Local officials in Columbia County, Georgia, wanted better public safety communications, synchronized traffic signals, and better connectivity for government facilities. They decided the best strategy was a publicly owned network and their decision is creating opportunities they hadn't anticipated.

When he considers how the county expanded its fiber network to improve economic development, education, and public savings, Columbia County Broadband Utility (C3BU) Broadband Manager Lewis Foster still sounds a little surprised. After all, Columbia County planned on using the network for a limited purpose, but then they realized the diversity of the asset. "It was almost an afterthought," he says.

Poor Options Created A Positive Path

Before the idea of a publicly owned network saw the light of day in Columbia County, local leaders contacted the incumbent providers to set up a dark fiber lease. To their dismay, incumbents AT&T, Comcast, and WOW, would not lease the county dark fiber.

County officials approached incumbents in 2007 and 2008 hoping to secure a dark fiber lease. The large providers, however, said they either didn’t have any dark fiber to lease, they could offer lit services, or they would build a dark fiber network for the county to use. Incumbents demanded a model where the county would pay the construction costs but the infrastructure would be owned and operated by the incumbents – who would then charge the County for access to the network the county had paid for. Foster recalls that incumbents we’re most interested in charging premium rates for lit services. Columbia County officials wanted a better option and found a more fiscally responsible approach in simply owning the network.

As county leaders developed a plan to deploy fiber, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats crafted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In 2009, with Columbia County's $18 million project plan well developed, they applied for stimulus funding. Their project obtained a $13.5 million stimulus grant; they used county sales tax funds to pay the $4.5 million local match. When the recession hit in 2008, says Foster, the cost to complete other budgeted projects decreased, leaving the county with unspent sales tax funds that they applied to the C3BU project. He...

From our research, we believe the municipal fiber-optic network in Wilson, North Carolina, has the best low-income Internet access program in the nation. Called Greenlight, the fiber network has led to job growth and been a financial success. And now it also offers $10 per month 50 Mbps symmetrical Internet access to those living in housing units owned by the public housing authority.

Greenlight General Manager Will Aycock is back again to tell us about this program and is joined by two additional guests: CEO and President Kelly Vick from the Wilson Housing Authority and Wilson Communications and Marketing Director Rebecca Agner. 

We discuss how the program was created, how it is funded, and how it is impacting the community in addition to public reaction to it. Wilson continues to set a higher bar for what a community can expect when it builds its own network and seeks creative ways to improve opportunity for its businesses and residents.

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On January 1, Wayne County, North Carolina, issued a Request for Information (RFI) for high-speed Internet service expansion or delivery.  The due date is February 28, 2017.

Survey First

Prior to releasing the RFI, the county conducted a survey that they made available online and in paper form; they sent home copies with students in the public school system. They received 628 responses of which 13.8 percent of respondents said they don't have Internet service at all. Of those that do not have the service, 58.1 percent say there is no company that will provide it to them and 23.7 percent say they can’t afford it. Fifty-nine percent of respondents were dissatisfied with their Internet access; the reason were speed, cost, and reliability, in that order.

Looking For Ideas Next

The county’s RFI expresses their desire to work with private sector providers to bring connectivity to all areas of the county, especially the areas that are currently unserved. Their goal is to get residents and businesses connected with speeds that reach the FCC’s defined broadband speeds of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.

In order to facilitate the efforts of the private sector, Wayne County has asked potential respondents to address how issues such as pole attachments, conduit, and dark fiber would fit into their proposals. They also want respondents to let them know how federal, state, or local regulations may hamper ideas for improving connectivity in Wayne County:

Regulatory environment: Description of any rules or regulations at the federal, state or local level that could impact the feasibility or underlying economics associated with the proposed solutions. Responses should also include an explanation of any forms of proposed regulatory relief, including streamlined permitting, which could improve the economic case for the business models or network solutions proposed or for other network solutions that respondents considered but dismissed due to existing regulations and their effect on economic viability of such proposal. 

Just last year, the state of North Carolina was able to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to reinstate a...

Ellensburg’s fiber-optic Institutional Network (I-Net) already saves public dollars. Soon the town will also create opportunities for local businesses to obtain better connectivity via the publicly owned infrastructure through a new pilot program.

Time To Go Public

Three years ago, Ellensburg, Washington, chose to sever ties with Charter Communications when the national Internet Service Provider (ISP) decided it would charge $10,300 per month for municipal connectivity it had previously supplied in exchange for access to the public rights-of-way.

The community already owned and operated municipal electric and natural gas utilities, so a foray into managing an I-Net was a sensible task. After considering the math, they quickly realized deployment would pay for itself in about eight years when compared to the exorbitant rates from Charter. They also didn't know if Charter would raise rates again in the future or if there may be other issues with control of a network they depended on for municipal communications.

Onward And Upward

Ellensburg has been independent of Charter since 2014 and now they are taking the next logical step - offering services to local businesses. There is excess capacity on the existing fiber network that Energy Services would like to lease out in order to generate revenue and learn more about providing services to the public.

At a recent City Council meeting, Energy Services Director Larry Dunbar discussed the proposed pilot project. “A pilot project is the right thing to do if council wants to proceed because we really just don’t know,” Dunbar said. “We haven’t done this before.”

The city will receive a 2017 Distressed County Sales and Use Tax Infrastructure Improvement Program grant. The funds, focused on rural areas, are to be used for improving infrastructure projects; Ellensburg will receive approximately $169,000. Thirty-four connections to local businesses will cost $37,800 and will produce an estimated $16,300 in annual revenue.

In addition to using the grant funds to expand the fiber-optic network, Ellensburg plans to establish a fixed wireless network.