Decatur is in line to receive a donation that will jump-start the community’s musings over publicly owned Internet infrastructure.

Foundation Support

The Howard G. Buffet Foundation recently offered the community several million dollars for a range of public projects, including $330,000 toward expanding the city’s existing fiber-optic network. Decatur deployed a fiber backbone to connect a number of its own facilities in 2014. Earlier this year, city leaders began examining the possibility of expanding the backbone to provide better connectivity to Richland Community College and possibly beyond in the future. 

The college is linked to the statewide educational Illinois Century Network (ICN). Like Merit in Michigan, the educational and research network crisscrosses the state, connecting a variety of educational institutions. Increasingly, these state research networks collaborate with local communities to expand publicly owned networks and improve connectivity in places where national providers don't offer the capacity necessary for modern life.

Early estimates of more than $700,000 cooled early enthusiasm for the Decatur project but revised costs estimates now are at approximately $435,000. With the Foundation’s contribution of $330,000 the city would only need to pitch in $105,000.

A Beginning

According to a recent Herald & Review article, a number of local government entities, nonprofits, and healthcare providers have already expressed interest in connecting to the new network as a cost-saving measure. The city also hopes to attract private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) interested in leasing excess capacity to offer retail services in Decatur. Community leaders see the opportunity as a way to improve economic development:

“We can show businesses from outside the community collaboration does exist,” McCrady said. “The broadband access is part of the infrastructure that is important for the community to have in place. We're working in a global economy now more than ever.”

Under the proposal, the city...

Paul Bunyan Communications in Minnesota reports it has expanded its “GigaZone” Internet service territory to Turtle River, Puposky, and Tenstrike and to additional areas of Bemidji.

More than 2,800 additional locations now have access to, among other services, Internet speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) following the recent upgrades to its fiber-optic communications network, the Bemidji-based co-op notes.  

"Over the next several months we'll be activating the GigaZone in many more areas,” Gary Johnson, CEO of Paul Bunyan Communications, said in a company statement. "We will continue to do as much as we can to bring the GigaZone to all our members and the communities we serve as fast as we can." 

GigaZone Locations Top 20,000 

The co-op said its GigaZone service is now available to more than over 21,600 locations. Previous areas served include rural Park Rapids, Lake George, Trout Lake Township east of Grand Rapids, most of Grand Rapids, Cohasset, and LaPrairie.

The co-op has an online map showing the active areas of the GigaZone as well as future areas that are set for construction. The co-op said that members who subscribe to GigaZone Broadband can also add PBTV Fusion and/or low cost unlimited long distance phone service.

Co-op Wins Award In 2015

About a year ago, we reported that Paul Bunyan Communications won the 2015 Leading Lights National Award for Most Innovative Gigabit Broadband Service. The northern Minnesota cooperative beat out both local innovative local firms like C Spire and national companies like Google. 

We first reported on Paul Bunyan Telephone Communications in 2009. The co-op began expanding its existing fiber network in 2007, but Gigabit connectivity did not become available to members until earlier in 2015. Upgrades began in Bemidji and will continue to include the cooperative's entire 5,000...

In April, Wilson’s, municipal fiber network, Greenlight, expanded to pass every home in neighboring rural Pinetops. How is it going? Acting Town Manager, Brenda Harrell said, “We just love it!”

No Longer Out of Reach

Pinetops is about a 20 minute drive due east from Greenlight’s operations center, but more importantly, it is in another county entirely. Wilson serves six neighboring counties with its municipal electric services. Turning on internet service in Pinetops was an easy reach for Wilson, where fiber was being deployed as part of an automated meter infrastructure project.

Back in February 2015, the FCC preempted a North Carolina state law, known as H129, that prohibited Wilson from serving any residents outside of Wilson County. The preemption allowed Wilson to finish the project it had to suspend when H129 became law. In addition to the benefits of automated metering, Pinetops now experiences a higher quality of life with fast, affordable, reliable Internet access.

Greenlight To The Present

For Pinetops, bringing fiber services to its residents and small businesses was like snapping it from the late 1980s into the 21st century. Pinetops is a community with about 600 homes all located within one square mile. It is by all signs rural, surrounded by huge open fields of sweet potatoes, tobacco and soy plants. The average median income is $26,333; according to the census bureau, 30 percent of its residents live below the poverty line. Local officials, say that the community was desperately underserved with unreliable DSL service or dialup before Greenlight came to town. Thanks to Wilson, even the local Piggly Wiggly market has fiber-optic Internet from Greenlight.

Looking Ahead

The community is excited for its future. After watching a video of how quickly video homework can be uploaded on a Gigabit connection (8 seconds) versus DSL (2 hours and 59 minutes), the new Town Manager, Lorenzo Carmon, was full of ideas. Pinetops, with median homes valued around $78,000 and the option of Gigabit speeds (1,000 Megabits per second), could offer low cost affordable housing to professionals now living in Greenville, a nearby university community...

In Colorado, the Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) saw record crowds at their Annual Meeting of Members. Hundreds of people came to check out the event on June 16th and try out the super fast speeds of Elevate Fiber, DMEA’s Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) project.  The project will bring speeds of up to a Gigabit per second (Gbps) to DMEA’s 27,000 members. 

Elevate Fiber

During the event, members were able to check out the speed in person and preregister their homes and businesses. It requires a 12-month contract at a minimum of $49.99 each month according to the DMEA’s website. Residents can sign up at https://join.elevatefiber.com/. 

Providing Internet access is a new role for the electric cooperative but DMEA has a plan: the co-op will build out the fiber incrementally. Phase I will encompass about 7,500 homes and businesses in Paonia, Cobble Creek, and the Montrose downtown business district. These locations are test cases of overhead and underground installations in urban and rural areas. 

Celebrate the Times

The Montrose Press reported that over 500 people came to the meeting, making it one of the largest in recent memory. The Annual Meeting of Members celebrated the past accomplishments of the co-op and looked ahead to the fiber future. In addition to free hamburgers and hot dogs, and an appearance by former American Idol contestant Jeneve Rose Mitchell,* attendees could see live demonstrations of Elevate Fiber.

In December 2015, the DMEA Board of Directors unanimously voted to proceed with the FTTH project. At the time, they considered building a middle mile network, but wisely chose to deploy last mile connectivity to members' homes and businesses.

The June 16th event culminated with the announcement of the winners of the election to the co-op’s board of directors. Over 5,026 ballots were cast (in person and by mail). Although that’s a small percentage of their membership...