Community Broadband Media Roundup - July 31

Colorado

Longmont's success leads to dozens of followers: When is 'crazy fast' Internet coming to your town? by Jason Gruenauer, The Denver Channel WGBH-7

The city built an entire fiber grid network that now has the potential to connect every residence and business in the area to 1-gigabit internet speeds. 

For comparison, the FCC considers anything that is 25 megabits per second or faster to be "high speed." One gigabit per second is 40 times that.

Indiana

Broadband expansion vote for downtown Holland postponed until Aug. 2 by Sidney Smith, Holland Sentinel

Maryland

Atlantic Broadband extends fiber network to support emergency response in Maryland by Bevin Fletcher, CED Magazine

North Carolina

Fibrant in focus: Story of Wilson's, Salisbury's fiber optic networks a 'tale of two cities' by Josh Bergeron, The Salisbury Post

Connecting to what matters by Laura Mitchell, Wilkes Journal Patriot

Guests on the show included Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who weighed in on circumstances surrounding those 39 percent of Americans living in rural areas lacking broadband access, compared with 4 percent of those living in cities, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

The town that had free gigabit Internet by Kaleigh Rogers, Motherboard Vice

Ohio

Country connection: Rural residents ask FCC to improve Internet by Benny Becker, Ohio Valley ReSource

Mitchell argued that too much of the federal money intended to expand rural internet access goes to large companies who’ve been building substandard networks. The problem with counting on large companies like Frontier to build rural broadband, Mitchell said, comes down to a question of money and incentives. Urban areas have more customers in a smaller area, which means they’re more appealing to companies that are publicly traded and profit-driven.

Tennessee

Chattanooga has its own broadband - why doesn't every city? by Jonathan Taplin, The Daily Beast

This city has its own broadband - why can't we? by Carrie Ann, Industry Leaders Magazine

Virginia

What's next for broadband Internet on Virginia's Eastern Shore? by Carol Vaughn, Delmarva Daily Times

Editorial: Minnesota offers Virginia a lesson on rural broadband by The Roanoke Times

General

Rural Internet can help shrink economic gap by Jon Talton, Seattle Times

Broadband and rural economies - maybe small is better by Craig Settles, The Daily Yonder

A people-owned Internet exists. Here's what it looks like by Nathan Schneider, The Guardian

In cities and towns, it’s probably through a municipal government, or even neighborhood mesh networks, which can swell across whole regions. Rural areas can piggyback on existing electric and telephone cooperatives, or start new co-ops from scratch.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is one of the best organizations tracking these options, and its Community Networks website is full of resources about who is doing what where, and why.

Image of the cow in the pasture courtesy of DominikSchraudolf via pixaby.