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Christopher Discusses the Future of Community Networks on TWiT

On March 24th, Christopher was on episode 232 of the web show "This Week in Enterprise Tech." Christopher discussed the future of community broadband networks in the Trump era as well as shared information about the models of successful networks across the country.

Christopher begins his discussion of these issues at 29:45 with host Friar Robert Ballecer and guest co-hosts Lou Maresca and Brian Chee. Throughout the show, the group covers the beginning of the FCC Chairmanship of Ajit Pai, how the Senate is legislating against Internet privacy regulations, and how community networks are pushing ahead to achieve better connectivity for local businesses and residents.

The folks at TWiT.tv share excerpts from our video on Ammon, Idaho, and the guys get into a deeper discussion about the possibilities of local empowerment from community networks.

You can stream the episode at TWiT.tv, or watch here:

Press Release: Missouri's Leading ALEC Legislator Introduces Broadband Barrier Bill

Date: March 15th, 2017

Missouri's Leading ALEC Legislator Introduces Broadband Barrier Bill

Senator Emery (R-Lamar) is favoring big corporations over competition 

Contact:

Christopher Mitchell

christopher@ilsr.org

612-545-5185

 

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - The chairman of ALEC's Missouri operation, State Senator Ed Emery, introduced a bill earlier this year that would limit the power of municipalities to provide competition on Internet service, instead favoring entrenched Internet Service Providers. SB 186 imposes unworkable restrictions on local governments to prevent "competitive service," which includes both retail and wholesale models - preventing municipalities from working with private sector partners.

Now it turns out this legislation may not just be a wrong-headed approach to fight against what Emery calls "wasted taxpayer dollars." A recent investigation by Stop the Cap revealed that Senator Emery received over $20,000 in donations from telecommunications companies who have a lot to gain by seeing SB 186's passage.

As Stop the Cap points out, Senator Emery's role as state ALEC chairman for Missouri ensures that he has signed a pledge to "put the interests of the[ir] organization first." He's certainly doing a fantastic job.

"This legislation is trying to cut off communities at every turn by limiting any sort of 'competitive service,' whether it comes from public broadband infrastructure investment or a public-private partnership," says Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "Missouri should be encouraging investment and local Internet choice, not working with monopoly lobbyists to prevent it."

Christopher Talks North Carolina, Local Solutions

How do we connect rural America? Unreliable, slow Internet service with data caps is the norm for much of the country. Even though the federal government gives billions of dollars to large telecom companies, North Carolina is one of the many states that still has an urban and rural digital divide.

Western North Carolina Public Radio (WCQS) recently spoke with our Christopher Mitchell about local ways to improve rural Internet access. While Christopher spoke of electric cooperatives, two other initiatives are also seeking creative solutions in the western half of the state.

Potential Service from Electric Cooperatives

Communities across the U.S. are already bringing better connectivity to their homes and businesses. Specifically, Christopher pointed to the growing number of electric cooperatives providing Internet service: 

“When you look at the threat communities face from not having broadband Internet—the way people are moving away, and fewer people are willing to move in—these electric membership corporations really have to think about what they can do to make sure there’s a high quality of life.”

In our 2016 North Carolina Connectivity report, we explored the work of two local electric cooperatives, Lumbee River and Blue Ridge Mountain. They collaborated with telephone cooperatives to provide high-speed Internet service in the several rural counties near Georgia.

Spotlight on Local Solutions

The WCQS article reported on two more local initiatives: the community network in Highlands, North Carolina, and the nonprofit Land of Sky Regional Council

Back in 2015, the people of Highlands saw that poor Internet access was hurting their community. They quickly built the Altitude Community Broadband network. Highlands Internet Technology Director Matt Shuler told WCQS: 

Christopher Speaks to Politico Live on "The Future of the Wireless World"

On March 7th, Christopher participated in a panel discussion sponsored by Politico and Qualcomm as part of an event called "The Future of the Wireless World." The panel was moderated by Politico Technology Reporter Alex Byers and included the following participants:

  • Steven Crowley, P.E., Consulting Wireless Engineer
  • Mindel De la Torre, former Chief of the International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission
  • Christopher Mitchell, Director of Community Broadband Networks Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
  • Joan Marsh, Senior Vice President of Federal Regulatory, AT&T

Watch the video at Politico's website.

Highlights from this conversation include Christopher's interaction with the AT&T representative about their claim that a "one touch make ready" policy was specific to Google Fiber. This interaction is at 36:20 in the conversation.

Christopher On "The Takeaway": Monopolies, Munis, And Making A Difference

Christopher recently took some time to visit with John Hockenberry on The Takeaway from PRI and WNYC. The conversation covered municipal networks, big cable and telephone monopolies, and how local community initiatives for better connectivity are raising the bar in rural areas.

WNYC wrote about the show: 

Net neutrality advocates got some bad news when Ajit Pai was tapped by President Donald Trump to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission — it appears that Pai wants to largely reverse the Obama administration's approach to the Internet.

Large telecommunications monopolies have been digging their heels in, but some citizens are fighting back. The Takeaway considers the broadband debates that currently are taking place with Christopher Mitchell, the director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

Listen to the interview; it’s about 4 minutes.

Subsidies For Big Boys? Knoxville News Sentinel Op-Ed

In January, Governor Bill Haslam announced that he and Senator Mark Norris would introduce legislation to provide grant funding and tax credits to private companies in order to expand rural connectivity in Tennessee. In a recent Knoxville News Sentinel, Christopher took another look at more subsidies to large private providers and how that strategy has worked out so far.

We've reprinted the op-ed here:

Christopher Mitchell: State needs better broadband, not subsidies

If you were tasked with improving the internet access across Tennessee, a good first start would be to examine what is working and what’s not. But when the General Assembly debates broadband, it frequently focuses on what AT&T and Comcast want rather than what is working.

Broadband expansion has turned into a perennial fight between Tennessee’s municipal broadband networks and advocates of better connectivity on one side and AT&T and Comcast on the other. On one side is a taxpayer-subsidized model, while the other depends solely on the revenues of those who choose to subscribe. But which is which?

AT&T has received billions of taxpayer dollars to build its networks, whereas Chattanooga, Tullahoma and Morristown, for example, financed their fiber-optic networks by selling revenue bonds to private investors and repaying them with revenues from their services. The big telephone companies are massively subsidized, whereas municipal networks have generally not used taxpayer dollars.

It is true that after it began building, Chattanooga received a Department of Energy one-time stimulus grant for $111 million, but that was actually less than AT&T is getting from just one federal program in Tennessee alone – over $125 million from the Connect America Fund. And most of the money to Chattanooga went into devices for its smart grid that have since led to massive job gains.

These community networks offer modern connectivity. Chattanooga offers 10,000 Mbps to anyone in its territory. AT&T is getting enormous checks from Uncle Sam to deliver 10 Mbps. Comcast will soon offer 1,000 Mbps, but only for downloads. If you are a small business trying to upload lots of data, Comcast won’t get you there.

FierceTelecom Follows Up on Missouri Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill

FierceTelecom - February 15, 2017

Telco, cable-backed Missouri bill could limit municipal broadband growth, opposition group says

 

Written by Sean Buckley

A new broadband battle is brewing in Missouri as the state’s largest telcos and cable operators are backing a new bill to limit municipal broadband.

The new bill, SB 186, which was introduced by Senator Ed Emery, R-Lamar, seeks to limit the power of municipalities to provide competition to entrenched incumbent service providers.

SB 186, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, imposes restrictions on local governments to provide retail and wholesale bandwidth services.

“This legislation is trying to cut off communities at every turn by limiting any sort of ‘competitive service,’ whether it comes from public broadband infrastructure investment or a public-private partnership” said Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in a statement. “Missouri should be encouraging investment and local Internet choice, not working with monopoly lobbyists to prevent it.”

...

Read the full story here.

Gizmodo Reports on the Future of Google Fiber

Gizmodo - February 16, 2017

 

What Happened to Google Fiber?

 

Written by Libby Watson

For a long time, Google Fiber was the most exciting broadband provider out there. Cities wanted it, tech people drooled over it; and on a loftier level, it even promised to help bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor. But now, things are looking bleak: Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Google Fiber is being scaled back dramatically (again) as it named Greg McCray its new CEO, with “several hundred” of its employees in that division being sent to other areas of the company.

...

What that means is, as Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance told Gizmodo, “the new guy gets screwed.” Google Fiber complained in a blog post last year that it had only been able to upgrade 33 telephone poles out of 88,000 in Nashville, thanks to these rules. Google has pushed hard to promote a different policy, known as “one touch make ready,” which would allow a single provider to make all those changes in one go.

But that hasn’t been plain sailing either, with incumbent providers like AT&T and Charter filing lawsuits left and right in cities that adopt the policy. AT&T’s complaints with the policy have ranged from Google providing inaccurate information on poles, to saying it could lead to service disruption if there are mistakes, to objecting that it would allow changes to poles they own “without AT&T’s consent and with little notice.”

It’s not that Google doesn’t have the money to fight these things, but it might not have been worth the resources to try and seriously compete with an incumbent provider on this issue—particularly when those providers are already so entrenched in the policy scene. In Tennessee, AT&T employed five times as many lobbyists as Google did last year—25 to Google’s five.

Press Release: Comcast is spending scared in Seattle & Fort Collins local elections, facing threat of competition

Date: November 2nd, 2017

Comcast Spends Big on Local Elections in Seattle & Fort Collins

The telecom giant would lose millions in revenue from real competition, new ILSR report says

Contact:
​Christopher Mitchell
612-545-5185​
 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. -- Comcast has a lot to lose from competition in broadband Internet access. That’s why the telecommunications giant is spending big in municipal elections in Seattle and Fort Collins to maintain its monopoly on broadband Internet access. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s latest policy brief shows that Comcast could lose from $5.4 to $22.8 million per year in Fort Collins and between $20 and $84 millionper year in Seattle if faced with real competition.

In Seattle, Comcast faces absolutely no competition in four of the ten census blocks it offers broadband service. In 73 percent of the blocks with competition, there’s only one other option, according to FCC data. Comcast joined incumbent telephone company CenturyLink with a $50,000 donation supporting preferred candidate, who just happens to oppose a municipal fiber network. Local group Upgrade Seattle is holding an event at Seattle City Hall on November 2nd to rename the building Comcast City Hall because the cable giant’s remarkable influence.