Community Broadband Media Roundup - June 13

Colorado

A lesson in broadband projects by Dennis Webb, Grand Junction Sentinel

Idaho

Idaho Falls mulls expanding fiber-optic Internet connections by Sarah Glenn, Idaho State Journal

Tennessee

Chattanooga was a typical post-industrial city. Then it began offering municipal broadband by Peter Moskowitz, The Nation

“Really, these last two years you’ve seen it pick up steam,” said Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). “It’s just going to keep on spreading.”

Six years ago, Chattanooga was the only city offering publicly owned 1-gigabit Internet service. Today, over 50 communities do, according to ILSR, and there are over 450 communities in the United States offering some form of publicly owned Internet service. Many municipal networks are in small towns and rural areas where private high-speed access is hard to come by. But several dozen are in cities like Chattanooga, where there are other, private options that tend to be much more expensive and slower than what governments have proven they can provide.

Innovation district offers opportunity to close 'digital divide' by Gabrielle Chavalier, Chattanooga Times Free Press

Vermont

Souvernet's fiber network adds partners to help connect Vermont's 'Last Mile' by Vermont Biz

General

Why municipal broadband by Charles Cooper, The Urbanist

So, the most obvious problem that Municipal Broadband solves is that it would offer ubiquitous high speed (>25mb/sec) broadband access to every building and person in the city versus the cherry picking that current carriers are providing.

Make the Internet a priority, groups say to political parties by Patrick Dehahn, Associations Now