Tag: "gigabit"

Report: San Francisco's Public Housing Low-Cost Gig and How They Did It With Monkeybrains

Posted May 2, 2019 by lgonzalez

Local communities continue to search for ways to tackle the digital divide and in San Francisco, the city is making strides by working with a local Internet access company. The City by the Bay and ISP Monkeybrains have adopted a new model to bring high-quality connectivity to residents in public housing. The approach not only creates new opportunities for people who were once denied economic and educational opportunities, but does so in a way that is financially self-sustaining. With modest maintenance and start-up costs, Monkeybrains and San Francisco has found a way to bring the same high-speed Internet access to low-income households at an affordable rate. Read our new report, A Public Housing Digital Inclusion Blueprint: Monkeybrains and San Francisco Deliver a Sustainable Gig, to learn how the partners found a way to shrink the digital divide in public housing facilities.

Download A Public Housing Digital Inclusion Blueprint: Monkeybrains and San Francisco Deliver a Sustainable Gig [pdf], here.

A few national ISPs offer programs for households considered low-income, but those services only offer slow and typically unreliable connections. The program that Monkeybrains and San Francisco has created provides high-speed Internet access to public housing units at no cost to the end user. In some cases, the ISP does receive a monthly payment of $10 per unit from building management. No matter what, each user receives the same level of customer service and support as those who pay standard monthly rates. From the beginning, the goal was to bring the same level of service to subscribers in public housing as Monkeybrains subscribers throughout the city.

We spoke with Preston Rhea and Mason Carroll from Monkeybrains back in 2017, when we first learned about the plan, which was still being developed. You can listen to episode 264 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast...

South Hadley FTTH Deployment Progressing in Massachusetts

Posted April 26, 2019 by lgonzalez

By this July, the South Hadley Electric Light Department (SHELD) expects to begin serving the the first subscribers to Fibersonic, the town’s municipal Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. Construction, which began in January, is rolling along and SHELD anticipates the citywide project will be completed within four years.

Showing Their Interest

SHELD is signing up subscribers now on the Fibersonic website. Residents who express the desire for the service will also help SHELD see which of the town’s 32 fiberhoods are more likely to gather more subscribers at a rapid rate and can help determine which areas are connected first. The first two areas where construction crews are working are the Ridge Road and Old Lyman Road areas. Each fiberhood will serve approximately 250 to 300 subscribers.

Check out the Fibersonic map, which SHELD will keep updated for the community, to see where construction occurs.

Sean Fitzgerald, who came to SHELD from Westfield Gas + Electric (WG+E), says that the intense interest from the South Hadley public reflects the lack of competition in town. Comcast offers Internet access in South Hadley, along with cable TV and voice services.

“There’s a tremendous amount of interest. Customers are giving us a lot of positive feedback. There’re very hungry to have competition, to have options,” Fitzgerald said, “a chance to pick from different vendors versus having to choose one.”

SHELD offers one level of service: symmetrical gigabit connectivity for $74.95 per month. If subscribers enroll in autopay, the monthly rate drops to $70 per month. There’s no installation fee and the municipal utility offers a seasonal discount for subscribers who will be away from their homes for three to six months.

Like other municipal networks that have been launched in the past few years, Fibersonic won’t offer video. With more people cord cutting and an increasing number of streaming services available...

Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Strives to Become Next Gig City with Fiber Upgrade

Posted April 11, 2019 by Hannah Bonestroo

In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, “the idea that [Internet] connectivity is a luxury” will soon be a relic of the past. The city’s municipal electric provider, Hopkinsville Electric System (HES), is currently working through its Internet service, EnergyNet, to bring Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to all premises.

Looking Ahead

EnergyNet has offered fiber Internet service for over 10 years to local businesses, but in January 2018, HES made the special announcement that it would soon be providing the same service to all local residences, with the goal of making Hopkinsville the next “gig city.” The General Manager of HES, Jeff Herd, explained that by offering fiber Internet service, HES “is looking ahead and building infrastructure not only for today’s needs, but any future needs [Hopkinsville] might have as it relates to connectivity.”

While the current plan is to offer citywide FTTH, HES is building out the network one neighborhood at a time. Hopkinsville residents can r egister their interest for service on the EnergyNet website and neighborhoods with the most reported interest will be served first.

All options are symmetrical, and subscribers can choose from three tiers of service:

$59.95 per month for 200 Mbps
$79.95 per month for 500 Mbps
$99.95 per month for for 1,000 Mbps (1 Gigabit)

The Kentucky Infrastructure Authority (KIA) has approved $4.3 million in loans to Hopkinsville Electric System in order to make the expansion happen. Past KIA loans have focused on loans to communities for water and wastewater infrastructure projects, but their Fund C program also provides loans for publicly owned broadband infrastructure.

Changing with...

2nd Annual NC Hearts Gigabit Interactive Will Feature Susan Crawford

Posted April 1, 2019 by Hannah Bonestroo

On Friday, April 26th from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM, NC Broadband Matters will host its 2nd Annual NC Hearts Gigabit Interactive at the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center in Raleigh. The event will showcase why broadband access is critically important to urban and rural communities in North Carolina for workforce development and technology innovation.

In late 2012, over thirty communities came together in Wilson, North Carolina, over a series of lunches to discuss ways in which to bring more gigabit fiber Internet to the state. By 2016, these talks had turned into formal action and became known as the NC Hearts Gigabit campaign. The following year, the nonprofit NC Broadband Matters was formed to function as the campaign’s coordinating body. Since its inception, NC Broadband Matters has worked to bring together both private and public stakeholders to promote statewide affordable, fast, and reliable Internet.

With a full agenda covering various aspects of broadband policy and finance, the 2nd Annual NC Hearts Gigabit Interactive is one more way that NC Broadband Matters is working to educate stakeholders on why fast Internet is the future. Harvard Law School Professor Susan Crawford, who recently discussed her new book Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution and Why America Might Miss It on our Community Broadband Bits podcast, will be the keynote speaker of the event.

You can review the full agenda to learn more about specific panel discussions. To help spread the word, feel free to download and share this promotional flyer.

To hear Susan Crawford’s discussion about how cheap and reliable fiber Internet access can revolutionize our country in person, register here. If you can’t make it to the Interactive,...

Hillsboro, Oregon, Introduces Broadband Utility: Hello, HiLight!

Posted March 21, 2019 by lgonzalez

Last year, city leaders in Hillsboro, Oregon, decided to pursue a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network for all premises after studying the possibilities since 2014. Crews have started construction and the city has now introduced the name of its newest utility, HiLight.

Equity Matters

Throughout the process of exploring municipal network possibilities, community leaders in Hillsboro have kept digital equity high on their list of priorities. In order to meet one of their goals — to bring high-quality connectivity to lower income neighborhoods — one of the first areas of the city where HiLight will deploy is in Southwest Hillsboro and the premises around Shute Park. Connectivity rates in these areas are the lowest in Hillsboro, where many residents qualify as lower income.

In order to expedite deployment, the city has decided to start construction in the South Hillsboro area, a section of town where new roads and homes are being built. By taking advantage of the current excavation, the city’s dig once policy will ensure conduit goes in the neighborhood now, which will greatly reduce the cost of deployment. Hillsboro will also install conduit whenever roads are excavated in other areas of town to prepare for future deployment.

By late 2019, HiLight should be connecting residents and businesses to the network. They plan to take an incremental approach to connecting all areas of the city and will strategically consider locations of businesses, busy travel corridors, and schools as they decide where to expand. Hillsboro will invest approximately $4 million toward deployment per year for the next seven years and anticipate subscriber revenue will cover operating costs.

Schools as A Building Block

Earlier this year, Hillsboro and the Hillsboro School District (HSD)...

Citywide Fiber Network Nears Completion in Lincoln, Nebraska, Due to Municipal Conduit

Posted March 11, 2019 by Katie Kienbaum

Lincoln, Nebraska, home of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, will soon boast another fan favorite — a citywide fiber network that will make gigabit speeds available to all residents and businesses.

The City of Lincoln and ALLO Communications, a Nebraska-based Internet service provider (ISP), are approaching the end of the deployment phase of their partnership aimed at building fiber out to every home and business in the city of about 285,000. To expand the fiber network, ALLO has leased access to Lincoln’s extensive conduit system, which hastened the buildout and lowered costs. With only minor construction remaining, all of Lincoln will soon have access to fast, affordable, reliable gigabit connectivity.

In November, ALLO’s President Brad Moline announced that the company would be “substantially done with boring and conduit placement” by the end of 2018. After that step, which is considered the most intrusive of the construction process, ALLO stated that they still needed to connect approximately 3,000 - 4,000 homes to fiber.

City Owned Conduit Leads the Way

Lincoln began its conduit project in earnest in 2012, taking advantage of downtown redevelopment to deploy conduit along public Rights-of-Way. As of 2016, the city had spent approximately $1.2 million building and maintaining the 300-mile-long conduit network.

To bring better connectivity to Lincoln residents and businesses, the city leases access to the conduit system to private ISPs to deploy fiber networks. In return for access to the conduit, private companies pay fees and abide by the city’s Broadband Franchise ordinance, which stipulates that providers follow...

Christopher's Plans for Broadband Communities Summit All Set...What About Yours?

Posted March 8, 2019 by lgonzalez

Are you still considering whether or not to attend this spring’s Broadband Communities 2019 Summit in Austin on April 8th, 9th, and 10th? We thought we’d share more information about Christopher’s panels so you can see what you will be missing if you decide to stay home.

Lessons Learned and Shared

Learning about what communities did that worked and what didn’t work is one of the most valuable aspects of the Summit. On April 10th, at 10 a.m., Christopher heads up a discussion with folks from four different communities across the U.S. to discuss what they learned in deploying their publicly owned fiber networks. Each of these communities faced adversity and found a way to change course to turn difficulty into positive outcome:

One of the challenges of evaluating capital-intensive local broadband projects is that they typically lose money in their early years. Come learn from four communities that have overcome significant challenges – and learned invaluable lessons along the way.

Participating on the panel will be:

Dan Patten from MINET
David Post from Salisbury, NC
Roger Timmerman from UTOPIA Fiber
Angela Imming from Highland, IL

More From Christopher

Don’t forget about the special program offered the afternoon of the first day of the conference by the Coalition for Local Internet Choice (CLIC). There will be several conversations that focus on local authority. Christopher will participate on a panel hosted by Joanne Hovis from CTC Technology and Energy and CEO of CLIC. The topic, “The States and BDAC: What it Means for Local Internet Choice,” will address the tension between state and local authority, including recent advancements for local communities. They’ll also discuss the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) and its...

Idaho Falls Pilot Is a Go; Sign-ups Now Available for Fiber Connectivity

Posted March 6, 2019 by lgonzalez

Idaho Falls residents in select areas are now able to tap into fast, affordable, reliable connectivity through their city’s fiber optic network. Idaho Falls Fiber (IFF) and Idaho Falls Power (IFP) recently announced that premises in three residential areas of the city can now sign-up to connect to the open access Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.

Check out the IFF Fiber Service Areas Map.

With A Little Help From UTOPIA

Idaho Falls has operated Circa, a municipally owned dark fiber network for around eight years. The infrastructure has been managed by IFP to offer connectivity to local businesses and municipal facilities, but a few years ago, community leaders began investigating ways to use the resource for residential purposes.

After working with two separate consulting firms and reviewing options and recommendations, city leaders decided to move forward. Located across the Snake River from Ammon, Idaho Falls may have been inspired by the accolades Ammon has collected in developing their open access software defined network. With significant infrastructure in place via the Circa Network, a residential pilot program is a logical step toward improving connectivity for the entire community.

Idaho Falls leadership began collaborating with folks from UTOPIA Fiber, who they hired to design and manage the pilot. As in places such as Owensboro, Kentucky and Anacortes, Washington, the city chose to pursue the pilot to examine how FTTH might be received by residents, what technical issues might arise, and to help spread the word that high-quality Internet access would be available from the municipal utility.

"We'll see how the economics work out in this, what the, you know, support is within the community, support is within the neighborhoods," [General Manager of IFF and IFP Bear...

Small Town, Big Connections With Marshall FiberNet - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 345

Posted February 26, 2019 by lgonzalez

This week, Marshall FiberNet’s Customer Service and Marketing Manager Jessica Slusarski talks to Christopher about the town’s investment in their community broadband network. Quiet and quaint Marshall, Michigan, didn’t expect to become one of the state’s communities with the best Internet access, but here we are. Like many other small towns where big incumbent providers didn’t want to make infrastructure investments, most of Marshall was stuck with DSL and some premises were still using dial-up connections. Their solution was clear — build a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.

Jessica and Chris discuss how the idea became a reality and what were some of the services that the city decided they wanted to include for subscribers, based on the needs of residents and businesses. They also discuss how, even though Michigan requires local communities to reach out to the private sector first, a lack of responses allowed the town to move forward. Jessica describes the favorable response from users and how subscribers are taking advantage of better Internet access than they’ve ever experienced.

We also learn about nuts and bolts, including what it took to get the network deployed, how the city administrates the utility, and what’s next. You can learn more details by reading our coverage of Marshall’s FiberNet.

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

This show is 23 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to...

Broadband in the Bootheel: Missouri Electric Co-op Delivers

Posted February 18, 2019 by lgonzalez

Missouri’s Bootheel is the ultimate southeast corner of the state, extending south and surrounded on three sides by lands in Arkansas, Tennessee, and a smattering of Kentucky. The area’s known for having fertile soil and vibrant agriculture but now that Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative is deploying Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), it's also becoming known for high-quality Internet access.

The Region and Lack of Connectivity

Jack Davis has worked in several fields. His tech career started when most people in the area reached the Internet via dial-up connections; at the time he worked as a network administrator for a local dial-up ISP in the 1990s. His second career was in agriculture and now he’s back in the tech field. Davis’s multiple work experiences have given him insight into the increasing broadband needs of rural residents who either farm or work in some other aspect of the agriculture industry.

When Davis went back into tech, he joined Pemiscot-Dunklin because the electric cooperative, which had never had IT staff before, needed to fill a long-existing personnel gap. With approximately 8,800 connected meters, the cooperative is a modest-sized organization. Approximately 20 percent of their load goes toward irrigation, revealing the important role agriculture plays in the region. Internet access in rural areas is limited to fixed wireless. Cooperative members who used to subscribe to the wireless service typically found top speeds were around 3 - 4 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and much slower upload speeds.

Time for an Upgrade

Discussion about the project began in 2014 soon after Davis started at Pemiscot-Dunklin. The way Davis tells it, his boss said “Now that I’ve got you hired, what can we do about Internet service?” The cooperative researched for about two years, examining a variety of options because they anticipated FTTH would be too expensive to deploy. In 2016, they worked with Conexon, the consulting firm that works with electric cooperatives interested in broadband deployment. Conexon's Jonathan Chambers was on Community Broadband Bits, episode 229, to discuss electric cooperatives and rural broadband access...

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