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New Fact Sheet: Ohio’s Community Broadband Solutions

The Ohio Senate attached an amendment to the state's budget bill last week which would place significant restrictions on the establishment of new community broadband solutions. It would also, if passed in its current form, place substantial barriers on the operation and expansion of existing municipal networks and other publicly owned and operated projects.

Cities across Ohio have expanded Internet infrastructure in thoughtful, forward-looking ways. These municipal networks have created local government savings, increased speeds, promoted service competition, and powered economic development.

 Some cities have specifically addressed the affordability gap in cities, where many residents have been left behind in a broken market where large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have underbuilt networks, leaving hundreds of thousands of broadband-hungry Ohioans in the digital dust.

This fact sheet [pdf] outlines the many long-term benefits that municipal broadband projects have brought to the state. For instance:

Springboro, Ohio Hopes to Spur Competition and Economic Growth with Conduit Loop

After years of fielding complaints from residents about the speed, reliability, and poor customer service of the city’s single wireline broadband provider, Springboro, Ohio (pop. 19,000) has decided enough is enough. Over the next year, the city (situated ten miles south of Dayton) will build a 23-mile fiber loop for municipal services and, at the same time, lay five additional conduits to entice additional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to come in and offer service, stimulating competition and economic development in the region moving forward.

A Fiber Master Plan

City Manager Chris Pozzuto laid out the plan for the city council, which staff had been working on for the last half year, back in July. It was driven in part by the criticism his office had fielded for years about the incumbent wireline service provider (the two satellite providers also prompted plenty of complaints of their own). Out of a desire both to provide residents with symmetrical gigabit access and stimulate economic development on a 200-acre commercial plot, Pozzuto started talking with regional partners and putting together an alterative.

The city’s Fiber Master Plan [pdf] calls for a 72-strand, 23-mile loop to be built around Springboro, along every major street and thoroughfare and up to the entrance of every neighborhood. Via microtrenching, six conduits will be laid — one for the city, and the remaining for up to five new ISPs to compete for service. 

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Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 278

This is the transcript for Community Broadband Bits podcast episode 278. Christopher Mitchell interviews Dublin, Ohio's City Manager Dana McDaniel to lear more about DubLink and intelligent communities. Listen to this episode here.

Dana McDaniel: Intelligent communities are born out of crisis typically or opportunity our crisis was really born more out of the opportunity side. But it was still a crisis.

Lisa Gonzalez: You're listening to episode 278 of the community broadband pit's podcast from the Institute for local self-reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzales. Christopher recently spoke at an event in Dublin, Ohio, hosted by the Global Institute for the Study of the intelligent community. While he was there he spoke with Dublin City Manager Dana McDaniel about the event and, of course, the community's municipal fiber network that has spurred economic development and provided so many other benefits. During their conversation they discussed the institute's work and their discoveries. Now here's Christopher and Dana McDaniel.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the community broadband bid's podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell with the Institute for local self-reliance and I'm on site in Dublin Ohio talking with Dana McDaniel city manager of Dublin Ohio and host of The Global Institute for the Study of the Intelligent Community. Welcome to the show.

Dana McDaniel: Well thanks Chris thanks for having me and thanks for being with us.

Christopher Mitchell: It's nice to do the interview after my presentation after I have seen a bit since I have a better sense of what's going on here and it's pretty impressive. Well thanks. Where are we Where's Dublin for people who have never been here and what's it like.

Dana McDaniel: OK well Dublin Ohio is a suburb of Columbus and I think most people probably know Columbus is central to the state of Ohio. And of course--

Christopher Mitchell: Both figuratively and physically

Intelligent Communities In Dublin, Ohio, And Beyond - Community Broadband Bits Episode 278

As an increasing number of communities invest in and explore the advantages of publicly owned networks, Christopher finds himself making more trips to cities and towns across the country. In addition to sharing what we discover about all the communities we research, he absorbs what he can from others who also document the way local folks are optimizing connectivity. Sometimes, he’s able to interview people like this week’s guest, Dana McDaniel from Dublin, Ohio.

Dana is City Manager of Dublin home of the Global Institute for the Study of the Intelligent Community, part of the Intelligent Community Forum. In addition to discussing the purpose and principals of the Forum and the Institute, Dana describes how the both use data they collect to share knowledge.

Christopher and Dana also spend time on the many benefits of the publicly owned fiber optic infrastructure in the Columbus suburb and the situation that led to their initial investment. Dana describes how fast growth in Dublin led to the community’s decision to protect other types of infrastructure and take control of their rights-of-way. Over time, they expanded the network, which led to economic development, cost savings, and private investment far beyond their expectations. It’s a great story they want to share with others.

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Community Fiber Network Diversifying Economy in Louisiana

Acadiana, the southern region of Louisiana, is seeing a resurgence of industry thanks in large part to it publicly owned fast, affordable, reliable network. Years ago, the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, built the LUS Fiber network to connect homes and business.

Now, LUS Fiber is helping to diversify Acadiana’s economy, which once almost exclusively relied on the oil industry. Fiber networks offer much potential for economic development. 

“The State of Business” in the Silicon Bayou

The October-November issue of the Acadiana Profile at MyNewOrleans.com ran an article on the changing landscape of Acadiana’s businesses. Author Kimberly Singletary provides an overview of three growing industries: technology, manufacturing, and healthcare. All three need access to reliable, high-speed connections.

Singletary spoke with One Acadiana, an economic development organization in Lafayette:

“We’ve had a long history of innovation in IT and software,” says Jason El Koubi, CEO of One Acadiana. “But it's still very much an emerging field.”

Due to what El Koubi describes as “almost a grassroots movement in cultivating IT over the years,” the Acadiana region enjoys a robust offering of internet services resulting in a competitive, cheap and extremely fast LUS Fiber network.

LUS Fiber offers affordable, high-speed connectivity to several software developers that have made Acadiana their new home. The network offers speeds of up to 2 Gigabits (2,000 Megabits per second). In 2014, LUS Fiber attracted three companies, bringing almost 1,000 jobs to the “Silicon Bayou.” Another company, Waitr, an Uber-like food delivery service, is planning to add an operations center to Lafayette, which will bring another 100 jobs to the community.

More Than Tech: Industries Need Connectivity

Dublin Residents Push for Residential Fiber, City Continues to Benefit

The Columbus, Ohio suburb of Dublin is home to Dublink, a fiber-optic network that serves local businesses, schools, and community anchor institutions. Dublink brought new jobs and research opportunities to the local economy while saving local institutions hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. 

Just recently, Dublin City School District and City of Dublin struck a deal to allow public schools to use the network. Now, residents want Dublink to deliver high-speed access to their homes. 

Residents Want The Benefits, Too

This spring, Dublin residents expressed their discontent with incumbent Internet service providers (ISPs) Charter Communications and AT&T at two packed meetings. Doug McCollough, Dublin’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) summarized local sentiments in a memo to the City Council in April. In the memo and in a Columbus Business First article, McCollough downplayed the idea that the city would operate a network itself, but noted a growing impatience in his community:

"We are a city and should not be competing against telecom carriers, (but) the patience for that message is running out. Our residents want broadband service in their home for a reasonable price – now."

Dublin Plans Upgrade Dublink to 100 Gbps

Dublin, Ohio's Dublink has been saving public dollars and spurring economic development since 2002. The gigabit fiber network is on the verge of a 100 gigabit upgrade. The Dublin Villager reports that in early May the City Council voted to implement the 100-Gigabit Dublink Ignite program.

According to the Villager:

The city has budgeted $865,000 over the next six years to complete the project, [City Manager Dana] McDaniel said, and will also use $300,000 in state funds and $360,000 from the Ohio Academic Resource Network for use of additional fiber optics for the project.

Increasing the city's fiber capability will allow the Dublin to provide fiber optics to older office buildings and make then more attractive, McDaniel said.

In addition to bringing fiber to a greater number of office buildings, the project may even lead to "fiber to the cubicle." 

As we reported in 2014, Dublin collaborated with the Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet) to create CORN, also known as the Central Ohio Research Network. This new 100 gigabit initiative plans to encompass those partnerships so companies can potentially access OARnet and CORN.

Dublin operates a "meet me" room at a local data center and anticipates using that facility as a place were a number of ISPs can compete for commercial customers. 

According to a detailed memo from Dana McDaniel [PDF], the city has calculated significant benefits for local businesses. Here are just a few (emphasis ours):

Athens, Ohio Learns from Neighbors and Considers Fiber Investments

Recently, we ran a story on the Columbus suburb of Dublin, which has a growing fiber optic network that has paid huge dividends in public savings, economic development, and facilitating technology research with the Ohio State University. Apparently others are taking notice of Dublin as well: Athens, a city 90 miles to the Southeast, has its city council discussing how to get fiber in the ground and the possibility of a public WiFi network. 

After meeting representatives of Dublin’s economic development department at a conference in November, Athens mayor Paul Wiehl came away impressed enough to start a discussion with the city council about how the Dublin model of extensive conduit networks and fiber access for businesses and public buildings might be adapted to Athens.  Athens is a college town, home of Ohio University, which may mean that like Dublin (which is only a few miles from the Ohio State University) it could be well positioned for research partnerships using fiber optics.

While specific plans have not yet been worked out, 

[Mayor] Wiehl said that the city's public works director, Andy Stone, recently has been looking at ways to incorporate fiber-optic line capacity into city infrastructure projects. The lines likely would be maintained by the city, and probably would run only to local businesses, who would pay the city for use of the Internet service.

Unfortunately, Athens’ city leaders may be overly enamored with the idea of citywide Wi-Fi. DubLINK launched a citywide WiFi network several years ago, but like nearly every other citywide WiFi system in the country it has not been able to deliver reliable high speed connections blanketing the entire city due to technological limitations. WiFi can still provide considerable value if deployed intelligently in specific public spaces as a supplement to other forms of access. But if Athens officials are expecting a cheap and easy answer to providing robust home access over a wide area, they are likely to be disappointed. 

DubLINK Network Supports Economic Development, Health Care, and Supercomputing

Award-winning supercomputing apps, medical research, economic development, and quantum computing advances. What do they all have in common? They all depend on the DubLINK network running underneath Dublin, Ohio, a suburb on the Northwest edge of Columbus. The city of 43,000 people has 125 miles of fiber optics in the ground, both within its own boundaries and in the form of fiber purchased by the city within metro and regional networks. 

DubLINK began in 1999 as a public private partnership with the Fishel company to build an institutional network. In the wake of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Dublin worried that a recent massive investment of $70 million in streetscaping would be undone as competing providers dug up newly paved streets to install fiber optics. To avoid this, the City signed a franchise agreement with Fishel to install a multi-conduit system, with the city receiving some conduit for its own use.  

Using 1.25” conduits installed in the city’s existing sewer system, the network runs for 25 miles underneath Dublin’s business district and connects six city buildings, who use their own lit fiber for data and voice services, eliminating expense leased line fees. This has allowed the city to save approximately $400,000 per year for the last 12 years in connectivity and information technology expenses.

In 2004, Dublin spent $3.5 million to purchase 96 strands running 100 additional miles through Columbus FiberNet, bringing the total length of the DubLink network to its current 125 miles. FiberNet is a duct system that runs throughout a significant portion of central Ohio, including Columbus and its surrounding suburbs.

Intelligent Communities in US Invested in Community Networks

The Intelligent Community Forum has released their list of 2011's 21 smart communities.
The 2011 Smart21 ... highlights communities from 12 nations and includes 7 that appeared on last year’s list. Two communities, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Northeast Ohio, returned to the list after a 1-2 year absence. There were two Chinese, one Indian and one Australian communities on the list, as well as six from the USA, four from Canada and one each from the UK, France, Hungary and Brazil.
As usual, the list of US Communities that made the list is dominated by communities that have taken greater responsibility for their broadband infrastructure. Chattanooga was on the list (how could it not be?) with its 1Gbps community fiber network that we have covered. Dakota County, Minnesota, is on the list and was a pioneer in county-owned fiber and conduit. For some reason, ICF is under the mistaken impression that the county has been well served by commercial providers… as my parents live in the County as well as a number of friends, I strongly disagree. Danville, Virginia, has built an open access fiber network for local businesses and plans to expand it to residents (our Danville coverage).