Glasgow was a true pioneer in community owned broadband networks, starting with its own cable plant in the 1980s. Billy Ray, CEO of Glasgow Electric Plant Board, has been an inspiration for municipal broadband networks -- one can't dig into the early history of LUS Fiber in Louisiana without running into something from Billy Ray, for instance. Glasgow's network has been a tremendous success, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of benefits to the community.

In our interview, we discuss the bitter legal fights of the early years as Glasgow built its own cable network and eventually began offering Internet access. Additionally, we discuss the important role of these information networks in creating more efficient (and less costly) electrical systems -- an incredibly important implication that does not get enough coverage.

Given the extraordinary history of Billy Ray and Glasgow EPB, we hope this will be the first of several conversations exploring that community. You can read more from Billy Ray on his blog.

Read the transcript from our call here. Also, we created a video on Glasgow called The Birth of Community Broadband.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

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Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

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Thanks to mojo monkeys for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Readers know we have offered extensive coverage of the publicly owned network in Longmont, Colorado. The utility will soon offer telecommunications services to businesses and residents that are physically located within 500 feet or less of its existing network. At this stage, policies and procedures for the service are being finalized by Longmont Power and Communications (LPC).

We talked with Vince Jordan, LPC's Telecom Manager, who told us the expansion is part of their original business plan. Local establishments are ready to sign up with LPC. Twenty businesses put themselves in the queue within the past month. In addition to industrial and manufacturing companies, healthcare clinics, service industries, and entrepreneurs are waiting to get hooked up. Vince tells us several companies are looking to build data centers now that they will be able to get the bandwidth they need from LPC.

Vince credits LPC's ability to offer great local customer service as another driving factor for the early sign-ups. LPC is developing a fiber hood campaign to determine the locations for the first set of FTTH connections. The campaign, similar to that used by other communities and more recently by Google, will look at residential areas that are located near existing fiber and conduit. Surveys and early sign ups will identify seven fiber hoods.

Longmont's ordinance [PDF] requires customers to cover the cost of running fiber to their homes or businesses. Even though connecting can be pricey, Vince tells us potential customers call him regularly asking when they will be able to get fiber to their homes or establishments.

Many residential inquiries involve home based businesses, but not all. He relays the story of one retired gentleman who is so fed up with sorry service from the incumbents, he is willing to pay anything up to $10,000 to get LPC fiber to his home. We have encountered many instances of crappy customer service from the big boys, leaving us to suspect others share that sentiment. 

The Longmont...

Kudos to Richard Downey, Village Administrator for the Village of Kronenwetter in Wisconsin. Mr. Downey reminded us that we have yet to write about the fiber network in Princeton, Illinois. While we have noted Princeton in our list of economic development successes, we haven't delved into the network that serves the city, the schools, and the business community.

Princeton is home to about 7,500 people and is located in the north central region of the state in Bureau County. They have their own electric, water, and wastewater utilities and began offering broadband connectivity in late 2003. We spoke with Jason Bird, Superintendent of Princeton Electric Department, who shared the network's story with us.

In 2003, the city’s largest electric and water consumer was also the largest employer. At the time, incumbents served the community with T1 connections. The manufacturing company moved to Mexico, taking 450 jobs with it. The community was stunned.

Approximately 6 months later, Ingersoll Rand, the community's second largest employer with about 300 jobs, also considered moving away from Princeton. While lack of needed broadband was not the only reason, the Ingersoll Rand CEO let community leaders know that it was one of the influential factors. The company liked being in Princeton, and the city would have been on the top of the location list if not for the sad state of connectivity. At the time, the only commercial option was unreliable T1 connections for $1,500 - $2,000 per month. If Ingersoll Rand moved, the community would experience job losses equal to 10% of the population. Community leaders needed to act and do it quickly.

To retain Ingersoll Rand, the City Council decided unanimously to go into the telecommunications industry. They issued an RFP and encouraged incumbents AT&T and Comcast to bid; neither were interested. (Interestingly, once Princeton let it be known that they were going to build the network without them, there were some local upgrades from both companies.)

IVNet, located in Peru, Illinois, won the bid to manage and provide retail...

Following the collapse of key industries, a town of 50,000 in eastern North Carolina had to make a hard choice. It wanted to support existing businesses and attract new ones but the cable and telephone companies were not interested in upgrading their networks for cutting edge capacity.

So Wilson decided to build its own fiber optic network, now one of the fastest in the nation, earning praise from local businesses that have a new edge over competitors in the digital economy. In response, Time Warner Cable lowered its prices and modestly boosted available Internet speeds, contributing to the $1 million saved by the community each year.

Download Carolina's Connected Community: Wilson Gives Greenlight to Fast Internet here.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Common Cause have just released a case study of how and why Wilson built Greenlight, a citywide next-generation fiber-to-the-home network that set the standard for connectivity in North Carolina. The report is authored by Todd O'Boyle of Common Cause and Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The network, owned and operated by the municipal utility, offer telephone, television, and Internet services to every resident or business in the city. Over 6,000 households and businesses have subscribed, a take rate of over 30% and growing. Additionally, the network has connected all of the schools with at least 100 Mbps connections. Downtown has free Wi-Fi and the library has benefited with a higher capacity connection for people looking for jobs and taking computer classes.

The Federal Communications Commission ranks North Carolina last in the nation in percentage of households subscribing to at least a "basic broadband" service, largely because Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and AT&T have declined to upgrade their networks to modern standards. Only 13% subscribe to a connection that is at least 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream -- the minimum required to take advantage of basic Internet applications according to the FCC.

This story was originally posted on the ILSR website.

This report is the first of two. The second will be published shortly and will feature a discussion of how Time Warner Cable reacted, pushing legislation through the General...