EPB contracted with Alcatel-Lucent as its GPON network supplier. "We've designed our network a little bit different, with our control center located where our operations center is," says Wade. "We've designed a series of fiber rings that circle our city, allowing us to have multiple 10 Gig MPLS rings, terminating in 17 communications hubs connected back with our control center."

As far as the cost savings of the smart grid are concerned, users often don't realize that it costs several times more at certain times of day to generate electricity than it does at others, says EPB COO David Wade.

We are ahead of our business plan projections for this time frame. Since our launch last September (2009), we have signed up 18,873 homes to our EPB fiber optics services. That is a 15.45% take rate. Our goal is a 35% take rate, and we believe we will reach that in 2 years. Of our EPB fiber optics customers, 81% are receiving our Fi-Speed internet service. We are still building out fiber optics as well, and our entire 600-square-mile customer service area will have access to these advanced services by the end of the this year (2010).

Reliability is a good economic development tool, he said. One business looking at Chattanooga asked about the cost of a redundant feed. After EPB explained its smart grid plans, the company chose Chattanooga and decided it didn’t need a redundant feed, he said. In talking to businesses, "I can tell you ... that they get it and they get the importance of this level of automation."

Perhaps the most eye-opening benefit is that Ponca City offers all of its 26,000 citizens free WiFi service. The city uses its fiber network to sell broadband services to businesses (one has requested 300 mbps service) and those sales pay for the free WiFi, Baird said. The network is basically support-free, said Baird, adding that he gets one or two calls per week. And the free WiFi is "a huge economic development draw," he said.

Green Tech Grid asks, "Are Munis and Co-Ops Leading Smart Grid?" And the rest of the article says, "YES." This should come as no surprise for readers of this site. The dynamics, and even players, in smart-grid are very similar to those of community networks. There are essentially two approaches to smart-grid: that of the investor-owned utilities that see smart-grid investments as an opportunity to raise rates, and that of munis and coops who see an opportunity to cut costs and better serve their ratepayers.

In Leesburg's case, they knew that just an advanced meter deployment would cut their cost. "We told our commission we're not going to increase our rates because we're rolling this out," said Paul Kalv, Electric Director of Leesburg Power. "And we know we'll be reducing the customer charge to share those savings." So far the city has saved about $1 million. Kalv talks a lot about his customers. When one guy complained about his smart meter, Kalv personally went over to his house to check it out. It is that sort of on-the-ground interaction that is simply not possible for the CEO of investor-owned utilities, like Florida Power & Light Company, where Kalv worked for 22 years.

I raise this issue to note that the article discusses Leesburg and Lake County, Florida, without mentioning their investments in broadband. But when Leesburg applied for the Google Gigabit project, they noted their fiber-optic assets.

Jackson Energy Authority in Tennessee, long the largest community fiber network in the US, is investing in greater smart-grid capabilities. If you aren't already familiar with this network, an article in Electric Light & Power offers some history:

After receiving local government support and revenue bond issue funding, JEA went ahead with the $54 million project. Now its FTTP network boasts 16,500 cable, 10,843 Internet and 7,000 telephone subscribers. JEA is preparing for the next phase of its FTTP deployment with a smart grid initiative expected to begin in 2010.

The article also makes an important point that many find confusing in understanding the economics of these community fiber networks:

In the early years, JEA focused on subscriber growth as its key performance metric, rather than average revenue per user (ARPU). The capital-intensive cost of acquiring and hooking up new customers, however, can create significant cash flow problems for a network operator, especially when growth substantially exceeds the business plan. JEA had to secure more financing to support its incremental growth. The utility also adjusted its business model to focus instead on ARPU and increasing the number of existing subscribers using two or three services. JEA employed special promotions and service packages that took advantage of the huge bandwidth capabilities of its fiber network to build customer loyalty and overcome the customer churn typical of the industry. Today, JEA’s network has passed more than 30,000 homes, more than 16,000 of which are subscribers.

This is a good example of a community encountering a problem and overcoming it. The article also offers other lessons learned along the way. Moving forward, JEA has decided to work with Tantalus to add smart-grid capabilities to the fiber network.

Only Hong Kong and a few other cities in the world offer such lightning-fast service, and analysts say Chattanooga will be the first in the United States to do so. “This makes Chattanooga — a midsized city in the South — one of the leading cities in the world in its digital capabilities,” said Ron Littlefield, the city’s mayor.

The city hopes this will give it a competitive advantage; on the new website promoting the service, the city's Electric Power Board pitches its country-leading broadband as "a test bed for next generation technology," as "the ultimate tool for entrepreneurs," and a place where "bandwidth is no problem." The consistent theme: you should move to Chattanooga.

EPB says that their 100 Mbps service is now costing $140 a month and the 1 Gbps service will cost $350 a month.

It’s a great day for Opelika. It’s a great day for our future. It’s a terrible day for Charter,”

Jack Mazzola claims to be a member of Concerned Citizens of Opelika and has become a de facto spokesman in the local press.  He claims he is “30 years old and have been a resident of Opelika for almost two years.” During that time, he evidently forgot to update his active Facebook page, which lists his current city of residence as Atlanta, Georgia.  Suspicious readers of the local newspaper did some research of their own and claim Mr. Mazzola has no history of real estate or motor vehicle taxes paid to Lee County, which includes Opelika.

“Shall the City of Opelika, Alabama, be authorized to acquire, establish, purchase, construct, maintain, lease and operate a cable television system for the purpose of furnishing cable service to subscribers?” That’s what the ballot will read in Opelika on Aug. 10. 
And the answer: absolutely yes.

“With this broadband network, Bristol Virginia Utilities will enable service to more than 120 of what we refer to as anchor institutions,” [US Senator] Boucher said. “That includes schools, libraries, hospitals, clinics, major government facilities and other large public facilities. The new network will also come within two miles of 18,000 homes and 500 businesses. That makes it feasible for what we refer to as last mile service to be provided to these 18,000 homes and 500 businesses. Some of these have broadband today, but not all of them do.”

Boucher said the original broadband line deployed across the region several years ago has already helped to create a number of new jobs, including 137 new virtual call center jobs that have been created in the region by DirectTV, and another 700 plus jobs that have been created by the Northrop Grumman and CGI technology centers in Lebanon.

• Communities around Rutland in Vermont are moving forward with a planned universal full fiber-to-the-home network. Interestingly, this network has been spear-headed by the Rutland Redevelopment Authority, not a local City Hall.

• Back in Tennessee, the Clarksville Fiber Network is running ahead of schedule.

  Having reached the 6,000-customer mark, CDE Lightband's broadband service is slightly ahead of schedule in adding new subscribers, an official of the Clarksville utility said Wednesday — good news for a telecommunications division, which is still in its infancy. Initial projections had the utility servicing around 8,000 broadband subscribers by next June. ... New installations usually have about a six-week wait, primarily because of high demand, Batts said.

  Though demand is high, the goal of profitability is still a ways off — around 4,000 additional customers are needed to push the utility's telecommunications into the black, according to early department projections.

• Seattle's new mayor campaigned on building a publicly owned, full fiber-to-the-home network. Reclaim the Media asks if Seattle will get its broadband 'public option.'

  As Reclaim the Media noted last summer, the main obstacles to moving forward with next-generation fiber to underserved areas in Seattle are (1) money and (2) political will. The city budget remains in slash-and-burn territory this year; next year's budget would be the earliest that the new Mayor would be able to effectively push a significant new priority. This winter, however, Schrier's office will be able to apply for federal broadband stimulus funds to build out the skeleton of a citywide fiber network (possibly in collaboration with Seattle City Light), and to provide actual door-to-door "fiber to the premises" (FTTP) service to underserved neighborhoods in the Central District and Beacon Hill. McGinn's leadership will be key in making this project happen.