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Erwin Expanding Again, Moving Into The Mountains

Erwin Fiber is growing in stages and now that the utility in Erwin, Tennessee, has completed phase three of its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployment, about half of its electricity customers have access to high-quality Internet access. That’s not all - phase four this spring will bring gigabit connectivity to more rural customers in two nearby mountain communities.

Reaching Out In Steps

All told, Erwin Fiber more than tripled its service area in 2016. A December grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) will allow the utility to complete the spring build out, which will serve an additional 680 homes and 30 businesses. The Temple Hill and Bumpass Cove areas located in the mountains outside of downtown Erwin will have access to Erwin Fiber's symmetrical Internet access. Due to the remote character of these neighborhoods, people here had little prospect of obtaining high-quality Internet access from other providers. The 35-mile expansion will cost approximately $400,000.

November’s expansion added 2,200 homes and businesses, while a similar effort last March included 1,300 homes and businesses. Both expansions came after the community successfully experimented with a 2015 pilot project in which the city’s electric utility connected an initial 1,200 customers. The utility needed the infrastructure for the electric system other utilities; it was the right to to invest in the equipment for high-speed connectivity and phone service 

Not An Impluse

The municipality of about 6,000 people had considered the investment some 15 years prior but couldn’t afford the investment until recent years when the cost of deployment decreased. In January, Christopher interviewed Lee Brown and John Williams from Erwin Utilities who discussed the community’s project and explained how the fiber infrastructure is benefitting all the utility customers, even those who don’t subscribe to FTTH services.

Smart Grid Paybacks: The Chattanooga Example

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A new article from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society takes a look at the pay in and pay off from Chattanooga’s investment into its fiber-optic network. The article, Smart Grid Paybacks: The Chattanooga Example, was written by Davd A. Talbot and Maria Paz-Canales.

From the Abstract:

After building a fiber optic network throughout its service territory, the city-owned electric utility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first U.S. company to offer Internet access speeds of 1 gigabit per second to customers. The fiber also serves as the backbone for a sophisticated smart grid.

Data show that the savings produced by the smart grid, plus revenue from access fees paid by the utility’s Internet access business, more than cover the capital and operating costs of the smart grid. What’s more, we estimate this would still be true even if the utility hadn’t received a $111.6 million federal stimulus grant, and instead borrowed the extra amount. We reach this conclusion after counting direct savings in the utility’s operating costs (such as labor, truck maintenance, and fuel), avoided purchases of expensive wholesale power at peak times, and avoided power losses.

The region is also experiencing second-order benefits including economic development and savings to local businesses thanks to fewer and shorter power outages. The data on the following two pages were provided by the utility (known as the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, or EPB), and include data on second-order benefits originally published by Bento Lobo at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The authors detail direct and indirect paybacks to the community from the smart grid investment. The grand total? $67.1 million.

Check out the full article here.

Another Anti-Muni Hack Job: Opelika Mayor Strikes Back

Mayor Gary Fuller won’t tolerate lies about his city. In a recent Opelika City News release titled, Setting the Record Straight - Response to Yellowhammer article, Mayor Fuller corrected the numerous misleading errors in a piece written by Jordan LaPorta. The Yellowhammer article covered a Taxpayer's Protection Alliance Foundation (TPA) report, filled with errors and misrepresentation about municipal Internet networks. TPA is one of the many front groups that describe themselves as "nonpartisan think tanks" but are actually funded by industry leaders with an agenda to advance policies that limit competition.

Mayor Fuller has seen untruths written about Opelika before, but this time he felt it was time to fight the flying monkeys.

Get Your Facts Right

Mayor Fuller corrected a number of brazen untruths LaPorta tossed out in his article, including:

  • OPS ONE is not taxpayer-funded - No, LaPorta, there are no tax subsidies. Additionally, there have not been any federal or state grants used for the network.
  • Expenditures grossly overstated - LaPorta incorrectly attributes the cost of an electric grid modernization ($20 million) to the cost of the FTTH network ($23 million). The two are not one and the same. Do your homework.
  • Number of Gig subscribers - LaPorta reports that OPS has one Gigabit subscriber, but they actually have five residential customers who take the service. The city council has recently reduced the price to $94.99 for Gigabit service in some bundles.

This Is Why Opelika Is A Success

OPS ONE is generating annual gross revenues of around $5.5M after three years serving the community. There are more than 3,200 subscribers and testimonials of customers who appreciate obtaining service from a hometown Internet access provider. Even though OPS ONE is still young, states Mayor Fuller, it’s on track:

What's NEXT In North Arkansas? - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 243

As an increasing number of rural electric cooperatives are working to bring high-quality Internet access to their members, we’re learning more about new projects and the people behind them. This week, we talk with the CEO of the North Arkansas Electric Cooperative, Mel Coleman. As an added bonus, we get Mel’s insight as President of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).

Mel and Christopher discuss the cooperative’s new NEXT pilot project to bring high-quality Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to members. Residents can get symmetrical gigabit connectivity for $79.95 per month. Mel draws parallels between the ways rural electric cooperatives brought electricity to rural areas in the region and now how the cooperatives are meeting the demand for broadband.

As the President of NRECA, Mel sees how other regions of the country are turning to rural electric cooperatives for better Internet access. While many are just getting started and others are well on their way, some have chosen to wait to take the plunge into offering telecommunications services. Why is that? Because just like local communities, cooperatives reflect the unique appetites and needs of their members. Mel explains why the North Arkansas Electric Cooperative feels offering better connectivity to their region is a necessity.

This show is 16 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music. The song is Escape and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Morristown And Newport Buddy-Up For Broadband In Rural TN

 

Morristown Utilities Commission (MUC) and Newport Utilities (NU) in Tennessee have taken the first monumental step in partnering to bring high-quality connectivity to NU customers. Both entities passed resolutions for an interlocal government agreement that will bring MUC’s FiberNET to Newport.

 

A Win-Win

“This is hopefully going to be a win-win for both Newport and MUC, that we would provide services for them to put a three-way package into at least part of their service area,” MUC Chairman George McGuffin said. ‘‘This is essentially the first step, as far as agreements.”

The plan will allow MUC to expand its “light services,” which includes FiberNET, to NU’s service area in several phases. The first phase will allow more than 8,000 potential subscribers, or 47 percent of Cocke County households, to obtain FiberNET services. Phase One is scheduled to be completed in 2017; the partners also expect to begin Phase Two construction during the second quarter.

FiberNET

Morristown and its gigabit network FiberNET have been on our radar for a long time. We’ve written about how this community, a relatively early adopter of the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network, has saved the community in several ways. By lowering electric costs with a smart meter program and by generally lower Internet access costs for government, businesses, and residents, FiberNET is saving Morristown in the tens of millions. The network is also attracting new jobs and contributing to city coffers through payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT).

Listen to General Manager and CEO Jody Wigington talk to Christopher about Morristown’s decision to invest in Internet infrastructure. He visited us for episode 35 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast in 2013.

Friends For Light

TN Sen. Bolling Explains Her Proposal: Share This Video

Tennessee State Senator Janice Bowling, a Republican from Tullahoma, has once again introduced legislation that would help bring high-quality connectivity to rural residents and businesses. The bill is not complicated and would allow municipal electric utilities that offer broadband connectivity to expand beyond their electric service area. In a video from 2015 Senator Bowling takes a few minutes to explain her proposal - to eliminate the restriction and allow places like Tullahoma, Chattanooga, and Clarksville to serve neighboring communities.

This year, the bill that eliminates the restriction is SB 1058 and its House companion is HB 0970 from Representative Dan Howell. For now, her bill is in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee waiting to be heard. Sen. Bolling has also introduced similar bill that allows municipal electric utilities to offer telecommunications service with no geographical limitations.

Senator Bolling gets it. She understands that the people of her district and the rest of rural Tennessee need high-quality connectivity to keep pace with areas that already have such access. We’d like to see more legislators like her who put the needs of their constituents before the interests of the big cable and telephone companies.

In the video Senator Bolling describes why the bill, which she has introduced several times, has not passed. She explains what the bill does legally and practically, and she gives a frank assessment of what the situation is now in many rural areas of her state. Even though the video is from 2015, her comments are still relevant.

The video is short and to the point - only 4:20 - check it out and share.

Arkansas Utility Leads on Energy, Broadband

This article was co-written with ILSR's Energy Democracy initiative research associate, Karlee Weinmann, and is cross-posted on ILSR.org.

Ouachita Electric Cooperative, nestled deep in south-central Arkansas, is an unlikely innovator in a pair of industries struggling to adapt to shifting market dynamics: electricity and broadband.

Despite rising demand for energy efficiency and renewable electricity generation, large investor-owned utilities -- and many rural electric co-ops -- have resisted programs to address those needs. Likewise, corporate Internet service providers frequently offer shoddy service at high rates, a particular problem in rural areas with limited competition.

But Ouachita Electric found a way to do both things better, with complementary technologies. Fiber-optic network investments provided lower cost Internet access, but also provide an information backbone for the electric utility that can reduce outage times and verification for energy savings programs. The network and the efficiency programs reduce costs for a customer base dominated by low-income households that can now reinvest their earnings elsewhere in the community.

Inclusive Financing

The utility’s tariff-based, on-bill financing program -- known as HELP PAYS -- allows customers to invest in energy efficiency upgrades at their homes, like insulation and heat pumps, with no upfront cost. Ouachita Electric covers eligible expenses, then recoups its buy-in through payments from participating customers on their monthly bills. Customers immediately pay less thanks to utility-financed energy-saving improvements.

Unlike other energy efficiency programs, the opt-in “inclusive financing” program, HELP PAYS, enables all Ouachita customers to capture significant benefits:

Rock Falls: The Future Is In Fiber

The community of Rock Falls, Illinois, is well on its way to developing a gigabit municipal network to offer better connectivity to residents, businesses, and public facilities. Last week, the City Council adopted an ordinance that allows the city to issue general obligation bonds to fund citywide fiber-optic Internet infrastructure.

Following Demand

The city’s plan will expand first in business corridors and then use the fiberhood approach in residential areas, building only after a certain percentage of households preregister. The plan divides the city into 14 fiberhoods with each area’s build out cost estimated to be approximately $250,000. Residential fiberhoods will require 45 percent participation prior to construction. Consultants estimate citywide buildout costs will be $13 million; the City Council authorized bonding for that amount. The first bond issue will be $4.1 million likely to happen in early May if approval proceeds as planned.

The City Council authorized the first phase of the project to begin - network design and project administration - which will cost approximately $207,000. The process to issue GO bonds will start in March and city leaders hope to have the backbone completed by the end of June.

Most publicly owned Internet infrastructure is funded by revenue bonds, avoided costs, or interdepartmental loans rather than GO bonds. When funded by general obligation bonds, a project is backed by the credit and taxing power of the issuing jurisdiction and the resource is always publicly owned. Clearly, the community of Rock Falls recognizes how critical the investment is to the community's future.

From The Mayor

In his recent State of the City address, Mayor Bill Wescott focused on three factors that drove the initiative: growth, the city’s strong finances, and local control.

While it’s common knowledge that economic development needs better connectivity than what is now available in Rock Falls, Wescott noted that residents stuck with 10 - 20 Megabits per second (Mbps) download Internet access need and deserve higher capacity connectivity to participate in the modern economy. He defined “growth” broadly, encompassing jobs, education, innovation, public safety, and government.

Greeneville, TN: Electric Utility Powers Up School Connectivity

Schools in Greeneville, Tennessee, are about to save on Internet connectivity to the tune of $50,000 per year, thanks to a partnership with the municipal electric utility.

Local Utility, Local Solution

Greeneville City Schools (GCS), which obtains Internet access via the state’s Education Networks of America (ENA), used to obtain cable connections from big providers that worked with ENA. Comcast and CenturyLink are two of the local providers that lease lines to the schools with ENA as the entity that arranged the connections. Not anymore.

GCS, ENA, and the Greeneville Light & Power System (GLPS) have entered into a new partnership to use GLPS fiber-optic infrastructure to bring Internet access to school facilities. As a result, the school will cut telecommunications costs by approximately $50,000 per year and double their capacity.

Assistant Director of Schools and Chief Technology Officer Beverly Miller told the Greeneville Sun:

“GCS is extremely pleased and excited about moving network fiber optic cabling dependence to the local community power provider. GLPS is an exceptional electrical provider with a stellar reputation for reliability and high performance. In addition to the expectation of improved service, the school district anticipates significant financial savings as a result of this new partnership.”

According to GLPS General Manager Bill Carroll, the utility already had significant infrastructure in place, which it uses for its own facilities. Connecting GCS schools and administration facilities wasn’t a difficult undertaking. In fact, GLPS hopes to reproduce the plan for the Greene County Schools to reduce their costs in a similar fashion:

“We have 2,200 miles of high voltage (power) lines and just 60 miles of fiber, mostly in the city,” Carroll said. “We’ve been routing fiber very carefully to pass by government buildings, schools and other folks we can serve in the future. At some point, we can do the same for Greene County’s schools and government buildings, but it’s a matter of logistics.”

Starting With The Schools

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Businesses Can Get A Gig in West Plains, MO

The city of West Plains, Missouri, is now offering high-quality fiber connectivity up to 1 Gigabit (1,000 Megabits) per second to local businesses. The community is also exploring the possibility of a pilot project to a limited area of households as the city considers whether or not to also offer Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).

No Time To Dawdle

According to City Administrator Tom Stehn, the decision to move forward was prompted by the state legislature: first last year's HB 2078 and now by SB 186, which will be heard in committee tomorrow, Feb. 14th. City leaders decided to preserve their local authority by establishing a broadband utility and expanding a plan to improve local connectivity. Since they are up and operating now, they expect to be grandfathered in under the language of the statute.

Open For Business

The network is now serving the West Plains Senior Center and the Ozarks Small Business Incubator. Ozarks Medical Center may soon be on the network and, according to Stehn, the city is still deploying the network but wants to let local businesses know that it is up and running. Access from incumbent providers is available in West Plains, but prices are high and some local businesses report rates up to three times those paid for similar needs in urban areas. City leaders see the network as an economic development tool that will attract new businesses and will help control prices for existing businesses and keep rates in check for residents.

West Plains is home to approximately 12,000 people and the county seat in Howell County. The town is in the center of the county, which is located on the southern border. Missouri State University has a campus at West Plains with a number of Associate degree programs and the community has an airport, the Heart of the Ozarks Fairgrounds, and several private schools in addition to the public school system.