In South Carolina (the state TWC Forgot), AT&T is pushing harsher restrictions on any publicly owned broadband system in an attempt to derail one or more broadband stimulus projects. South Carolina already greatly restricts community broadband networks, likely one of the reasons no incumbent there bothers to upgrade in a similar time frame as the rest of the country.

This should be seen a significant overreach -- AT&T is trying to shut down County efforts to improve middle mile access -- whereas most preemption tends to heavily restrict community last-mile networks. This is a whole new world of anti-competitive policy to favor AT&T (not dissimilar from what AT&T wants to do in Wisconsin and Fairpoint did in Maine).

The bills would force Oconee County to follow guidelines as a broadband service provider that would likely cripple the county’s current three-year project to construct 245 miles of broadband cable, county administrator Scott Moulder said.

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Oconee County’s goal is to be a so-called “middle mile” provider, Moulder said, essentially providing a network that would allow private broadband providers to extend their service into areas they aren’t serving. In most cases, those are areas where the private providers have found it is not financially feasible to install their own infrastructure.

AT&T, Moulder said, has been asked to be a partner in the project as a retailer, but the company’s current actions are a rebuff.

The Oconee project is meant to attract additional independent service providers to invest in projects, not the County itself. But that hardly matters to AT&T, which wants to preserve the present lack of competition in order to maximize their gains at the public expense.

The Bill, S 483 is viewable here and contains the same old tired arguments claiming...

Martin County, Florida, is building a county-owned network (that we wrote about back in September) in response to gross overcharging by Comcast for the connections they need to connect their City Departments.  

The County Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allocate $100,000 to pay experts to advise county officials about ways the new broadband network the county government is constructing could be used to generate revenue as well as promote economic development and job creation.

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Precision Contracting Services of Jupiter started construction on the $4.2 million network in January and is expected to finish the project by January 2012. The network is expected to serve 280 government, public safety, educational and health care organizations.

Having committed to building a network to meet their own needs, they are now searching for ways to leverage that investment to best meet community needs.  They will evaluate laws, conduct a survey of residents and businesses to find what their needs/desires are, and possibly develop a business plan.  

Last Monday, the day before the planned vote, a Comcast regional VP had the gall to ask the County Commissioners to delay their vote.  No thanks Comcast, these folks have waited long enough for the broadband they need, that you have no interested in delivering in a timely nor affordable manner.  On Tuesday, the Council voted unanimously to approve the contract.  

Good for them.

The Port Authority of Medina County, Ohio, has successfully bonded $14.4 million to take advantage of a broadband stimulus award to build a fiber-optic network connecting community anchor institutions and businesses with better broadband.

Bethany Dentler, executive director of the Medina County Economic Development Corporation, said Dec. 17 that a bond consultant had just completed sale of the bonds at an average interest rate of 5.96 percent. Cash from the bond sale was expected to be in the hands of the Medina County Port Authority by the end of the year and a fiber lighting ceremony to kickoff the construction phase of the project is planned for March or April. Dentler said the port authority, which will own the network, plans to pay off the bonds over the next 20 years with fees charged to customers of the fiber network.

The nonprofit organization OneCommunity will build and presumably operate the network, which will be owned by the County. Being located in close enough proximity to work with OneCommunity appears to be a terrific advantage for communities who make investments in broadband infrastructure. The $1.4 million in stimulus funds aiding this project were a part of the larger award given to OneCommunity as part of their efforts to better wire 20 counties in Ohio.

Maryland received a very large award to connect hundreds of community anchors. This is an excellent use of public money (it will lower the future need for public money to fund local agencies). The award came from NTIA's BTOP program.

The broadband funding will result in vastly improved Internet speeds for local government offices, schools, hospitals, and emergency communication networks across Maryland, officials said. More than 1,200 miles of new fiber-optic cable will be installed across Maryland — a 50 percent increase over the existing network capability, officials said.

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The money will be used to link 458 schools, 44 libraries, 262 police and emergency centers, 15 community colleges, six universities and 221 other government and community centers in a statewide network designed to be available and secure in emergencies.

As the networks are built with funds from the broadband stimulus, the networks will not be silo'ed, as is too often the case with public networks built primarily to connect community institutions. These networks will be available for the private sector to lease as well, creating more opportunities for broadband expansion and future competition. However, the track record of these middle mile networks creating last-mile connections is extremely poor. So let's not get too carried away, but it is a good step in the direction of local self-reliance and less of a dependency on massive absentee companies.

Credit goes to Howard County's Ira Levy, who worked for more than a year to put the project together.

Much of the money — about $72 million dedicated to the 10 jurisdictions in Central Maryland — will be administered by Howard County. It was Howard's information systems director, Ira Levy, who spent 18 months leading the effort to get the money.

Baltimore County has announced an $18.5 million plan to better connect their community institutions as part of the larger project.

Baltimore County unveiled an $18.5 million plan Wednesday that officials said will vastly improve the local Internet system, provide quicker links among public safety agencies, schools,...