The nonprofit Merit Network, Inc., of Michigan, started in 1966 as a way to provide networking help to the state's research and educational facilities across the state. Over the years, the organization has kept up with the times and is now spearheading the Rural, Education, Anchor, Community and Healthcare - Michigan Middle Mile Collaborative (REACH-3MC II) project.

The project will bring connectivity to community anchor institutions and underserved rural communities in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The exentive fiber project is funded with two Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants totaling $103.2 million. When completed, Upper and Lower Michigan will house an additional 2,287 miles of fiber.

Matt Roush recently reported on the project, which is well underway in Monroe County in the southern part of the state. Roush brought news about installation of telecommunications huts, an early step in expanding the network into northern Michigican. From the article:

REACH-3MC will connect 105 community anchor institutions as the network is built and will pass 900 more over time. Led by Merit Network, REACH-3MC includes sub-recipients from the private sector to make broadband readily available to households and businesses that lack adequate service options in the 52 counties that make up the project service area.

For more details on the project, including a map of the proposed routes, follow this link to a PDF of the project overview.

Citywide Internet will soon be available as a monthly service in Port Angeles on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Mayor Cherie Kidd, Police Chief Terry Gallagher, and Councilwoman Brooke Nelson participated in a ceremonial "cable cutting" event last week. The event was to celebrate the new network, nicknamed "The Mesh." Arwyn Rice, of the Olympic Peninsula Daily News covered the event in a recent article.

According to the Metro-Net website, a $2.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant funded part of the $3.7 million Wi-fi system. The network serves a dual purpose, serving public safety first responders and a separate level for public access. From the News article:

The public safety system allows police officers to track each other through the city so that they know where their backup is without having to call radio dispatchers.

They also can do their own searches on driver's licenses and license plates, check recent call histories and access reports, said Officer Erik Smith, who demonstrated the use of the system in his patrol car.

Eventually, the system will be patched into the city's security cameras and police car dashboard cameras — and potentially Port Angeles School District security cameras — so that officers will be able to monitor situations at City Pier from their cars at Lincoln Park, said Police Chief Terry Gallagher.

“The limitation is our imagination,” Gallagher said.

While access is free through October 31, OlyPen MetroNet will start offering a variety of plans on November 1. Mobile and fixed-point service will be available and range from $5.95 (some sources say $4.95) for one day to $37.95 per month. Every user will receive the first hour of Internet access free each day.

As we have often found, the spirit of collaboration and determination on a local level helped realize this possibility:

On September 19th, the Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center (UCIMC) hosted "Models for Building Local Broadband: Public, Private, Coop, Nonprofit." Christopher Mitchell was one of several panelists who discussed local broadband options and challenges.

The presentors live streamed to 138 attendees with 93 watching remotely various locations and 45 at the Media Center. If you were not able to attend or stream the live event, you can now watch the archived version. You can learn a little about the event and watch it at the UCIMC website, or watch the YouTube video here.

Vidalia, a Louisiana town with 4,300 residents, is a small town with a big idea. Vidalia one of the poorest regions in the country with an unemployment rate hovering around 9.4% so area leaders seek new ways to improve opportunity. The Vidalia Broadband Initiative aims to connect every home with a gig and provide 10 gig capacity for every business connection. 

From a June, 2011 Natchez Democrat story:

“We realize the importance of being connected to the Internet,” [City Manager Ken Walker] said. “And the only way to really meet the need to ensure adequate Internet access is through direct fiber optics to each building.”

Along with other communities in the region, Vidalia anticipated using part of a 2010 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant for $80 million to build their network, estimated at $9 million. But the entire BTOP grant was revoked when it became apparent that the Governor's Administration intended to violate the rules of the grant by giving the new infrastructure to big carriers that had no intention of adhering to the open access rules. 

Vidalia decided to forge ahead and seek funding on their own. The community is seeking out a variety of funding sources, including UDSA Rural Utility grants. In the meantime, Vidalia is taking advantage of any and all opportunities to invest in fiber assets.

The town has its own electrical utility and wants to develop a smart-grid. The City has been actively involved with negotiations with a local telephone and data company to provide service, but is planning on an open access model hoping to encourage competition. The City's long term goal is to provide fiber to each home in Vidalia and give residents a choice of providers. Right now, there are two providers in the community and service is described as "often slow and interrupted."

We have brought you news about DC-Net before and have even highlighted the community network in our report, Breaking the Broadband Monopoly. Now we want to draw your attention to some videos they have produced.

Free WiFi hotspots all over town, secure indoor WiFi for government staff, and hundreds of miles of fiber throughout town are just a few of the advances DC-Net has made toward ubiquitous and reliable connectivity. DC-Net is a tremendous example of a publicly owned network providing the highest levels of performance for its subscribers.

DC-Net has released a video highlighting their advancements in DC and how their work has positively impacted the community.

The second video is from Don Johnson, Director of DC-Net, presenting some info on DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) to a Ward 5 audience. DC-CAN is an initiative to bring broadband to the underserved areas in DC with middle-mile connections. From the DC-CAN website:

The DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) will bring affordable, value-added broadband services to over 250 health, educational, public safety, and other community anchor institutions primarily in broadband underserved areas of the District. It also creates a high speed middle mile network for last mile service providers to deliver affordable broadband access to residents and businesses in underserved areas.

DC-CAN already has 67 miles of fiber laid as a backbone and four city MegaPOP sites are now connected to the 100G backbone. From Ciena, one of DC-Net's private sector partners:

With this new infrastructure in place, DC-Net has already connected 49 new Community Anchor Institutions to the network and upgraded 52 existing anchor sites. Community anchors include charter schools, health clinics and other health care providers, community-based training programs, after school and early childhood development programs, libraries, and public safety sites.

Another video from the University of Wisconsin Extension Service's broadband stimulus project, Building Community Capacity through Broadband, which we have been covering here.

This video looks at why these community networks are needed and how private partners look at the project.  These communities are often limited to much slower networks that are nonetheless priced higher than connections in larger cities.  Community networks benefit residents and local businesses by creating competition, offering higher capacity connections, and lowering prices, often by working with private sector partners.  

The Building Community Capacity through Broadband project from the Extension Service of the University of Wisconsin has released a new video about remote education opportunities that require broadband.  We covered their previous video here.

In it, we learn that some of these remote learning programs are closed to people using dial-up.  I wonder how many years it will be until those with basic DSL are similarly shut off due to their hobbled capacity.

The broadband funding will result in vastly improved Internet speeds for local government offices, schools, hospitals, and emergency communication networks across Maryland, officials said. More than 1,200 miles of new fiber-optic cable will be installed across Maryland — a 50 percent increase over the existing network capability, officials said. … The money will be used to link 458 schools, 44 libraries, 262 police and emergency centers, 15 community colleges, six universities and 221 other government and community centers in a statewide network designed to be available and secure in emergencies.

Much of the money — about $72 million dedicated to the 10 jurisdictions in Central Maryland — will be administered by Howard County.