Consumer and civil rights groups last week told the Trump administration that their proposed “reforms” of the FCC’s Lifeline program would undermine efforts to ensure equitable, affordable access to the internet for all Americans, and are based on lies about immigrant fraud.
Locals in Longmeadow, Massachusetts say they’re being bombarded with misleading mailers, texts, and phone calls from a telecom-industry linked group trying to mislead the public ahead of a key vote on the city’s plan to begin construction of a municipal broadband fiber network today.
In yet another bruising blow in the fight to ensure equitable access to high-speed Internet service, an appeals court struck down federal rules this week that aimed to combat digital redlining.
In the marathon to bring universal high-speed Internet service to the most rural state in the nation, Vermont is heading into the last-mile stretch of the race with the finish line in sight.
Leading members of the fiber industry descended on Orlando, Fla. this week for the Fiber Broadband Association's annual Fiber Connect conference to take stock of a national inflection point fueled by the federal BEAD program and the all-consuming rise of AI.
The city of Longmeadow, Massachusetts has failed to get a two-thirds voting majority necessary to move forward with its plan to deploy affordable fiber to every city resident.
The Okanogan County Electric Cooperative and the Okanogan County Public Utility District say they’re making steady progress on bringing affordable fiber broadband access to Okanogan County, a highly rural stretch of rugged land in Washington state on the border of Canada.
An increasing number of communities appreciate the significance of dig-once policies. Municipal, state, and federal leaders are taking the advice of groups like Next Century Cities and implementing some form of the dig once approach to speed up deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. The next "no-brainer" policy is the one-touch make-ready or OTMR for pole attachments.
Sandi Wallis, a resident of northern Bradley County in Tennessee, doesn’t simply want to have ultra-fast, reliable broadband access for the fun of it. She needs it to run her home business. Her school-age children need it too:
At MuniNetworks, we often focus on access to the Internet, but the impact of telecommunication policy extends beyond data. In 2016, families might finally see reasonable prices for phone calls to incarcerated loved ones.
Iowa, known across the country for its agriculture, is known in other circles for its exciting community broadband projects. Earlier this year President Obama visited Cedar Falls to praise its municipal network and to support other efforts to improve rural high-speed Internet access.
Lincoln, Nebraska, population 269,000, is making the most of a tough situation to improve connectivity and increase telecommunications competition; the city is doing it with conduit.