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Press Release: Fact sheet on inadequacy of satellite Internet access in rural America

Date: September 14th, 2018

Satellite is Not Broadband

High-quality connectivity needs to be fast, affordable, and reliable. Satellite is none of the three.  

 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. —  For most of rural America, options for high-speed Internet access are very limited, if they exist at all. Unfortunately, some of the federal funding intended to help fix that problem isn’t being put toward solutions that will be effective in the long-term.

 

Press Release: Policy brief on lack of real broadband competition in Rochester, Minnesota

Broadband Competition Quite Limited in Rochester Region, Despite Flawed Federal Statistics

 

The FCC’s data has confused some elected officials into thinking Rochester doesn’t have a broadband problem. It does.

 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. —  Rochester has a thriving economy built around the Mayo Clinic but does not have many choices for high-quality Internet access, a factor that may limit its growth in the digital economy. Federal statistics for broadband are easily confused, leading some elected officials to erroneously conclude that Rochester has enough competition. 

 

In the latest policy brief from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), their staff crunched the data and developed original maps that detail the sad reality of broadband competition in the Rochester metro area. Most residents within city limits have some choice in slower broadband services, but Charter has mostly cornered the high-speed market.

 

ILSR had to correct some of the FCC data, including a provider that inaccurately claimed to offer very high speeds to everyone. Even after those corrections, the maps almost certainly still overstate coverage and competition due to biases in the FCC data collection process that systematically overstate availability. 

 

StateScoop Coverage of Inaccurate Broadband Availability Data

Statescoop delves into our recent report which finds national broadband coverage is grossly over-represented by FCC data. Christopher Mitchell, director of ILSR’s Broadband initiative explains how residents of Rochester, Minn and nearby rural communities have few options for reliable Internet and how this trend extends to other communities throughout the United States.

Here are Mitchell’s contributions:

“The main takeaway is that some elected leaders have been fooled by aggregate statistics in broadband deployment,” Mitchell said. “We did the paper to demonstrate how statistics can be abused.”

Federal statistics cited in the report indicate that there are 19 broadband providers in Rochester, a number that would indicate a high level of market competition. But researchers found that not a single location has access to 19 providers, and in a majority of the city’s geography, there is no competition at all.

The report shows that about 19,000 Rochester residents only have access to broadband services through Charter Communications, and about 42,000 people don’t have access to a wireline broadband provider at all. According to the FCC, everyone in Rochester has broadband access because the agency lumps in slower, more expensive wireless services with wireline providers.

As huge gaps in broadband availability have persisted in Rochester, FCC statistics have provided politicians with misinformation, the researchers said. The local government  basically gets a “convenient excuse” not to act, Mitchell said.

Read the full story here.

Press Release: Over 750 communities have a community network, according to new ILSR map update

Date: January 23rd, 2018

Updated Community Networks Map Now Includes over 750 Communities

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s map details the communities that are making investments in better connectivity

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — Communities are playing a growing role in connecting their residents and businesses to high-quality broadband access. However, with the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality protections looking imminent, it seems that companies like AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon are ascendent — but that’s not the case in the 750 communities we’ve mapped across the United States.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has been tracking community networks for more than 10 years, tracking a variety of metrics from gigabit services to open access. For the first time, this map includes communities served by electric cooperatives whereas previous maps focused on municipal networks. The next map iteration will also have communities served by telephone co-ops.

Communities across the United States are investing in telecommunications networks for a variety of reasons to benefit their future. Whether they invest to improve economic development outcomes or to improve access to education and health care these communities are building essential infrastructure that their residents and businesses demand.

Our map now includes over 750 communities, here is the breakdown:

  • 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned FTTH citywide network.

  • 76 communities with a publicly owned cable network reaching most or all of the community.

  • 197 communities with some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community (often a business district).

  • More than 120 communities with publicly owned dark fiber available.

Press Release: Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin round out states with highest percentage of broadband users captured by net neutrality-violating companies

Date: December 20th, 2017

State-level Data Shows the Depth of the Problem of Monopoly Broadband Providers

High percentages of Americans can only receive broadband Internet service from the four major net neutrality violators of AT&T, Charter, Comcast, & Verizon.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — New research from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance shows that there are 10 states with over 60 percent of their population limited solely to broadband Internet service from known net neutrality violators. As reported previously, the FCC’s own numbers show that 125 million Americans can buy service only from AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon — all have violated net neutrality rules in the past.

The Federal Communications Commission has now ensured these millions of Americans have no protection from these companies absuing their monopoly power.

“Everyone knows that there is far too little choice for broadband Internet access, but we were surprised at just how little in some states,” says Christopher Mitchell, Community Broadband Networks initiative director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “These states have to be extremely concerned at their dependence on a few large cable and telephone monopolies that will soon make the rules for Internet access.”

The ten states with the highest percentage of their population captured by just four past net neutrality violators are:

Public News Service Interviews Christopher on Who Owns the Internet

Public News Service - November 30, 2017

Whose Internet Is It?

Written by Laurie Stern

With the Federal Communications Commission's decision to repeal net neutrality set for December 15th, Christopher Mitchell sat down to speak with Laurie Stern of the Public News Service on the reality of Internet access in America.

Here are Christopher's contributions:

Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative with the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance, says most Americans have only one or two Internet service providers to choose from.

"The official United States policy is that we're supposed to have a lot of competition in telecommunications networks,” he points out. “But every time the state or the federal government try to do something to actually encourage competition, the big cable and telephone companies say, 'Oh, that's not fair. You can't do anything to encourage competition. That would be bad for us.'"

The FCC says net neutrality stifles innovation by over regulating Internet service providers, and the vote will encourage ISPs such as Comcast and Verizon to improve and expand broadband. 

The issue breaks down along party lines with Republican lawmakers tending to support deregulation. 

Mitchell says the vote is just a move from public to private regulation, and that companies such as Comcast and CenturyLink will now be making the rules.

"At the state and federal level the voices of the big cable and telephone companies drown out local voices,” he states. “Fortunately at the local level, local voices have much more power and so they can get more done. "

Mitchell says many counties and small cities have formed cooperatives to provide their own Internet service.

He says community broadband relies on an old model of self-sufficiency that has worked for rural America before.

Press Release: ILSR's Rural Cooperative Map resource now available

Date: November 28th, 2017

New Map Shows Stunning Fiber Internet Access from Rural Cooperatives

ILSR researchers chart how cooperatives connect rural America while big telephone companies abandon them

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. -- Despite dismal rural connectivity in general, a small number of rural towns and farming communities have better Internet access than is available in most metro regions. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has mapped the fiber-optic footprint and gigabit connectivity of all cooperatives in rural America in a new policy brief.

The rural cooperative fiber map is attached below. Many will be surprised at the remarkable footprint of residential fiber-optic access across wide swaths of rural America. ILSR’s experts are available to discuss the implications of cooperatives on rural broadband Internet expansion.

“Once again, rural cooperatives have built essential infrastructure in regions otherwise abandoned by the biggest telephone companies,” says Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Despite the biggest federal subsidies going to the biggest companies, the local cooperatives have built far better networks.”

Here are some helpful bullets about the policy brief:

  • Most of the 260 telephone cooperatives and at least 60 electric cooperatives have built out  fiber infrastructure to serve businesses and/or residents

  • Some of these cooperatives have 80 years of experience rolling out rural infrastructure and ensuring it remains viable and affordable.

  • The majority of North Dakota already has Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) and the poorest county in the country (Jackson County, Kentucky) has FTTH. We can do this anywhere.

Solving rural Internet access is not only achievable and affordable, we are far closer to doing it than most people realize.

Yes Magazine on How Internet Cooperatives Preserve Net Neutrality

Yes! Magazine - November 22nd, 2017

How Internet Co-ops Can Protect Us From Net Neutrality Rollbacks

Written by Sammi-Jo Lee

In the face of net neutrality rule repeal, media outlets are exploring what communities can do to prevent paid prioritization all the way down to the smallest of ISPs. Yes! Magazine's Sammi-Jo Lee explored the issue of Internet cooperatives and what role they can play both in providing Internet access and protecting net neutrality via market forces.

For her story, Lee interviewed MuniNetworks' Christopher Mitchell:

These locally owned networks are poised to do what federal and state governments and the marketplace couldn’t. One, they can bring affordable access to fast internet to anyone, narrowing the digital divide that deepens individual and regional socioeconomic disparities.

Two, these small operators can protect open internet access from the handful of large ISPs that stand to pocket the profits from net neutrality rollbacks that the Trump administration announced Nov. 21. That’s according to Christopher Mitchell, who is the director of Community Broadband Projects, a project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Mitchell, who has been tracking and advocating community-owned broadband networks for a decade, hopes that this will be the moment when people rebel against the administration’s attack on net neutrality and expand rural cooperative and municipal ISPs.

“The FCC is basically taking the regulations off of big companies, but local companies can still offer high-quality internet access at good prices,” Mitchell says.

Fast Company Covers the FCC’s Disappointing Net Neutrality Decisions, Interviews Chris Mitchell

In the News: Christopher Mitchell

November 22, 2017

Media Outlet: Fast Company

 

Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai’s plan to dismantle net neutrality, the set of protections that keeps content flowing freely on the Internet regardless of who your service provider is, is now official. In this disappointing moment of corporations flexing their supreme muscle with the FCC, Fast Company’s Sean Captain tried to determine what options we have.

In his reporting Captain spoke with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks initiative director Christopher Mitchell to get his perspective:

With FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to dismantle net neutrality protections now official, internet regulation has joined healthcare and climate change among the big areas where the Trump Administration is aggressively dismantling Obama-era policies. In the latter two cases, cities and states have some leeway to go against Washington. States administer their own health programs for low-income residents, for instance; and some, like California, are talking about radically extending them. Meanwhile states and cities are uniting to make their own climate change policy pledges.

It may not be so easy to get around the administration’s internet policies. Ars Technica reports that, along with scrapping Obama-era regulations, FCC officials led by Pai plan to preempt states and cities from enacting their own, stricter polices, to prevent things like “throttling,” or limiting bandwidth, for certain content if content providers (or consumers) don’t pay extra.

Media Outlets Cover 2017 Colorado Broadband Ballot Initiatives

On November 8th, 2017, voters in 19 Colorado communities chose local telecommunications authority with an average rate of 83 percent. Now, a total of 117 Colorado communities opt out of the restrictive, anti-municipal broadband state law, SB 152. For years, we at ILSR have been covering the developments in Colorado as voters reclaim local telecommunications authority.

The media, both locally and nationally, took notice of our efforts.

Here's a roundup of stories in which national, state, and local outlets cited our work and provided information to ensure this vital issue gained coverage. Read more in our story covering the votes.

MEDIA COVERAGE - "19 Colorado Communities Opt out of Restrictive State Broadband Law"

Pre-Election Coverage: 

Big Telecom Spent $200,000 to Try to Prevent a Colorado Town From Even Talking About a City-Run Internet by Kaleigh Rogers, Motherboard- October 25, 2017