Update: State Governor Jay Inslee signing two bills amending the same section of state law at the exact same time forced the Washington Secretary of State to seek judicial guidance on which bill will take precedence over the other in the face of legal challenge. It is still unclear if the two bills are compatible; however, in these instances the bills should be filed in the order in which they passed the State Legislature, with the bill filed last taking legal precedence. The Public Broadband Act passed the State Legislature one day after S.B. 5383; therefore, the Public Broadband Act should prevail over the Senate bill (S.B. 5383).

Yesterday, following weeks of anticipation, State Gov. Jay Islee signed the Public Broadband Act (H.B. 1336), removing all restrictions on public broadband in the state of Washington, according to the bill’s primary sponsor, State Rep. Drew Hansen, D-23. This critical leap forward in Washington drops the number of states with laws restricting community broadband to 17.  

Rep. Hansen’s tweet announcing the passage of H.B. 1336:

BREAKING: Governor Inslee just signed my Public Broadband Act so we have ENDED ALL RESTRICTIONS ON PUBLIC BROADBAND IN WASHINGTON STATE!!

Next step: contact your local gov’ts (utility districts, ports, counties, etc.) & tell them you want public broadband.

LET’S GO GET IT!!

Baratunde Thurston hosted Bruce Patterson on the most recent episode of his podcast How To Citizen. The episode is a deep dive into the consequences of a lack of competition in Internet access, and how the city of Ammon on stepped up to meet the challenge. Baratunde talks with Technology Director Bruce Patterson about how he got into this space, how the project got started, and the wealth of positive outcomes it has help drive for the community.

Listen here, then watch the video below on how the network is saving money, creating competition for broadband services, and creating powerful new public safety applications.

On Episode 12 of Connect This!, hosts Christopher Mitchell and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by returning guests Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) and Kimberly McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) to talk about the recently released Treasury rules outlining the upcoming infrastructure funds going to states and local governments for critical infrastructure.

After talking for a few minutes about labor and materials shortages, the group dives into the language of the Treasury rules and to what extent they restrict the upcoming funds for cities and towns. They talk about the minimum speed requirements listed and what they mean for the underlying technologies the rules encourage, to what extent the rules represent the enaction of a bold vision for universal high-speed Internet access in the United States, and what kinds of outcomes we might see in the near and medium future.

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.

Watch here, or below.

Earlier this year in March, the Biden Administration signed the American Rescue Plan Act, which included, among many other things, multiple sources of funds for broadband infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Treasury was tasked with writing the rules of how local governments can spend the various funds. The Interim Rule has been published and it appears to significantly limit local ability to invest in needed networks. 

The rules say that communities are expected to focus on areas that do not have 25/3 Mbps service reliably available. But there is no measure of what “reliably” means (in federal statute or otherwise). More than 90 percent of Americans have 25/3 “available” to them by best estimates. The result is considerable confusion for urban areas across the nation who no longer qualify for broadband investments under a strict reading of the proposed rules. This is not what the Biden Administration had suggested we should expect in its many press communications about its broadband approach. 

This discussion is about Section 602, which details the direct payments to local governments under the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund. The aid offered to local governments has numerous authorized expenditures, including broadband infrastructure.

Tonight, at 6:45 ET, we will have a special episode of the Connect This! show with Doug Dawson, Kim McKinley, and Travis Carter to respond to the Interim Rule issued by President Biden's Treasury Department, which basically makes it difficult for most local governments to use the funds for broadband infrastructure. (We have a forthcoming story to explain this in more depth.)

The video will be streamed here live as well as below. It will be available the next day on ConnectThisShow.com.

The Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation (ATMC) is expanding gigabit fiber Internet access with financial assistance from federal and state grants to provide high-speed broadband to residents living in some of North Carolina's most rural, poverty-stricken regions.

A $7.9 million federal allotment from the USDA’s ReConnect Program, to which the North Carolina-based telephone cooperative is contributing matching funds, has kickstarted a $15.87 million Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband deployment project in one of the Coastal Plains’ southernmost counties.

ATMC recently completed construction of the first four phases of its 60-phase “Faster Columbus” project, connecting residents living in the New Life community east of Tabor City to its gigabit fiber service. Upon completion of all 60 phases, the project will provide ATMC’s FOCUS Fiber Internet service to 2,775 unserved households in rural Columbus County. The completed project will also serve over 50 businesses, ten educational facilities, three critical community facilities, and 23 agricultural operations in the communities of Hallsboro, Lake Waccamaw, Bolton, north Tabor City and Whiteville.

The fiber Internet service ATMC is providing is expected to have a substantial impact on the region’s agriculture industry, one of the main sectors of the local economy. The FTTH service will also benefit the Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe, whose reservation is located on the edge of the Green Swamp. Speaking of the anticipated service, Brenda J. Moore, Housing Coordinator of the Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe said, "Finally our Tribal students can look forward to no more boot-legging of Wi-Fi in order to do their homework."

In Episode 11 of the Connect This! Show, hosts Christopher Mitchell and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Kim McKinley (Chief Marketing Officer, UTOPIA Fiber), Pete Ashdown (Founder and CEO, XMission) and Cameron Francis (CEO, Beehive Broadband) to share their perspectives on open access networks.

The panel explore what open access is like for ISPs that use it and offer thoughts for those who are considering it. What's in it for the ISPs?

Along the way they cover a lot of ground: the lower startup costs and fewer barriers to entry for new ISPs; how banks understand providers operating on those infrastructure models; the role, interests, and benefits of publicly owned open access networks; and the future of software-defined networks both on and as differentiated from open access systems.

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.

Watch below, or on YouTube here.

In Episode 11 of the Connect This! Show, hosts Christopher Mitchell and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Kim McKinley (Chief Marketing Officer, UTOPIA Fiber), Pete Ashdown (Founder and CEO, XMission) and Cameron Francis (CEO, Beehive Broadband) to share their perspectives on open access networks.

The panel will explore what open access is like for ISPs that use it, and offer thoughts for those who are considering it. What is in it for the ISPs?

The show will begin on Thursday, May 6th at 5:30pm ET/4:30pm CT.

Subscribe to the show using this feed, or visit ConnectThisShow.com

Email us broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.

Watch below, or on YouTube here.

Every week we write about the municipalities and the cooperatives that come together to bring high-quality, affordable, locally accountable Internet access to those who need it most. And it seems as if we're at a watershed moment as a nation: community solutions to broadband are poised to have their big day. 

One of the big questions that remains is who Congress and the White House will listen to in the coming weeks and months as national legislation moves through the D.C. crucible: their constituents, many of whom have spent the past year struggling to work and live on too-expensive, too-slow, or nonexistent broadband connections forged by a broken marketplace, or the monopoly ISPs gearing up for the fight of their lives to snuff out even the specter of competition so they can continue to extract profits from cities and towns large and small across the country.

ILSR's Sean Gonsalves and Christopher Mitchell have an essay out in The American Prospect which outlines both the upcoming fight and the future at stake, as the Biden Administration's American Jobs Plan positions itself to return a level of parity to local solutions in expanding broadband access and promote competition.

Read an excerpt below, but check out the whole piece here:

28 million households have only one Internet service provider offering at least the minimum broadband speed. Many of the supposed competitors are phantoms. And the number of households in areas with more than one ISP offering gigabit speed service is paltry. Only two million households have that choice, or maybe many fewer—the FCC doesn’t really know at any granular level.

Today, Internet access has been largely monopolized by a few big cable companies, even as voice and television services have become more competitive. Government officials have generally responded by seeking to remove barriers to competition, rather than embracing more deliberate pro-competition policies to better shape the markets. But that may be coming to an end.