Community Broadband Media Roundup - June 19

35 Mayors and Elected Officials Call for Accessible Broadband Performance Information Following GAO Investigation, Next Century Cities

To help our communities access these critical opportunities, we have joined the city-to-city collaborative Next Century Cities, which supports local efforts to provide these networks. We are working to provide the high-quality Internet that is essential to thriving communities and remain deeply appreciative of the Commission’s ongoing efforts to safeguard the principle of local choice and empower more communities to achieve high-speed broadband Internet.

Community Broadband Media Roundup- By State

Colorado

Firestone commissions municipal Internet study by Karen Antonacci, Times-Call Region News

Homeowners near Palmer Divide stuck with slow Internet or no Internet at all by Eric Ross, KOAA

Davis says no company he's talked with is willing to expand service in the area. He tells News5 each time a provider comes back with an offer and he agrees, the offer price keeps increasing.

Two of the largest providers in Colorado have contracts with El Paso County, so we wanted to know whether these providers were in violation by providing access to some homeowners, but not others.

Florida/Georgia

Allied Fiber Completes Southeast Route, the First Open-Access Colocation and Dark Fiber System to Enable Network-Neutral Interconnections from Miami to Atlanta and All Points Between, Allied Fiber

Massachusetts

Remote Mass. towns welcome broadband’s arrival by Jack Newsham, Boston Globe

New York

How's your broadband, Syracuse? City runs survey to evaluate municipal option by Tim Knauss, Syracuse.com

Washington

How can Seattle get affordable Internet? by Ross Reynolds, "The Record", KUOW

Guest Editorial: Municipal Broadband Is Far from Dead In Seattle by Devin Glaser, The Stranger

After reading the report, it’s not clear what Mattmiller wished to see. We at Upgrade Seattle read the same document and came away feeling all the more assured that Seattle is ready to invest in its future and build a publicly-owned network that makes other cities jealous.

Anyone interested in learning more can visit UpgradeSeattle.com, and we’re kicking off our campaign with a launch event at 7 p.m. this evening at Town Hall Seattle. It will feature a conversation between community broadband advocate Christopher Mitchell and Seattle’s Hollis Wong-Wear, followed by a district based strategy session.

Broadband for all: 8 next steps for Seattle by Bill Schrier, CrossCut

Gigabit Internet access for $45 a month: How Seattle could make it happen by Todd Bishop & Taylor Soper, GeekWire

Muni Broadband Goes Mainstream by Colin Wood, GovTech

The first step a community should take, Mitchell said, is to identify what problem is being solved by taking on broadband.

“You don’t just want better Internet access,” Mitchell said. “You want to know for whom and at what cost. Is your problem connecting low-income populations? That requires different thinking than if you’re just trying to attract some high-tech businesses to your town.”

Other News

FCC says AT&T misled customers, issues biggest fine in its history by Graham Starr, CSMonitor

FCC comes after AT&T with a $100 million fine for misleading customers about its 'unlimited' data plan.

F.C.C. to Fine AT&T for Slowing Data Speeds of Some Customers by Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times 

“Unlimited means unlimited,” Travis LeBlanc, the F.C.C.’s chief of the enforcement bureau, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The commission is committed to holding accountable those broadband providers who fail to be fully transparent about data limits.”

Slow Internet Speed? Throttling Issues? Now You Can Complain To The FCC by Jeff Stone, Internation Business Times

Time Warner Cable will be the first to get hit with a net neutrality complaint by Brian Fung, Washington Post