News

Some of the nation’s leading voices, thinkers, and doers in the community broadband sector will connect and collaborate in the nation’s capital for the inaugural "Community First: The Future of Public Broadband Conference and Hill Day" next week. The two-day conference – slated for May 14 and 15 – is being hosted by the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) and New America Open Technology Institute (OTI), in partnership with the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, and the Community Broadband Action Network.

Legislation that would require ISPs operating in Massachusetts to offer qualifying low-income households high-speed Internet service for $15 per month is set to have its first legislative hearing today. The hearing in Massachusetts comes as similar legislation is being considered by state lawmakers in Vermont and California – all three of which are modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act.

The City of Baltimore is making steady progress with several grant-fueled initiatives to deliver fiber and wireless to city apartment complexes to further expand affordable access. The city is putting the finishing touches on a Request for Proposal (RFP) to strike a new public-private-partnership with an as-yet-unselected broadband provider.

States are moving ahead with their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program processes after the Commerce Department extended for 90 days the deadlines for final spending plans. The Trump administration last week gave all states a 90-day extension on their deadlines to submit their lists of selected projects for approval, documents that were originally due one year after a state’s initial BEAD implementation proposal was given the federal green light.

Vermont’s Otter Creek Communications Utility District (CUD) says it has completed its ambitious fiber deployment, bringing affordable access to more than 6,000 homes and businesses in the Rutland County region of the Green Mountain State. Otter Creek CUD leveraged grant funding to form a public-private partnership with Consolidated Communications.

Superior, Wisconsin officials say they’re getting very close to lighting up the first subscribers of a city-owned fiber network that will finally bring affordable, next-generation fiber access to the city’s long under-served community of 26,000. The city maintains that its ultimate goal is to connect every last city resident. Phase 1 of the network deployment is expected to cost $6.25 million, buoyed heavily by grants made possible by the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Port of Whitman County in Washington state has received a new $2.9 million grant it says will help dramatically expand affordable fiber access to the heavily rural county of 48,000. The latest funding, from the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) will support the construction of dark fiber to approximately 109 additional unserved and underserved locations in Whitman County.

In Chittenden County, Vermont the Chittenden County Communication Union District is using a $2.1 million grant from the Vermont Community Broadband Board to begin expanding high-speed fiber-optic Internet connections to unserved and underserved areas across five towns. The grant is expected to fund this first phase of the county’s network build this year. Phase two is dependent on additional federal funding sources (likely including BEAD) but is tenuously slated to begin in 2027.

Comcast says it’s acquiring San Bruno, California’s CityNet, a municipally owned and operated broadband, video and voice network that currently serves over 5,400 residents and businesses. San Bruno’s $8 million sale to Comcast was prompted by $21.5 million in debt and what the city says was surging operating costs.

UTOPIA Fiber is celebrating another banner year as the nation’s largest community-owned open access network recently announced its subscriber growth numbers for 2024. The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency recently announced it officially hit the 70,000 subscriber mark and is now delivering fiber-to-the-home access in 21 Utah cities, partnering with 19 private-sector ISPs.

The Delaware County, Ohio Board of Commissioners and Consolidated Cooperative have announced the start of a $4.9 million joint initiative to dramatically expand affordable fiber optic broadband access to large swaths of the heavily underserved county. The expansion will be funded via American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and the deployment will target more rural communities largely in the northwestern and north-central portions of Delaware County.

Leveraging years of regional fiber collaboration, Carson, California has broken ground on a municipal broadband pilot network. City officials hope to expand the network to bring affordable fiber optic broadband to the entire city of 95,558, situated just 13 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

If you missed our inaugural Community Broadband Film Fest series kick off last week, the entirety of the event can still be viewed here. Following the live screening before an audience of over 100 virtual participants there was a lively discussion with several of the film’s key figures, including Holland Mayor Nathan Bocks.

Conexon Connect, the ISP arm of fiber broadband builder Conexon, said it has completed its tenth fiber broadband deployment in four years in collaboration with the Sac Osage Electric Cooperative. The network, Conexon’s second deployment in Missouri, will bring affordable fiber broadband for the first time to the cooperative’s 9,000 mostly rural members.

The city of Willmar, Minnesota has voted to move forward on plans for a city-owned open access fiber network. The $24.5 million investment, which saw finalized approval by the Willmar city council earlier this month with a 4-3 vote, aims to drive accountable, affordable, fiber access to long underserved parts of the northern Minnesota city.

At the 17th Tribal Broadband Bootcamp, Pueblo of Jemez Tribe members immersed themselves in fiber and wireless network technology as the Tribally-owned broadband provider JNET embarks on a fiber-to-the-home project. The half-dozen network builders from the Pueblo are being led by Network Operations Supervisor and Digital Navigator Program Manager Angela Diahkah and JNET Director Kevin Shendo.

A new study by The Brattle Group found that the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) generated more savings for taxpayers than it cost. Healthcare savings generated by the low-income program alone more than offset its annual burden to taxpayers, undermining claims that the program was dismantled as an act of fiscal efficiency.

Mountain View officials hired the consulting firm, Entrust Solutions, to take a closer look at the city’s broadband availability metrics and device potential options for the city. The finished report and accompanying technical memorandum note that Comcast enjoys a monopoly over vast swaths of the city, resulting in expensive, slow, and spotty access.

ILSR and AAPB to host a virtual community broadband film fest on March 27 to premiere “Building Fiberhoods in Holland,” a short documentary on how the city of Holland, Michigan came to build a municipal broadband utility to supercharge its local economy. The livestream event will kick-off with virtual red carpet introductions of some of the film’s stars, including Holland Mayor Nathan Bocks

A coalition of Vermont healthcare leaders, librarians, and state broadband officials are looking to leverage the state’s unprecedented deployment of community-owned fiber networks to create a scalable, community-centered telehealth model. It’s called VITAL VT – an exploratory effort being launched with a $10,000 grant from the Leahy Institute For Rural Partnerships, working in collaboration with the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Vermont Library Association.