Clarksville, Arkansas, began their journey toward better local connectivity to enhance electric utility efficiencies. Four years after making the choice to deploy fiber, the town has chosen to use that fiber to offer Internet access to the community. Gigabit connectivity is on the way to every premise in Clarksville.

Kicking it Off

On June 1st, about 400 people gathered for an event to celebrate three achievements for Clarksville: a new high school campus, re-branding of the municipal utilities, and a fiber splicing to kick-off their upcoming citywide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployment. They enjoyed free food, tours of the new facility, and learned more about the new infrastructure that will bring fast, affordable, reliable connectivity to residents and businesses. John Lester, General Manager of Clarksville Connected Utilities, told us about the event and the new project.

Re-branding 

As CCU has worked to update connectivity for the town of around 10,000, Lester and other leaders at the utility have recognized that it's also time for a re-branding. After more than 100 years, the Clarksville Light & Water municipal utility retired “The Waterdrip Guy” and adopted a new name and a new logo. In order to reflect the city’s transition to a more forward thinking and competitive attitude, they transitioned to Clarksville Connected Utilities (CCU); the utility Commission approved the change in March. Their new logo uses the utility locate colors. 

From Light to Light-Speed

In 2017, we reported on Clarksville’s investigation into the possibility of deploying fiber for SCADA operations and how they kept their eye on future uses as part of the decision making process. When determining how best to use the fiber and its extra capacity, city leaders decided to allocate 12 strands each for different specific sectors in the community. They determined that 48 strands would be enough for the electric utility’s needs and chose to allocate 12 strands each for educational facilities, healthcare institutions, public safety needs, and government facilities. Almost 200...

Interest in community broadband and broadband service from cooperatives has grown significantly within the past few years. This legislative session, lawmakers in states such as Vermont, North Carolina, and Arkansas, have decided that they’d like to start contributing to new ways to bring better Internet access to their constituents. This week, Christopher and Jess Del Fiacco, our Communications Specialist, sit down to review some of the most recent state bills that we find promising.

Jess and Christopher talk about H 513 making it’s way through Vermont’s legislature. The bill contains policy changes and financial support designed to invigorate local broadband projects. H 513 was developed after state leaders examined the success of ECFiber, the regional network that brings gigabit connectivity to more than 20 communities in the central part of the state. 

The state of North Carolina’s FIBER NC ACT, which relaxes some of the state’s restrictions on local Internet network infrastructure investment, also comes up in the conversation. Christopher finds the bill a promising start to restoration of local telecommunications authority in North Carolina. State lawmakers are also considering another bill that will assist with pole issues.

Christopher and Jess spend some time examining what’s happening in Tallahassee, Florida, where city leaders have decided that they...

*Update: After amending the bill significantly, SB 150 passed through the Arkansas Senate to the House. We were initially excited because the original version of the bill reinstated local authority to develop publicly owned broadband networks. The amendment adopted in Committee, however, changed the bill to only allow communities that apply for and receive grants and loans to invest in community networks and only to specific areas and at the speeds defined in those grants and loans. We still consider it a step in the right direction, but the move forward is miniscule. Read the amended bill here.*

This session, a new force in the Arkansas State Legislature — the Republican Women’s Legislative Caucus — has decided that they’ll take on the issue of poor connectivity. As part of their “Dream Big” initiative, they’ve introduced SB 150, a bill to restore local telecommunications authority.

"Dreaming Big" Means Bigger Broadband

The bill was introduced on January 23rd along with a suite of four other bills aimed at a variety of issues, including juvenile justice and education. Senator Breanne Davis of Russellville is the lead sponsor of SB 150, which would repeal restrictions preventing communities from developing broadband networks. Current law has an exception for communities that have a municipal electric utility but if SB 150 is adopted, any government entity will be able to offer high-quality connectivity.  

Legislators are focusing on opportunities for local communities to partner with private sector ISPs as a way to solve some of the poorest access to broadband in the country. They're also emphasizing that, if no partner wants to work with a government entity, this bill will allow a city, town, or county to invest on their own.

In a recent conversation with Talk Business & Politics, Davis described the impetus and goal of the bill: 

“About 40% of Arkansans don’t have access to broadband as defined by the FCC, so we decided to change that,” she said. “Our bill simply lifts the ban on cities and counties being able to either partner in a public-private partnership or go out on their own when no one will partner with them and apply...

Rural electric cooperatives in Arkansas are stepping up and making the investments to bring broadband connectivity to their members. We recently described plans taking shape from North Arkansas Electric Cooperative. This month, construction began in the northeast region on infrastructure that will provide both broadband access and improved smart grid technology in the eight counties of Craigshead Electric Cooperative Corporation (CECC).

A Multi-Year Investment

The cooperative will deploy approximately 5,000 miles of fiber on utility poles and underground over the next five to seven years. Empower, a subsidiary of CECC, will offer Internet access to more than 30,000 members and non-members in its service area northwest of Memphis by the time construction is finished. FCC data has determined that about 44 percent of CECC’s members aren’t able to subscribe to broadband at the 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload minimum threshold because there is no option in their territory.

CECC wants to make use of smart grid technology in order to improve delivery of electric services. Since fiber optic Internet infrastructure and smart grid can exist hand-in-hand, and the region is in desperate need for better connectivity, CECC and Empower will offer high-speed Internet access where incumbents won’t.

The cooperative will spend approximately $100 - $110 million to complete the project; construction on the first phase began in July and should be finished by the end of 2018. In addition to the economic development benefits that will come to the region as the infrastructure attracts new business, 30 new permanent positions which will be created to manage and operate the network.

Like many rural electric cooperatives, CECC began by local farmers. The Rural Electrification Act (REA) required that they sign up 612 members in the co-op...