Nancy Scola, a reporter with Next City, wanted to know about municipal networks. Naturally, she turned to our own Chris Mitchell. Nancy and Chris discussed some of the most pressing issues swirling around municipal broadband. Nancy begins:

At the moment more eyes than usual are focused on high-speed Internet’s uncertain future in the United States — from “open Internet” rules and municipal-run broadband to worry over Comcast’s pending Time Warner Cable merger.

Sitting in the middle of the debate is Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He has long advocated for city-run broadband networks such as those found in Lafayette, Louisiana, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Bristol, Virginia.

Nancy: What’s the elevator pitch for municipal broadband?

Chris: That it’s a network responsive to local needs. Rather than decisions being made in a corporate boardroom on Wall Street, they’re being made by someone in town based on what’s going to benefit the community the most. And that’s going to be faster speeds, lower prices, better reliability, better customer service, those sorts of things.

Nancy and Chris also touch on issues such as municipal Wi-Fi, myths propagated by cable and telephone company lobbyists, and broadband as a utility. 

Public radio KCRW in Santa Monica recently interviewed Chris Mitchell as part of a panel on "To the Point." Host Barbara Bogaev spoke with Chris, U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo, Christopher Ali from the University of Virginia, and Gautham Nagesh from the Wall Street Journal.

Federal regulators are unveiling a plan that would create fast and slow lanes for content on the Internet. Guest host Barbara Bogaev examines how a "pay to play" broadband system would affect innovation, consumers, and the philosophy that everyone has a right to equal access to the flow of information on the web?

Chris comes into the discussion at 33:30 and brings his expertise on local issues to the conversation. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's recent comments included the announcement that he planned to use the FCC's power to remove preemptive state laws that have revoked local authority to decide whether a network is a wise investment.

The network neutrality conversation starts around 8:20 into the broadcast; the entire show runs just over 51 minutes.

Christopher Mitchell recently spoke with Ian Masters on the Background Briefing show from KPFK-FM in Los Angeles. Masters connected with Chris to discuss the increasing importance of community networks in light of recent court decisions: Network Neutrality and the court's interpretation of section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

From the Background Briefing website:

Then finally we speak with Christopher Mitchell, the Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance about the more than 400 towns and cities across America who have installed or a planning to install fiber broadband municipal networks as an alternative to the telecom and cable monopolies who appear to have captured Obama’s FCC which is poised to end the government’s commitment to net neutrality. We discuss the need to both support municipalities who are building networks to circumvent cable monopolies with high speed broadband that other advanced nations enjoy, at the same time, holding the FCC’s feet to the fire so they don’t sell out the public and abandon net neutrality.

The conversation runs about 20 minutes.

Broadband is a topic of interest in several state legislative chambers this session. In a recent Government Technology article, Brian Heaton focused on five states where community broadband is particularly contentious. In some cases, legislators want to expand opportunities while others seek to limit local authority.

We introduced you to the Kansas anti-competition bill in January. The bill was pulled back this year but could be back next year. When the business community learned about the potential effects of SB 304, they expressed their dismay. From the article:

Eleven companies and trade organizations – including Google – signed a letter opposing SB 304 as a “job-killer” that restricts communications services expansion in the U.S.

Minnesota's leaders introduced legislation to expand broadband. Efforts include financial investment earmarked for infrastructure:

Senate File 2056 – referred to as the Border-to-Border Infrastructure Program – would take $100 million from the state's general fund to be applied to broadband projects. A companion bill in the House, HF 2615 was also introduced.

As we reported, there is bipartisan support for the bill in the House, but the Senate and Governor have not prioritized SF 2056.

New Hampshire's legislature wants to open up bonding authority for local communities that need help:

Crain's New York Business recently published an article on the crowded conduit under New York City. The article complements the April 7 edition of This Week in Crain's New York podcast, hosted by Don Mathisen.

Empire City Subway (ECS), the crumbling subterranean network of conduit for telephone wires constructed in 1888, is so crowded underground construction crews regularly need to detour to reach their destination. Routes are no longer direct, adding precious nanoseconds to data delivery - a significant problem for competitive finance companies.

Verizon owns ECS and, according to the article, does not operate with competitors in mind:

But businesses that lease space in the ECS network for their own fiber-optic cable say that Verizon doesn't worry about keeping the system clear for others. Conduits are filled with cables from defunct Internet providers that went belly-up after the dot-com bust in 2000. Verizon itself left severed copper wire in lower Manhattan ducts after installing a fiber-optic network following Superstorm Sandy. (The company says the cables could be easily removed, if needed.)

Stealth Communications spent an extra $100,000 in March to re-route its fiber from Rockefeller Center to Columbus Circle. Conduit was so congested along the planned route, the independent ISP needed to go 6,500 feet out of its way. The re-route added almost two weeks to the project.

Crain's contacted Chris Mitchell from ILSR:

"It's foolish to think that we can just leave it to the market to use this limited space under the street efficiently," Mr. Mitchell said. "The fiber needs are tremendous, and if New York over time can expand access to a lot of fiber at low cost, we'll see all kinds of [innovation]."

In the most recent podcast from Community Matters, Fran Stoddard interviews Chris Mitchell and Billy Ray, from the Glasgow Electric Plant Board. The interview touches on the benefits of community networks, their critical role in the health of local communities, and provides info on getting a local initiative started.

Glasgow, the first municipal network in the country, pioneered the idea of the publicly owned broadband network. Billy Ray, Superintendent of Glasgow's Electric Plant Board shared a detailed account of the community's strategy in episode 74 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. He also helped us to develop a video on the network (soon to be released!).

Community Matters also provides notes from the show, detailing questions and answers. The show runs just under an hour.

On February 13, KKFI Community Radio from Kansas City, Missouri, interviewed ILSR's Chris Mitchell and Todd O'Boyle from Common Cause. Tom Klammer, host of the "Tell Somebody" show covered Kansas legislation SB 304 aimed at preventing municipalities from investing in their own broadband networks.

Klammer writes on the program website:

Recently Todd O’Boyle of Common Cause brought my attention to a Kansas Senate bill, authored by a cable industry lobbyist, which would outlaw community broadband in Kansas.  Subsequently I came across an article online written by O’Boyle’s colleague Christopher Mitchell who wrote that the bill in question, if passed, would create some of the most draconian limits on building networks that we have seen in any state.

You can listen to the interview from the program website. The interview is a little under one hour.

WUNC, a public radio station out of Chapel Hill in North Carolina, covered community owned networks and broadband availability on its recent "State of Things" midday program. I was a guest along with a local resident and a public relations executive from Time Warner Cable to discuss North Carolina's broadband compared to other states and its law that effectively bans local governments from building networks.

The discussion is good, though I certaily could have done a better job. Ultimately I thought the host did a good job of bringing in each guest to make their points, though Time Warner Cable was totally unprepared to talk about how North Carolina can expand access. Instead, they talked about the cable giant's requirements to invest in networks in rural areas.

We are going to follow up on these points but for now wanted to make sure you have a chance to listen to the show. Our coverage of the bill discussed in the radio show is available here.

Klint Finley from Wired.com joined a Media Consortium press call that our own Christopher Mitchell participated in regarding community owned networks, Google Fiber, and concerns about the future of Internet access. He wrote about the event and the promise of municipal networks.

Finley referred readers to us:

But there’s no guarantee that Google Fiber will come to the rest of the United States, and many communities may want to start building an alternative right away. Mitchell said the first step towards building a municipal broadband service in your area is to get educated about what other communities have done. That’s the purpose of the site muninetworks.org, which compiles information about municipal broadband initiatives across the country. The goal is to create a comprehensive resource for community organizers. Users can explore the projects in different states through the Community Network map.

We continue to find more local governments moving forward with their own investments to improve local access, suggesting that many understand the folly of hoping some distant corporation will build the network they need to be successful in the digital economy.