The City of Westfield in western Massachusetts recently launched a new marketing initiative designed to attract business and promote sustainable growth. The GoWestfield campaign features a website and promotional video that focuses on showcasing the many incentives for businesses that the small city of around 41,500 offers, including an environment where businesses can thrive. As the city points out in the video, one of Westfield’s largest selling points is its high-speed fiber optic Internet network.

Check out the video:

Improvements at Home and the Office

Westfield’s locally owned municipal gas and electric company, Westfield Gas & Electric (WG+E) began using fiber optic connections to monitor substations and municipal facilities about 20 years ago. In 2015, the City launched a fiber optic Internet pilot program to about 300 homes and businesses using the existing network. The public Internet service, dubbed "Whip City Fiber," has since expanded its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network to more neighborhoods and is taking applications in other areas of the city. 

While Westfield hopes that their new fiber network will attract more businesses, their new video highlights how existing local business are already experiencing positive impacts from the fiber. The co-owner of Westfield’s Circuit Coffee, Ted Dobek, said that people can now more easily come work at his coffee shop because his business connects to Whip City Fiber. Similarly, Al Liptak, the lead video producer at Kirby Productions, can now upload content at his studio ten times faster than with his old ISP. The production manager of Advance MFG, Co., Jeff Amanti, also has experienced the benefits, stating that the fiber has greatly helped the rate of data transfer at his precision manufacturing facility.

The GoWestfield Campaign grew as a partnership between the City of Westfield, Westfield Development, Westfield Bank, WG+E, and Whip City Fiber. While the initiative’s intent is to highlight many of Westfield’s...

On Independence Day, Americans celebrate the ingenuity, grit, and fortitude that led us to now. We’ve chosen this day to remember the decision to establish the United States as an independent country. Like other civilizations that have come and gone, America will always have times of honor and unbecoming moments in history, but its citizens have learned self-reliance — it’s in our DNA.

In this video from Motherboard and CNet, we have the chance to see a group of citizens from several Detroit neighborhoods take charge of their own digital future through local self-reliance. The people of the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) are taking advantage of  dark fiber in the city to provide connectivity to residents in areas of the city sorely needing Internet access and better services. The group is composed of several organizations and, in addition to deploying high-speed wireless technology to serve residents and businesses, they’re heading up programs for young people to increase adoption and provide training.

When the framers of the U.S. Constitution declared their independence, they did so based on economics, social justice, and the desire for autonomy. Diana Nucera and her group, the Detroit Community Technology Project, express a similar motivation as they declare their independence through local self-reliance.

“We risk our human rights if we don’t take ownership and control over the Internet in a way that is decentralized.” - Diana Nucera, Director, Detroit Community Technology Project

If you're inspried by this story, you can donate to the project.

You may have missed Cannes this year, but we have something even better — the Fiber Film Festival! This new site will feature superior films that educate viewers about community broadband networks and inspire them to consider the need for universal high-quality connectivity.

Broadband access is now a necessary service and there is a shockingly high number of Americans still stuck with slow technologies, such as DSL or even dial-up Internet access. Filmmakers are telling these stories and documenting how communities contend with poor connectivity, overcome it, and the benefits they reap through local self-reliance. We've created an online movie house where you can view some of the best films out there.

We’ve made several of these films and collaborated with other organizations to bring out stories of local power. As the collection grows, we will continue to add works from other filmmakers. We encourage you to share the Fiber Film Festival and check back for updates. For more resources on community broadband networks, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

If you come across a film you think would be a good addition to the Fiber Film Festival, drop us a line: broadband(at)muninetworks.org.

Vermont was one of the first states to take decisive action to try to curb the harmful consequences from the repeal of network neutrality. It’s only fitting that Senator Bernie Sanders recently released a video on network neutrality featuring one of the country’s experts on connectivity — our own Christopher Mitchell.

The video details how the FCC’s decision to eliminate federal network neutrality protections will harm rural America. Christopher describes the lack of competition as it exists today and how services and prices will change to the detriment of subscribers if we move forward without network neutrality in place. 

“We can’t expect competition in rural areas, [they] are, in many cases, only going to have one high-quality network provider,” says Mitchell. “Losing net neutrality means that the cable and telephone companies are going to be able to set up toll booths and charge more money on the networks they’ve already created.”

Check out the video and share it widely:

Trying to Fix The Mistake

When FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the other Republican Commissioners voted to repeal network neutrality last December, advocates mobilized. The decision put more than 170 million Americans at risk of losing market protections. By using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Democrats in Congress hope to reverse the Commission’s decision. The repeal formally goes into effect on June 11th.

On May 16th the Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision, 52 - 47; the next step in the process requires the House to take up the measure. Groups such as Fight for the Future are prepared and have started campaigns to convince the House to vote on the same issue. You can sign their...