fiber-to-the-business

Content tagged with "fiber-to-the-business"

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More Details from the Incredible Santa Monica City Net

Santa Monica's approach to building community owned broadband that puts the community first has been wildly successful. They have not focused on providing residential connections, and likely will not in the future, focusing instead on meeting their municipal needs and businesses to spur economic development. They can deliver up to 10Gbps to businesses that need it and they have connectivity throughout the City for whatever projects they choose to pursue. This includes free Wi-Fi in parks, controlling traffic signaling (prioritizing mass transit, for instance), and smart parking applications. On top of all that, their investments have saved more than a million dollars that would have been wasted on slower, less reliable connections provided by leased lines. In the matter of controlling traffic signals, Santa Monica wants all intersections with fiber-optics.
Arizona Avenue, the Mid-City area and the city's office district will all be getting makeovers if the City Council approves two contracts that will connect 40 signalized intersections to City Hall's centralized traffic control system. The work represents the fourth phase in a five-phase effort to connect all of Santa Monica's intersections using fiber optic cables.

Business Interest in Cortez Muni Network Exceeds Expectations

Last month, we were excited to write about the open access network in Cortez, Colorado. We can update the story with information from this article:
[B]usiness participation on Cortez's own municipal fiber-optic network has exceeded expectations - with 76 drops purchased to connect 98 Cortez businesses to the network. Rick Smith, director of the city's General Services Department, said crews are working to get the drops connected and to extend conduit to the west side of Broadway Street. "(The demand) exceeded my expectations," he said. "It's a good problem to have. ... I think the business owners see the value in being connected to the fiber for the long-term future. I think they see it as a way to stay competitive and enhance their business."
These businesses could start using the network in July but no service provider has yet committed to providing services. When the network is ready, there is no doubt at least one will take advantage of the community network to offer next-generation services. Over time, as more subscribers are available, more service providers will want to compete for their attention.
"It's going to give us an advantage that other communities don't have," Smith said. "You've got communities starting to take notice of what Cortez is doing, and it's exciting." Businesses interested in joining the network can purchase "drops" to physically connect to the fiber-optic line. Drops currently cost a one-time fee of $150 for a small business or home and $175 for a medium business. Other rates are available for large businesses and multi-unit buildings.
But drops are only available in a limited area of town along Main Street currently. As the network generates more revenues, it will expand to other areas of the community.

nDanville's Quiet Success in Rural Virginia

nDanville, the open access fiber-optic network operated by the City's public power company, has been quietly succeeding in southern Virginia. This network has already connected half of the communities health care facilities, allowing them to improve medical care with 100Mbps and gigabit circuits at affordable prices.
The medical network connects Danville Regional Medical Center and about half of the area’s medical facilities to nDanville, a fiber optic network established by the city. The high performance fiber allows real-time access to patient medical records and allows for the exchange of CT and MRI scans instantly.
Another article notes praise for the city's efforts:
"It enables us to better serve our patients by having their information available across multiple sites," Deaton [CEO of Danville Regional Medical Center] said. "We will continue to support the city's efforts in linking our medical community together, and I want to commend the city for the success of this network and making healthcare a top priority."
The Intelligent Community Forum brought the above success to my attention in awarding Danville a recipient of its 2011 Founders Awards. (Chattanooga is in the running for Intelligent Community of year and really, how could it possibly lose?) But ICF details more impressive details from nDanville: logo-icf.gif
On average, fiber connections for these facilities provide twice the bandwidth of the previous connection but at a 30% savings. More than 90% of the medical facilities (approximately 125 locations) are to be connected by December  2011, said Jason Grey, the Broadband Network Manager of Danville Utilities, who led Danville’s charge to become a recognized intelligent community by ICF. … ICF further noted that the nDanville Network provides a crucial link between the Danville Diagnostic and Imaging Center and the Danville Regional Hospital.

Cortez, Colorado, Also Launches Open Access Network

On the heels of our story announcing a new open access community fiber project in Idaho, we have learned of a similar project in Cortez, Colorado. Cortez is the county seat of Montezuma County in the extreme southwest of the state and has approximately 8,000 residents. Much of Colorado has long suffered from Qwest's refusal to invest in modern networks -- though a more charitable take on it would be to say Qwest's inability because it simply does not have the capacity to invest in the kind of networks communities now need to take advantage of modern communications technologies. In the late 90's, Qwest's services in Cortez were served by microwave links incapable of meeting local needs and Qwest refused to invest in a better connection due to an insufficient business case. In the words of Rick Smith, Director of General Services for Cortez (and in charge of the network), the city then decided "to take its destiny in its own hands." They began building their own network. The initial phase was an I-Net, built with the City's capital funds, to connect schools and other public facilities. They were able to later expand that under Colorado's Beanpole Project, a program that sought to aggregate community traffic in an attempt to lure more private sector investment in networks. Along the way, they began leasing some dark fiber to private companies that needed better telecommunications options. When Qwest pushed through a bill in 2005 to limit local authority to build networks (click on Colorado on the Community Broadband Preemption Map), Cortez was grandfathered, leaving it with more authority to invest in this essential infrastructure than most communities. A press release details the financing for this latest phase:

Community Network Map

Communities invest in telecommunications networks for a variety of reasons - economic development, improving access to education and health care, price stabilization, etc. They range from massive networks offering a gig to hundreds of thousands in Tennessee to small towns connecting a few local businesses.

This map tracks a variety of ways in which local governments have invested in wired telecommunications networks as well as state laws that discourage such approaches.

Our map includes more than 900 communities, of which more than 600 are served by some form of municipal network and many hundreds more by cooperative networks. Our numbers of cooperatives are still being updated. (Muni numbers updated September, 2021):

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City Fiber
83 municipal networks serving 148 communities with a publicly owned FTTH citywide network.
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Cable
 57 communities with a publicly owned cable network reaching most or all of the community.
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Partial Fiber
260 communities with some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community (often a business district).
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Dark Fiber
Approximately 150 communities with publicly owned dark fiber available.
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Gigabit
More than 315 networks communities in 31 states with a publicly owned network offering at least 1 gigabit services. And more than 30 communities in 10 states with a municipal network delivering 10 gigabit services.
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Coop Networks
More than 330 communities served by rural electric cooperatives. 10 communities served by one broadband cooperative. (Our cooperative stats are not current and we are working on resolving that).

Seventeen states have barriers in place that discourage or prevent local communities from deciding locally if such an investment is a wise decision. We strongly believe these decisions should be made locally, based on needs, capacity, and desire of the community itself.

Click on the pin of a network to learn more about it or click on a state with barriers (in red) to learn about the limitation. Below the map, you may select what types of information you want to display. We have written about every municipal FTTH network here. Information on rural cooperatives here.

If you want more information about a specific network, check if we have tagged it in a previous post, search our site for it using the upper right corner of the page, or check another source of information such as the database maintained by Broadband Communities Magazine.

For general information about community networks, see our Fact Sheets or read about three of the most advanced networks in the nation or an example of incremental public investments to create a network. For a better sense of how big corporations convince states to discourage community networks, see our report on North Carolina: The Empire Lobbies Back.

We continue to expand this map with other forms of publicly owned networks. Still to come are wireless networks, networks serving community anchor institutions, and more. Get updates by signing up for our one-email-per-week list announcing new stories and resources.

Please do let us know if we missed any community networks or if you want to report an error. Stay up to date with information about these networks by following Christopher on Twitter and MuniNetworks on Twitter, following us on Facebook, and/or tuning into our weekly podcast.

Media Contact: Christopher Mitchell, 612-545-5185

Credit for this map's design should be given to Eric James. The data comes from a combination of sources, notably Broadband Properties Magazine, FTTH Council, Jim Baller, and information collected for years by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thank you to the Ford Foundation for enabling us to maintain this map.

Chanute, Kansas, Publicly Owned Fiber-Optic Network Serves Area Businesses

I continue to find it odd that more communities with publicly owned networks do not create official videos or other promotional material that is readily accessible on the Internet.  Videos discussing fiber-optic investments continue to be the exception to the rule. 

But it was a video promoting Chanute's fiber-to-the-business network that I stumbled across in a search for something else.  It turns out that Chanute has built a network with a variety of current and planned uses:

The Broadband Jungle of Marketing, Hype, and Lies in Volusia, Florida

I have little to add to the excellent work done by Stop the Cap! calling out Bright House for their many misleading and false claims, some of which came up in a story about the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce pushing Volusia County to investigate an investment in fiber-optics to help local businesses. Of course Bright House said it would be unnecessary because they already offer everything anyone could ever want from a broadband connection. Absurd. Karl Bode also weighed in - this is a good example of the misleading claims communities can expect when they start investigating broadband -- particularly if they may do anything to threaten the cable/phone duopoly that has so underinvested in broadband across the U.S.

Gotta Love that Efficient, Competitive Broadband Market

As previously noted on both Fiber Evolution and Joho the Blog, Brough Turner (creator of netBlazr) created a slide showing the state of broadband competition in one of our largest cities: Boston. Commercial Broadband Competition The building on the right has a bunch of carriers who are competing. But only Verizon serves the building on the left with dedicated access (a committed information rate as opposed to the standard "up to" connections most residents and many small businesses use). Thanks to Brough for circulating the slide.

Medina County Bonds for Network in Partnership with OneCommunity

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.

Sarasota, Florida, Recognizes Need for Better Broadband

Another community in Florida is considering a community broadband network as a solution to its need for faster, more reliable broadband than incumbents offer. The City formed a commission and created a white paper discussing the problem and potential solutions (referencing the success of Chattanooga and Lafayette). It recognizes broadband as a key infrastructure.
The report lays out a range of options for the city: from doing nothing and letting the market determine Sarasota's broadband future; to partnering with a private entity in building a network that would increase speeds; to tapping a public project already in the works that could create a powerful Internet backbone between Manatee and Sarasota counties.
We recently reported on another community, Dunnellon, that is building a community fiber network. Unfortunately, these communities have to deal with unnecessary barriers created by the Florida Legislature as they invest in the future of their community. Photo used under Creative Commons License, courtesy of 83d40m