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St. Louis Park And Developers Ready The Wires
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.
Seniors, Low-Income, Disabled Communities Pay the Price in St. Paul
For seniors, low-income residents, and the disabled in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a Comcast discount within the city's franchise agreement is not all it was cracked up to be. The Pioneer Press recently reported that, as eligible subscribers seek the ten percent discount guaranteed by the agreement, they are finding the devil is in the details - or lack of them.
This is a warning to those who attempt to negotiate with Comcast for better service. Comcast may make deals that it knows are unenforceable.
"No Discount For You!"
For years, Comcast held the only franchise agreement with the city of St. Paul. In 2015, the city entered into a new agreement with the cable provider and, as in the past, the provider agreed to offer discounts for low-income and senior subscribers. Such concessions are common because a franchise agreement gives a provider easy access to a pool of subscribers.
It seems like a fair deal, but where there is a way to squirm out of a commitment, Comcast will wriggle its way out.
Comcast is refusing to provide the discount when subscribers bundle services, which are typically offered at reduced prices. Because the contract is silent on the issue of combining discounts, the city of approximately 298,000 has decided it will not challenge Comcast's interpretation:
The company notes that the ten percent senior discount applies only to the cable portion of a customer's bill. Comcast has maintained that it is under no legal obligation to combine discounts or promotions, and that bundled services provide a steeper discount anyway.
Subscribers who want to take advantage of the discounts will have to prove their senior status and/or their low-income status. In order to do so, Comcast representatives have been requesting a copy of a driver's license or state issued i.d.
CenturyLink Picks Up the Baton
Minnesota's Arrowhead Region Points to High-Speed Internet
Welcome to high-speed Internet on the Iron Range! This past fall, the Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC) completed a multi-year project, a fiber optic network spanning nearly 1,000 miles, on Minnesota’s north shore.
The project, the Northeast Fiber Network, connects public buildings, such as health care facilities, community libraries, colleges and universities, tribal facilities, and government offices. The fiber provides the opportunity for next-generation connectivity in many unserved and underserved areas of eight counties: St. Louis, Cook, Lake, Pine, Itasca, Koochiching, Carlton, and Aitkin. It’s exciting to see this rural project finally come to fruition.
Institutional Network: Now to Go the Last Mile
It’s an institutional network, which means it brings high-speed Internet to community anchor institutions throughout the region. So far, about 320 public entities, including 31 school districts, have connected to the network. The network is designed to provide middle mile connectivity for community anchor institutions, not to bring connectivity to residents and businesses of the region. As with most federally funded projects, the plan is to provide middle mile infrastructure with the hope that the private sector will be more able or willing to invest in last mile connectivity.
That last mile, to homes and businesses, presents a challenge. NESC is leasing fiber to public and private providers and working to ensure that the network can serve as a backbone to greater connectivity. Actively working with private providers, NESC offers a bright future for unserved and underserved communities on the Iron Range.
Collaboration & Funding
Another Coop Story: Wiatel Wires Western Iowa
Iowa, known across the country for its agriculture, is known in other circles for its exciting community broadband projects. Earlier this year President Obama visited Cedar Falls to praise its municipal network and to support other efforts to improve rural high-speed Internet access. One of those efforts is Wiatel. This small telecommunications coop is beginning a $25 million project to upgrade its network from copper to fiber throughout its entire service area.
Fiber Connectivity
The cooper network that Wiatel uses now is sufficient for basic phone service, but upgrading to fiber will future-proof the network and provide better Internet speeds. The coop is based out of Lawton, a small town of about 1,000 people, but the coop serves an area of 700 miles. Wiatel hopes to start burying the fiber cables in the summer of 2016. Once the project gets started, officials from the cooperative estimate they will connect all residential and business customers to fiber within 24-30 months.
Wiatel is part of a long-growing movement as rural coops build fiber networks or upgrade to fiber to improve services for members. Just check out the Triangle Communications coop in Montana, the Paul Bunyan Communications coop in Minnesota, or Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative in Alabama. They’re providing next-generation connectivity at reasonable prices to rural communities often ignored by the large incumbent telephone and cable companies.
Coops: An Alternative
Pioneer Press Op-Ed: Competition and Community Savings
The Pioneer Press published this op-ed about Minnesota high speed Internet access and availability on December 3, 2015.
Christopher Mitchell: Competition and community savings
Minnesota has just one more month to achieve its goal of high speed Internet access available to every resident and local business. In 2010, the Legislature set a 2015 goal for universal Internet access at speeds just under the current federal broadband definition. But the state never really committed to anything more than a token effort and will fall far short.
Even for those of us living in metro areas that have comparatively high speed access, we don't have a real choice in providers and most of us lack access to next-generation gigabit speeds.
The big cable and telephone companies excel at restricting competition by manipulating markets, state and federal government policy, and other means. This is why so many local governments across the nation are themselves expanding Internet infrastructure: to ensure local businesses and residents can access affordable next-generation services and create a real choice. We should be encouraging these local approaches.
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is tracking more than 450 communities where local governments are expanding choices with direct investments in networks. Just this month, some 50 communities in Colorado and two in Iowa voted to move forward with plans for their own networks or partnerships.
Here in Minnesota, we have seen a variety of successful approaches. Eagan's modest network attracted a data center.
Dakota County has saved itself millions of dollars by placing conduit for fiber in the ground at very low cost as part of other projects. Now it can use that to help local companies to compete with the big cable and telephone companies.
Scott County's fiber network has helped create more than 1,000 jobs and tremendously improved access in area schools. In Sibley County and part of Renville, cities and townships joined together to help launch a new cooperative, RS Fiber, which shows tremendous promise. Cooperatives, which are effectively community-owned as well, offer some of the best connectivity in rural regions of the state.
USDA Broadband Funding for Rural Projects; Coops On Top
This past July the USDA announced over $85 million in funding for rural broadband projects across seven states. The projects, many awarded to rural cooperatives, aim to bridge the digital divide and expand economic opportunities. For those interested in federal funding opportunities, NTIA has just released this guide [pdf].
Rural areas are often passed over by big telcos because they are considered less profitable. Farming, however, is a high-tech industry, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack believes that Internet access is as necessary as electricity in rural areas:
"Broadband is fundamental to expanding economic opportunity and job creation in rural areas, and it is as vital to rural America's future today as electricity was when USDA began bringing power to rural America 80 years ago. ... Improved connectivity means these communities can offer robust business services, expand access to health care and improve the quality of education in their schools, creating a sustainable and dynamic future those who live and work in rural America."
The USDA has awarded more than $77 million in Community Connect Grants for rural broadband projects (since 2009). This July, the USDA loaned $74.8 million and awarded another $11 million in Community Connect Grants. Here is the current round-up of the USDA’s most recent loans and grants:
Alaska
Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative Inc. will connect Point Hope subscribers and prepare for an undersea fiber line with a $1.4 million grant.
Minnesota
Garden Valley Telephone, one of the largest coops in Minnesota, will continue to expand its FTTH service area with a $12.63 million loan. On average, the coop serves two households per square mile.
Paul Bunyan Communications Wins Award for GigaZone
Sometimes we just want to celebrate a small victory for local communities. Back in June, Paul Bunyan Communications won the 2015 Leading Lights National Award for Most Innovative Gigabit Broadband Service.
This small cooperative from rural northern Minnesota beat both innovative local firms like C Spire and national companies like Google. Whereas Comcast is rolling out Gigabit Pro in Silicon Valley, Paul Bunyan Communications is serving sparsely populated, often-ignored, rural areas. Gary Johnson, the Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager was honored to accept the award and explained their approach to gigabit access:
“It is one of the first gigabit network initiatives that will encompassas a large rural area and I think that is significant. Many of the gigabit network projects taking place are in small portions of densely populated metropolitan areas. Too often, the more challenging rural America gets overlooked.”
Paul Bunyan Communications has created a GigaZone passing 7,800 locations, and will soon include 20,000 locations by the end of this year. Those in the GigaZone will have the opportunity to buy a Gigabit connection for only $100 a month. The goal for the small telecom cooperative is to expand the GigaZone to encompass the entire 5,000 square mile service area. Now, that deserves an award.
RS Fiber Cooperative Breaks Ground
Six years after an initial feasibility study was conducted to assess bringing broadband to Renville and Sibley Counties in southeastern Minnesota, members of the RS Fiber Cooperative board were finally able to dust off their shovels for a groundbreaking ceremony on July 9. Although those shovels may have ended up being more symbolic than they were practical, the ceremony marked an important and long-awaited step in the fight to extend broadband to 10 cities and 17 rural townships across the largely agricultural region.
The groundbreaking ceremony marked the start of stage one of a two-stage project that will take five to six years to complete. By the end of 2015, the RS (Renville-Sibley) Fiber Cooperative plans to connect 1,600 homes and businesses with fiber, with 90 percent of its service area covered by high-speed wireless. It hopes to connect another 2,600 homes and businesses by the end of 2016, with the eventual goal of reaching 6,200 potential customers. At the event, Toby Brummer, RS Fiber General Manager, highlighted the importance of broadband Internet to rural development:
This technology is to this generation what rural electric and rural telephone was to generations years ago.
The RS Fiber Cooperative is member-owned and member-driven, led by a Joint Powers Board that formed in 2009. In order to provide FTTH to the rural locations across the two counties, the cooperative partnered with a network operator, Hiawatha Broadband Communications, that already serves 17 communities in southeast Minnesota. RS Fiber will offer residential Internet speeds up to 1 gigabit for $129.95. It will also connect schools, bolster home and farm security systems, and even facilitate high school sports broadcasts and telemedicine initiatives.
Rochester, Minnesota, City Council Reviews Municipal Fiber Proposal
Earlier this year, Rochester City Council members chose to look further at the prospect of developing a municipal fiber network. On August 17th, the Committee of the Whole met to hear a proposal from Alcaltel-Lucent to deploy 500 miles of fiber for approximately $42 million.
According to the Post Bulletin, the city recently surveyed 1,200 Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) customers and found that more than 75 percent of them supported the idea of Internet access from RPU.
Rochester residents and businesses have long suffered with expensive, unreliable, slow connectivity from incumbent Charter Communications. City Council member Michael Wojcik introduced the idea of publicly owned infrastructure in 2010 but the idea never picked up steam. He revived the issue last year when constituents began calling his office with complaints about Charter.
"Principally, I feel the technology, the customer service and price in Rochester are unacceptably bad (from Charter)," [Wojcik] said. "I get the feeling that a good portion of the public strongly agrees with that."
For this information session, the Council took no action; next, the proposal will be examined thoroughly by RPU officials.
Local video coverage from KTTC:
Municipal Networks and Economic Development
When a community invests in a municipal broadband network, it often does so because it hopes to reap economic benefits from the network. Many people and organizations have explored the positive relationship between municipal Internet networks and economic development, including a White House report published in January 2015. Municipal networks create jobs by ensuring businesses have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access; the old DSL and cable networks just don't cut it. These networks improve the productivity of existing businesses and attract new businesses to communities, allow individuals to work from home more effectively, support advanced healthcare and security systems, strengthen local housing markets, and represent long term social investments in the form of better-connected schools and libraries. They also create millions of dollars in savings that can be reinvested into local economies.
"Upgrading to higher speed broadband lets consumers use the Internet in new ways, increases the productivity of American individuals and businesses, and drives innovation throughout the digital ecosystem." - Executive Office of President Obama
When municipalities choose to deploy fiber networks, they introduce Internet services into the community that are not only significantly faster than DSL and cable, but more reliable. With more reliable fiber connections, businesses and individuals are far less likely to experience temporary blackouts that can halt productivity in vexing and expensive ways. And because these networks are locally-owned and operated, business owners do not have to spend hours on the phone with an absentee Internet Service Provider like AT&T in the (albeit unlikely) event of a problem.
We at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance have catalogued numerous examples of economic development achievements that have occurred as a result of local governments deploying a municipal broadband network. Below, you can find a wide range of articles, studies, anecdotes, and other resources that speak to the economic successes enabled by municipal networks, organized by topic:
- Job Creation
- Business Attraction
- Business Support
- Telecommuting
- Research
- Tech and Entrepreneurship
- Savings
- Property Values
- General Resources
Keep up to date with all things community broadband by subscribing to a once-per-week email with stories about community broadband networks.
Municipal networks create jobs:
Look no further than Morristown, Tennessee, for an example of job creation thanks to municipal fiber. The city took advantage of its local electrical utility, Morristown Utility Systems, to provide gigabit speeds, and businesses jumped at the opportunity. In 2013, Oddello Industries, a furniture manufacturer, brought 228 jobs to the community after investing in a $4.4 million site expansion in Morristown. More recently, a call center looking to relocate to the city was wowed by the municipal utility’s offer to install fiber for free because the city valued the future economic benefits the call center would bring to Morristown over the cost of the fiber installation.
- Our economic development fact sheet outlines several of the job creation opportunities that have resulted from municipal networks.
- In 2012, Spirit Aerosystems opened up a new manufacturing facility in Chanute, Kansas, creating 150 jobs that require high quality broadband Internet.
- In Lebanon, Virginia, defense contractor Northrup Grumman and IT consultant CGI announced the creation of 700 jobs paying twice the median wage.
- HomeServe, a home repair company, expanded its call center to 140 employees because of Chattanooga, Tennessee’s robust municipal broadband infrastructure; in Chattanooga, HomeServe employees could get faster residential service than executives had in the company's Miami headquarters.
- In 2015, Hardide Coatings, a surface coating manufacturer located in Henry County, Virginia, that relies on the municipal broadband provider MiNet, added 29 high-paying jobs to the local economy.
"You can't grow jobs with slow Internet." - Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore
- The Dalles, Oregon, received a much-needed economic boost in the form of 200 jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenues when Google invested $1.2 billion in a data center that used the city’s municipal fiber network, Q-Life.
- A new data center in Dawsonville, Georgia, created 12 high-paying jobs and expanded the local tax base thanks to the municipally-owned North Georgia Network.
- Increased competition in Chattanooga, Tennessee, due to the city’s powerful municipal fiber network, induced Comcast to bring 150 new jobs to town.
- Thomasville, Georgia’s municipal fiber network revitalized the community’s downtown and brought more than 200 jobs to Main Street.
- Tacoma, Washington has, for many years, been on the cutting edge of municipal Internet deployment; a 2001 quote from the city's mayor revealed that Tacoma benefited early on from the network - attracting over 100 companies and creating 700 jobs in 18 months.
- The laying of an open-access fiber-optic network, called the Three Ring Binder, in Maine created 400 jobs in the construction industry.
Municipal networks attract new businesses:
The city of Mount Vernon, Washington has two things in common with our country’s first president, but unlike George, it boasts an impressive municipal broadband network that has attracted high-tech businesses. For example, a digital legal firm, Blank Law, relocated from Seattle to Mount Vernon in order to take advantage of faster speeds offered by the city’s municipal broadband network. While high-speed Internet was not the only reason Blank Law cited for choosing Mount Vernon over other towns (other reasons include quality of life and free parking), it played a significant role. Fiber is rarely the sole reason for a relocation, but it can often be a deciding factor.
- Zeyuan, a Chinese wood floor manufacturer, and GOK International, a Chinese furniture assembly plant, built manufacturing centers in Danville, Virginia, knowing they would benefit from connecting to the city’s municipal broadband network.
- Expedia, the online travel giant, kept many hundreds of jobs in Springfield, Missouri in the form of a call center that relies heavily on the high bandwidth of Springfield’s municipal network.
- EnableComp, a medical claims processing company, expanded with 200 new jobs in Tullahoma, Tennessee, thanks in large part to the municipal fiber network LighTUBe.
"It's almost a feeling of disbelief when we tell companies today we can provide a gig to your business and to your house...These companies want to go where they can see the gig service." - Marshall Ramsey, President of the Morristown, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce
- Pixel Magic, a visual effects producer, and Tapes Again, a media reproduction and processing company, both set up shop in Lafayette, Louisiana to support the state’s burgeoning film industry — and access to the municipally-owned LUS Fiber greatly facilitated these activities.
- An industrial park in Cedar Falls, Iowa went from having 27 businesses and $5 million in taxable valuation to having 160 businesses and $270 million in valuation in the twenty years since it hooked up to the city's municipal fiber network.
- Faneuil, a customer care center, and SPARTA Inc., a defense contractor, were attracted to Martinsville, Virginia in large part because of the city’s municipal network, MiNet.
- A film production company, Exodus FX, opened its new special effects studios in Wilson, North Carolina, citing high-speed municipal broadband as a major reason for locating its services in the small city.
- In the small Minnesota town of Gibbon, the fiber network from the RS Fiber Cooperative convinced the owner of Advocate 3D to take up residence in town where the family could live the small-town life but the business could still obtain the high-speed, reliable connectivity they needed for their 3D printing business.
Municipal networks serve existing businesses and keep critical jobs in town:
The small Minnesota town of Windom nearly entered crisis mode when Fortune Trucking, a local company that employed 47 people in a town of 4,600, announced that slow Internet speeds might force it to leave town. Although the company’s headquarters were located a mile outside of the Windom’s jurisdiction, community members successfully lobbied to bring municipal fiber to Fortune, saving those jobs and stabilizing the local economy.
- MagnaTech, a towing and RV accessory manufacturer, decided to keep its business in Chanute, Kansas when the city installed a fiber network, reports the Chanute Tribune.
- Alpha Natural Resources, a coal mining company, stayed in Bristol, Virginia, thanks to the BVU municipal fiber network
- When the city of Princeton, Illinois set up a municipal broadband network, it kept 300 jobs in the community with the global industrial machinery company, Ingersoll Rand.
- In Longmont, Colorado, a billboard production company, Circle Graphics, used the city’s municipal broadband network, NextLight, to improve its ability to quickly deliver products to customers.
- The city of Aurora, Illinois, is offering local business seminars on how to best use its municipal fiber services.
- IT company Exbabylon LLC expands and recruits talent in Newport, Washington because of Pend Oreille County PUD's fiber network.
- Millennium Capital and Recovery Corporation, a local Hudson, Ohio, business, announced the move to a new state-of-the-art headquarters to take advantage of the municipal fiber network Velocity Broadband.
"Municipal broadband can be a powerful lever against the digital divide that condemns people to the isolation and reduced economic opportunities experienced by many of our low-income, disabled, and people of color community members" - Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Councilmember
- In this Podcast, Chris speaks with Curtis Dean of Iowa Municipal Utilities about the prevalence of municipal networks in that state, focusing in on economic development results starting at 11:10. Dean highlights Hansen’s Clothing, a high-end men’s clothing manufacturer in Spencer, Iowa that expanded its online business exponentially when it connected to the municipal broadband network.
Municipal networks support home-based productivity:
- In 2010, DirecTV announced the creation of a virtual call center, allowing 100 residents in southwestern Virginia to work from home, relying solely upon municipal broadband access.
- 150 home-based English teachers in Powell, Wyoming were connected to students in South Korea by the Korean venture capital firm, Skylake Incuvest; this unorthodox pairing was made possible by Powell's investment in FTTH.
- Policymakers in Ashland, Oregon, hope to use the city’s fiber network, Ashland Fiber Net, to support internet-based home businesses.
- The benefits of working from home are plentiful, but telecommuters need high quality next generation broadband in order to take full advantage of this arrangement.
Municipal networks advance healthcare, education, and research:
- Danville, Virginia’s open-access municipal broadband, nDanville, has long served the Danville Regional Medical Center, one of the city’s largest employers.
- Medical companies Ohio Health and Cardinal Health; Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit that relies on quantum computing to encrypt information; and numerous educational facilities use Dublin, Ohio’s municipally-owned fiber network, Dublink, for their healthcare, education and research needs.
"We are embarking on new initiatives with our local school district and regional colleges and universities to leverage broadband and to facilitate discussion between schools and the business community to strengthen, retain and attract quality workforce" - Dana McDaniel, Deputy City Manager of Dublin, Ohio
- The Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network (MPLN) located its primary backup facility in Morristown, Tennessee, where it can have access to high-speed municipal broadband.
- Holyoke, a municipality in Western Massachusetts, saw a huge economic development benefit when the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computer Center relocated to the town, which boasts an impressive municipally-owned broadband infrastructure, as well as a commitment to energy efficiency.
- Lakeland, Florida invested in dark fiber community infrastructure, and has since reaped the rewards; the Florida Polytechnic University and Lakeland Regional Health, a medical center, both rely on the network for their operations. (Jump to 16:30 of the Broadband Bits Podcast for more details).
Municipal networks initiate tech booms and incubate start-ups:
- Lafayette, Louisiana has seen multiple tech companies move to the city, creating thousands of jobs and rebranding the city the “Silicon Bayou.”
- Mesa, Arizona, which has long been on the cutting edge in terms of laying city-wide fiber conduit and providing firms next-generation infrastructure, will be the new site of a $2 billion Apple global command center.
- In Indianola, Iowa, the publicly-owned municipal broadband utility partnered with Simpson College and the Indianola Development Association to create a student-business incubator for budding entrepreneurs.
"...in the 21st century, in this age of innovation and technology, so much of the prosperity that we're striving for, so many of the jobs we want to create, depend on our digital economy" - President Barack Obama, Speech at Cedar Falls Utilities
- One Bay Area city, San Leandro, has used a city-owned fiber conduit to rival Silicon Valley tech companies, and now houses the world’s largest cluster of 3-D printing firms, along with the Westlake / OSIsoft Technology Complex, a tech campus.
- The city of Dublin, Ohio, is home to the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, a combination start-up incubator and data center located in the city’s metro center offices that now lists more than 80 tenants.
Municipal networks save money, which can be reinvested in local economies:
- The municipal government of Mount Vernon, Washington saves $100,000 a year thanks to its open access municipal fiber network.
- Ponca City, Oklahoma, residents have saved nearly $4 million a year in avoided ISP costs since the community switched to a municipal fiber network.
- In the town of Spanish Fork, Utah, a municipal network is responsible for community savings of $2 million annually, as well as local government revenues exceeding $1 million, which can be used for community projects and initiatives.
- Howard County, Maryland, has seen significant public savings (of up to $3 million a year) and impressive technological advances in its school system since switching to municipal broadband services.
Municipal networks increase home values:
- Housing prices increased by 50 percent in one year when Google decided to locate a data center in the city of The Dalles, Oregon, in 2006 on account of its advanced technological infrastructure and high-speed municipal broadband access.
- A study by Broadband Communities revealed that access to FTTH services increased the value of a $300,000 home by an average of $5,000 - $6,000.
- Another study, this by the Fiber-To-The-Home Council Americas in conjunction with researchers from the University of Colorado, showed that single family homes that can boast a FTTH connection are worth, on average, 3.1 percent more than their fiberless counterparts.
General resources on economic development and municipal / broadband networks:
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- We maintain a Google Docs spreadsheet with many of the examples we have seen of economic development resulting from municipal networks.
- This White House report (which, by the way, utilized ILSR data!) finds that the existence of municipal networks and the market competition that these networks stimulate has tremendous economic benefits for local businesses and communities. The 37-page report highlights the successes of Chattanooga, Tennessee; Wilson, North Carolina; Lafayette, Louisiana; Scott County, Minnesota; Leverett, Massachusetts; and the Choctaw Nation Tribal Area in Oklahoma.
- The New York Times highlights municipal fiber in a recent article: “For the Tech Savvy With a Need for Speed, a Limited Choice of Towns With Fiber.”
- A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Federal Broadband Deployment Programs and Small Business,” argues that municipal broadband access positively affects small businesses by allowing them to streamline operations and improve efficiency.
- Why do many municipal broadband networks end up being built in conservative districts, crossing political lines? Jim Baller, Joanne Hovis, and Ashley Stelfox of the Coalition for Local Internet Choice, in conjunction with Broadband Communities’ Masha Zaegar, argue that job creation and economic development is the “killer app” for local fiber networks.
- Robert Pepper, Vice President of Global Technology Policy at the multinational tech company, Cisco, published an op-ed in The Huffington Post, which highlights the need for universal broadband adoption. Read: The Key to Social and Economic Development? Broadband Adoption.
"The message to policymakers is clear: If you want to increase economic growth, focus on broadband." - Robert Pepper, Vice President of Global Technology Policy at Cisco
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- Corporate site selectors have been placing more and more emphasis on broadband Internet access as they look for locations in which their companies can thrive. For more on this, read: “The Importance of Broadband to Economic Development.”
- Does Broadband Boost Local Economic Development? ask researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California. They find that broadband access has a statistically significant economic benefit in the fields of business management, utilities, and technology.
- The law firm of Baller Herbst Stokes & Lide, PC has fought on the side of local governments across the country as they seek to bring municipal networks to their communities; the group's website dedicates a page to economic development resources that offers several useful studies and reports.
- A Novermber 2016 report from the consulting firm Analysis Group and funded by Fiber-to-the-Home council shows how competition drives lower prices and better download speeds for everyone. Specifically, the report focused on markets with Gigabit service.
- Chris interviews Michael Curri, President of Strategic Networks Group, an organization that provides technical advice regarding broadband Internet to both firms and municipalities; Curri indicates a multiplier effect of ten times - meaning a return of $10 for every dollar invested where economies effectively utilize broadband.
- Many communities, like Bozeman, Montana, view municipal broadband as a potential economic growth model that will allow them to catch up to other cities that have embraced high-speed Internet access; in this Community Bits Podcast, Chris speaks with Brit Fontenot, Economic Development Director for the city of Bozeman; David Fine, Bozeman Economic Development Specialist; and the President of Hoplite Industries, Anthony Cochenour.
- Dewayne Hendricks, a self-identified “serial entrepreneur,” explains the need for strong wired and wireless Internet connections in entrepreneurship.
Video and audio resources on economic development and municipal networks:
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- Renowned journalist Ezra Klein interviews Harvard Law professor and Internet expert, Susan Crawford, about municipal networks on VOX.
- President Obama announces his plan to expand broadband access in the United States in January 2015.
- In Tennessee, seven municipal networks - including the ones in Chattanooga, Morristown, and Tullahoma - have spurred job growth, and positioned the state for the future, reports WBIR.
- NBC Montana covers the City of Bozeman’s plan to spur economic growth through its municipal network.
- Thomasville, Georgia’s downtown revival can be attributed, at least in part, to the city’s municipal network, MSNBC reports.
- The creation of municipal networks in Chattanooga and Morristown, Tennessee, have led to more competitive markets for Internet service in their regions, lowering prices, increasing speeds, and driving economic development.
"Having the infrastructure in place around technology, as well as the asset of this really historic and charming downtown, is a really interesting intersection and I think a lot of people are drawn to that." - Kimberly Van Dyk, Director of Planning and Community Revitalization of Wilson, North Carolina
- North Carolina Public Radio reports on Wilson, North Carolina’s Greenlight municipal network.
- A Knoxville news station, WBIR, covers Chattanooga's municipal network, focusing on the economic opportunities it has created - opportunities that Knoxville has missed out on because of its lack of high-quality service.