Approximately 30,000 businesses and residential properties in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, will have access to gigabit Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) by the end of 2016.

ALLO Communications recently announced that is it ready to begin the first phase of its four-phase plan to bring better connectivity to the town of 269,000. ALLO will use the city owned network of conduit installed in 2012 to house its fiber and expand where necessary. 

The arrangement will bring a triple-play fiber network of video, voice, and data to the entire city by 2020. The minimum speed available will be 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) and a 1 gigabit per second option will also be available. Both tiers will provide symmetrical speeds so upload will be just as fast as download.

In addition to improving connectivity for residents, businesses, and anchor institutions, the network will improve public safety. When he announced the start of construction, Mayor Chris Buetler said:

“The city will also be able to utilize the fiber system to work with traffic lights and traffic flow. This will allow new smarter traffic flow, less idling cars and help eliminate pollution. This project is another example of public private partnerships and is evidence of how this process benefits the city and its people."

Lincoln is only one of several communities that understand the value of conduit for potential partnerships or for future municipal investment. To learn more about the history of the project, listen to Chris interview David Young and Mike Lang from Lincoln in episode 182 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

The Editorial Board from the Boston Globe recently kicked off a series titled "The Cutting Edge of the Common Good." The editors intend to offer suggestions for how to create a prosperous city through ideas to benefit Boston's 4.7 million residents. 

Their first proposal? Build a municipal fiber network.

In the editorial, the Board point out how the city has always been a cutting edge leader, from Revoluntionary War to same-sex marriage. But when it comes to developing the tech sector, the "City on a Hill" is being edged out by Chattanooga, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Cedar Falls, Iowa. High-tech innovators are flocking to communities with municipal fiber networks.

As the Globe notes, connectivity could be better in Boston:

The truth is that our tech infrastructure is in the same dismal shape as our roads and bridges. Boston, like a majority of American cities, pays more for slower Internet service than our international peers. If Boston is to remain a global hub of innovation — and on the “cutting edge of the common good,” as Mayor Martin J. Walsh promised in his State of the City address last month — it should build a citywide fiber-optic network that allows each residence and business an onramp to the information superhighway of the future.

Even though the city has its own conduit network and significant fiber assets, residents and businesses must seek service from large private providers. The Globe Editors believe the city should rethink the current approach:

But the City of Boston should not gamble its future competitiveness in a Mountain View lottery, nor should it entrust such vital infrastructure entirely to private hands.

The private market would be the ideal solution in an ideal world, but in Boston the market has failed.

Community leaders in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, are taking advantage of growth in apartment and condominium developments to "till the soil" for better residential connectivity. One of the smartest things a community can do to improve connectivity is prepare an environment that encourages high-speed connectivity infrastructure investment. As developers erect new buildings, the city is working with them to develop internal wiring standards and conduit installation standards for high-quality Internet access within and to their buildings.

Developers Understand The Value

The city of approximately 45,000, located immediately west of Minneapolis has not adopted any formal building code language, but has negotiated broadband readiness specifications with several new multi-dwelling unit building developers. Savvy developers realize that high-speed connectivity is now a basic utility that tenants demand.

Loma Linda, California, implemented a similar approach when it passed an ordinance concerning wiring codes for its Connected Communities Program in 2004. New development and remodels that involve more than 50 percent of the structure must include internal Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) wiring. Developers, recognizing the increase in value of properties wired for FTTH, have embraced the practice.

A Goal to Better the Community

The effort is St. Louis Park's intention to turn the city into a "technology connected community," and is part of St. Louis Park City Council Goals & Priorities. The city and the developer begin with basic language and the parties make changes to accommodate the unique needs of each development:

Broadband Readiness

Redeveloper shall install at its cost dedicated wired connections from each building’s telecommunications point of presence to each internal wiring closet, thence to each living and working unit. Each living and working unit shall have a minimum of two (2) connections, each capable of supporting at minimum a one-gigabit connection.

Lincoln, Nebraska, population 269,000, is making the most of a tough situation to improve connectivity and increase telecommunications competition; the city is doing it with conduit.

The state has severe restrictions that ban communities and public power companies from offering telecommunications services. Local businesses, government facilities, and citizens must rely on the private sector to keep them connected. Faced with that limitation, Lincoln city leaders are enticing private providers with an extensive, publicly owned conduit network.

Using Tubes to Draw in Partners

In 2012, the city invested $700,000 to install a conduit system that has since grown to over 300 miles across the city. Over the past three years, Lincoln has leased conduit space to multiple providers, including Level 3 and NebraskaLink, which offer a range of services to businesses and anchor institutions. NebraskaLink provides backhaul for Lincoln's free Wi-Fi, launched in 2014.

Mayor Chris Beutler recently announced that Lincoln will be partnering with provider number six, ALLO Communications. This local company plans to be the first provider to use the conduit to build its gigabit fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network to every home and business in Lincoln. The network is scheduled for completion in 2019. ALLO is based in Lincoln and offers telephone, Internet, and video to residents and businesses.

Smart Conduit Choices for Long Term Vision

Plans for a fiber network collaboration between the city, school district, and county will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in Stormlake, Iowa. The school district recently voted to take advantage of significant savings for connectivity by switching to the publicly owned infrastrucutre as soon as the network is ready.

The Storm Lake Pilot recently reported that under the current contract with Vast Broadband, the district pays $7,500 per month to lease two strands of fiber. The new arrangement will allow the district to lease 12 fibers from the city-owned network for $14,000 per year or $1,167 per month - a reduction of approximately 85 percent. The city and the school district will enter into a 10-year agreement to ultimately save the district a total of $760,000 or approximately $6,333 per month during the term of the lease.

The school will still need to pay for Internet access and as part of the agreement will be responsible for purchasing its own equipment. The School Board voted unanimously to approve the agreement.

As we reported in July, the Stormlake project began as a way to better communication between water and wastewater utility facilities but then evolved into a public safety and cost saving initiative. All three entities - Storm Lake Community School District, the City of Storm Lake, and Buena Vista County - anticipate considerable savings and heightened reliability. We expect to report on more public savings as the community uses this valuable fiber asset.

Project costs for the system of conduit and fiber, which does not include hardware, are estimated at approximately $1,374,000 to be shared by all three entities. This first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by December.