connect This! Show, co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Keith Hanson (Shreveport, Louisiana Chief Technology Officer) and Angelina Panettieri (National League of Cities) to talk about how some cities place themselves at the vanguard of innovation by undertaking projects designed to improve local conditions using existing infrastructure and know-how. For instance, in this episode of the show, Keith will share Shreveport's efforts to bridge the digital divide: an initiative driven in part by connecting low-power computing devices to GPS sensors and cell phone batteries on garbage trucks to map broadband access across the city. 

The group will also discuss the newly released Treasury rules on the $10 billion in infrastructure funding coming down the pipeline.

Join us for the live show Thursday, September 23rd, at 5pm ET. 

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback, ideas for the show, or your pictures of weird wireless infrastructure to stump Travis.

Watch here, or below.

Building Connections and Capacity in Indian Country at the First Tribal Wireless Bootcamp

Earlier this summer, a small group of people gathered in the southern California desert for the first Tribal Wireless Bootcamp. Organized by a loose collection of people with a long history of building and encouraging nontraditional broadband networks, the focus was on building, maintaining, and troubleshooting wireless networks in Indian Country.

To avoid any pretense of journalistic integrity, I will just say upfront that it was awesome. Not just in the sense that it was a good time, but in the sense that it was overwhelming and hard to fully grasp. For some of us, it was the first time in more than a year we had been in a group of people of any size, let alone people outside our immediate social circle.

Some of the attendees were already operating networks and others were new to it but everyone shared strategies, whether about software or how to organize people in historically marginalized communities - taking lessons from the Bronx and applying them to Tribal lands.

Ultimately, we achieved the multiple objectives set out from the beginning - to share strategies on building physical networks while actually building a social support network for this work that would endure after the weekend ended. Each of the Tribes involved received a set of 2.5 GHz radios that would not only allow for a high-capacity link, but would standardize the participants so they could better help each other to troubleshoot and improve their networks.

Conception

Many rural areas lack decent broadband Internet access, but the lack of availability in Tribal reservations is extreme. No one even knows what the statistic is, but like many statistics that the Federal Communications Commission publishes, everyone knows it is a gross overstatement. For decades, Tribes have been overlooked, ignored, and defrauded by telecommunications companies seeking to extract wealth from their people and land, with some notable exceptions of companies that have worked hard to connect Indigenous communities. Many Tribal leaders have concluded they need to build their own networks to ensure high-quality Internet access to secure many of the modern benefits the rest of us take for granted.

Infrastructure Bill’s Broadband Piece Will Help ‘Hasten’ Move to Symmetrical Networks

This piece was authored by Ahmad Hathout, Assistant Editor for Broadband Breakfast. Originally appearing at broadbandbreakfast.com on August 25, 2021, the piece is republished with permission.

The House’s decision to delay passage of the $65 billion spending on broadband included in the infrastructure bill means that final action will wait until Congress returns from its summer break and comes back again for scheduled votes beginning September 20.

Fiber and wireless providers remain optimistic about infrastructure investments in future networks, even as a top lawmaker on Wednesday voiced lingering concerns about spectrum-related provisions in the Senate-passed bill.

On Tuesday, the House passed a budget resolution on a separate $3.5 trillion spending package that is only supported by Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put on hold – until September 27 – a commitment to vote on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, which enjoys bipartisan support.

The particulars of the broadband segment of the infrastructure measure that passed the Senate on August 10 have been reported, but not yet fully digested. The bill include grants for service providers that provide broadband at 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

Upload Speeds a Center of Discussion

That in itself would be a significant bump up from the current federal definition of “broadband” as being 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up.

But some broadband enthusiasts wanted Congress to push for the symmetrical speeds that some Democratic lawmakers have asked for. Symmetrical speeds, in which the up speed is equal to the down speed, are generally seen to favor fiber deployment.

Still, the final measure that passed the Senate decreed that anything under 100 Mbps down would be categorized as “underserved.”

New Resource: Our Big List of American Rescue Plan Community Broadband Projects

With the first traunch of American Rescue Plan funds going out to counties and cities earlier this summer, many local leaders have begun to propose projects and seek input from citizens about how they should be used. The American Rescue Plan (ARP) represents an unprecedented amount of money flowing to local governments, but the consequences of operating for more than a year and a half under the burden of the Covid-19 pandemic are such that there seems to be so many things that need attention.

Access to universal, affordable, fast Internet access is among them, but the road from recognizing the need and implementing thoughtful policies is not an equally smooth one for all. Sometimes, a little inspiration is all it takes.

That's where our new resource comes in. Our Big List of American Rescue Plan Community Broadband Projects documents the ongoing list of city, county, and state projects which are under consideration, have been announced, or are under way. Arranged alphabetically by state and organized by whether they are under consideration or are planned, the below are those broadband expansion projects being pursued by cities and counties as they look to expand access via telephone and electric cooperatives, nonprofits, community-owned solutions, or private providers. 

This resource will be updated in the coming weeks and months, but if you have any corrections, additions, or updates, please email ry@ilsr.org

Read Our Big List of American Rescue Plan Community Broadband Projects here.

Cleveland Nonprofit Doubles Capacity, Connects the Unconnected

 

While Cleveland was ranked one of worst-connected cities in America in 2019 by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), nonprofit, DigitalC is chipping away at this reputation with a fast-tracked initiative aimed at bringing affordable broadband to the people that need it. The nonprofit’s Wireless Internet Service Provider, EmpowerCLE+ launched in 2018 and quickly accelerated in 2020 in response to the pandemic. EmpowerCLE+ provides “fast, reliable Internet speeds for $18/month, and is hoping to double its capacity to 6,000 households in the coming year.

Currently, households are receiving service via a fiber-fed mesh millimeter wave network. The expansion will include additional fiber for Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs) as well as new wireless deployments, including Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) network. The new CBRS expansion will help the network overcome geographical obstacles and bring additional service to homes it was not able to reach before with just millimeter wave technology.  

Connecting the Unconnected

According to DigitalC's website, the nonprofit came from OneCommunity, formerly known as OneCleveland and founded in 2003 to build a backbone fiber network connecting hospitals and other nonprofits throughout the metropolitan area. In 2014, OneCommunity sold its fiber assets to Everstream, a Cleveland-based ISP serving communities throughout the midwest and parts of the east coast with fast, reliable Internet through fiber.

In 2015, DigitalC was established to “make Greater Cleveland's digital future more equitable.” The nonprofit spent the last six years focused on connecting communities of color and immigrant communities that have experienced redlining in the city. 

5G and the Future of Cellular Networks - Episode 16 of Connect This!

On Episode 16 of the Connect This! show, co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Sascha Segan (lead mobile analyst at PCMag.com) and Virgilio Fiorese (formerly of Ericsson, currently Senior Sales Director, Mavenir) to dig into 5G and the next generation of cellular networks to try and divorce the hype from the current and coming reality. 

Chris, Travis, Sascha, and Virgilio talk about whether ordinary Americans should care about 5G today (for either their home or mobile connection), the regulatory and deployment components of a 5G rollout, how T-Mobile's 5G Home Internet service is working for users right now, marketing, and the difference between a 5G network and an intelligently designed Fiber-to-the-Premises build with Wi-Fi 6 for fixed-place users. 

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback, ideas for the show, or your pictures of weird wireless infrastructure to stump Travis.

Watch here, or below.