Less than six months after its creation and a year after the city of Waukegan, Illinois (pop. 89,000) began exploring options to improve connectivity in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a Request for Proposals (RFP) has been issued by the Waukegan Broadband Task Force in search of qualified applicants to assist in the creation of a broadband master plan. Applications are due June 30th, 2021.

With the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the state’s Comptroller’s office recent approval of the Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) business plan, the city-owned utility proposal to build a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in the Volunteer State’s third-largest city is set to take the next step.

Tonight, KUB will hold a hearing to get public input on KUB’s plan to bring high-speed Internet service to its 210,000 customers spread out across Knoxville, Knox County, and small parts of seven neighboring counties.

Snapshot

North Carolina Governor budgets $1.2 billion of Rescue Plan funds towards closing the digital divide

Vermont Senate includes private ISPs in what was a community-based solution to universal access

Alabama Governor approves $17 million in broadband grants, some to Comcast and Charter Spectrum

The State Scene

North Carolina 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper released a budget proposal last Wednesday that anticipates using $1.2 billion of incoming federal COVID-19 relief funds towards broadband infrastructure, affordability initiatives, and expanding digital literacy. With North Carolina set to receive a total of $5.7 billion in federal American Rescue Plan funds, Gov. Cooper is dedicating nearly one-fifth of the incoming relief to closing the digital divide. 

Join us on Thursday, May 27 at 5pm ET/4pm CT with a special Financing Edition of the Connect This! show, with co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by Doug Dawson (President, CCG Consulting) and Kim McKinley (CMO, UTOPIA Fiber). The group will dive into the numbers and talk about the economics that make networks succeed. They'll talk about the different models to broadband buildouts, types of financing available to municipalities and small private ISPs, grant programs, the factors that drive healthy take rates, and economies of scale.

The show will begin on Thursday, May 27 at 5pm ET/4pm CT.

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

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.

On Episode 13 of Connect This!, co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Reid Fishler (Senior Director, Hurricane Electric) and Fletcher Kittredge (CEO, GWI) to talk about the issues that come up in building and maintaining backhaul routes and exchange points. During the show they discuss whether creating a small, rural ISP far from an exchange point is easier or harder now than it was 10 years ago. They talk how resiliency, competition, capacity, reliability, efficiency, cost, and innovation play into the topic, current middle-mile issues in California and Maine, and what the future of the space might look like.

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

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.

As the Biden administration fleshes out the details on the President’s proposed American Jobs Plan, which includes as much as $100 billion to fund expanded high-speed Internet connectivity and bring much needed competition to the broadband market, opponents (mostly Congressional Republicans and lobbyists for the big telecom companies) are tossing the word “overbuilding” around, ostensibly as a warning against wasteful government spending.