Almost six years ago, we told readers about Ottawa, Kansas, where the community of around 13,000 people had invested in publicly owned fiber optic connectivity for local businesses.

Arizona 

For remote tribes, free airwaves licenses mean chance to connect by Jon Reid, Bloomberg Law

In  November 2017 we reported that Mount Washington, a town of roughly 200 people in southwestern Massachusetts, had deployed its own infrastructure for broadband service.

I have stepped down from my role as Policy Advisor at Next Century Cities, an organization that I helped to found and one that I believe is very important to ensuring everyone can use fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access.

Community leaders in Independence, Missouri, have recently brought up the topic of publicly owned networks and indicated that they'd like to learn more about how Independence might fare with a muni.

As federal, state, and local leaders increasingly recognize the need to make Internet access universal, they are also realizing that adoption is a separate issue. In an effort to better understand digital equity, the House Subcommittee on Communications & Technology of the Committee on Energy and Commerce recently sat down to listen to experts on digital equity. They discussed common misconceptions, hurdles that make wide-scale adoption difficult, and offered policy recommendations to help us achieve digital equity.

As the USDA continues to award federal ReConnect funds for rural connectivity, we're glad to see that communities in West Virginia are not being ignored.

Despite state laws requiring referenda and public reporting, Iowa is home to successful municipal networks, which have been undeterred by these potential stumbling blocks. A bill in the Iowa Senate, however, may present a new barrier discouraging new networks in places where Iowans need it the most. In communities where Internet access companies aren't offering the caliber of services residents and businesses need, the proposal would restrict the possibility of competition.

Arizona

Bringing rural Arizona up to (high) speed by Victoria Harker, Chamber Business News

Idaho

As we trudge through the snow in Minneapolis, we dream about spring weather and Net Inclusion 2020. It’s one of our favorite annual events and this year folks will gather in Portland, Oregon, to discuss all things digital inclusion. This year, the event is April 7th - 9th.

This month, both Frontier Communications and CenturyLink put the FCC on notice that neither company expected to meet deployment milestones related to Connect America Fund Phase II (CAF II). In total, rural households in 23 states will have to wait for connectivity that the two large companies were tasked with developing using federal subsidies.

Iowa has multiple rural communities where large national Internet access companies have not invested in high-quality Internet infrastructure. Iowans have adopted a self-reliant approach, however, and one look at the community networks map shows that publicly owned networks pepper the state.