News

As we emphasize time and time again, communities build their own networks because they have to, not because they want to. North Carolina's Fibrant network in Salisbury is no exception and a recent technical headache is a reminder that no network is built without problems developing.

Our colleague at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Stacy Mitchell (too brilliant to be a relation of mine), recently gave an incredible presentation that focuses on some of the threats to our economy and how we can build stronger, more resilient communities.

Los Alamos County is commonly known as home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It may soon also be home to an incredible next-generation network owned by the community. 

Last year, we reported that ECFiber was in the process of connecting rural Vermont, with a focus on connecting those who had no access to broadband. In addition to large investments from a limited number of investors, local citizens began lending funds to expand the network. 

Last summer, Medina County Schools announced a savings of almost $90,000 a year by switching from Time Warner Cable to the new Medina County Fiber Network.

In October, Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net), hosted the panel discussion Community Broadband as a Path to Thriving Local Economies and Neighborhood Development as part of their Digital Dialogue series.

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

We have covered developments in the town of Indianola, Iowa, where the community decided to build their own network in 1998. The original purpose for investment was to use the network to enhance public safety and increase efficiency with SCADA applications.

MI-Connection, the North Carolina community-owned network serving Davidson, Cornelius, and Mooresville, is upgrading network speeds and unveiling a new marketing campaign. MI-Connection was formed when a few towns north of Charlotte purchased the old, dilapidated Adelphia cable network out of bankruptcy and began rehabbing it.

You may recall that we reported on Johnston's last book, The Fine Print: How big companies use plain english to rob you blind.

We have covered happenings at Burlington Telecom, both positive and negative, extensively. We are glad to report some interesting new developments of this Vermont municipal network.

We recently came across a post by Seth Clifford, a blogger whose parents' house in New Jersey was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy and is still in danger.

When we hear the news of a tornado, fire, flood or other natural disaster, most of us feel empathy for victims whose lives are disrupted by loss and upheaval.  But AT&T, Comcast, Charter, and

Poulsbo, Washington, home to around 9,200 residents of Kitsap County, recently became the location of an "exercise in democracy" pilot project.

The Borough of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, with a year-round population around 5,500 that is swelled by Kutztown University, has been on the community broadband map for 10 years.

Susan Crawford recently wrote for the Blog of the Roosevelt Institute, where she spent the last year as a Fellow.