News

Motherboard Vice - September 19, 2017

Georgia

Cagle joins Ferguson in Pushing Broadband by Winston Skinner, The Newnan Times-Herald

The Blandin Foundation will be holding its Border to Border Broadband Conference this October at Madden’s on Gull Lake. This year, the title of the event is “Bridging the Gaps - Expanding the Impact.”

Up North In The Fall

For years we’ve encouraged voters to make improving connectivity a campaign issue in local, state, and federal elections by pursuing answers from candidates.

As fall sets in, the Burlington Telecom Advisory Board (BTAB) is still working on choosing a buyer for the Vermont city’s municipal network. The review of the four semi-finalists continues, concerned people express their opinions and BT’s work benefits the community.

A Tennessee communications cooperative will soon bring fiber connectivity to Kentucky’s Warren County.

Folks living in the Boxley Building in downtown Roanoke will soon have the choice of the community’s first Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Internet access delivered by publicly owned infrastructure. The Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA) recently announced that one of the ISPs using the fiber has decided to expand its services to residential premises in the building.

California

Senate Bill 649 is a power grab: Letters by Letters to the Editor, Press-Enterprise

The Fiber for the New Economy: Economic Development Conference event from Broadband Communities Magazine may seem like a long way off, but November 7th is just around the corner.

CLIC Day

Two Ohio State Senators are taking a page from Minnesota’s playbook to expand rural broadband connectivity. Democratic Sen. Joe Schiavoni and Republican Sen. Cliff Hite recently announced that they would be introducing legislation to create a grant program modeled after the Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program.

Mozilla’s All Access Pass with Veronica Belmont explores local broadband initiatives in episode 6. She sends reporter Dominic Girard to speak with folks in Renville and Sibley County, Minnesota, to discuss the RS Fiber Cooperative.

Last year, Madison’s CIO Paul Kronberger spoke with Christopher about the city’s pilot project to bring better connectivity to several lower-income areas. They also discussed the community’s separate plan to deploy dark fiber infrastructure across the city.

Two and a half years ago, the city council in Ellsworth, Maine, voted to take the first steps toward better connectivity through a publicly owned fiber optic network. On August 29th, the community held a “Lighting Presentation” to kick off the realization of its vision.

StateScoop - September 6, 2017

Get your applications ready! The United States Department of Agriculture  Rural Utilities Service (USDA RUS) is accepting applications for another round of loans for the Rural Broadband Access Loan and Loan Guarantee Program.

When it comes to rural areas, it’s no secret that national providers have little interest in serving the sparsely populated communities. Cooperatives and small local providers typically pick up the slack but it isn’t easy. In a recent survey indicated that small rural telephone companies are overcoming hurdles to deploy fiber and making long-term plans to continue the trend.

Alaska

A fight for Internet access is brewing in Alaska by Sydney Johnson, EdSurge

Colorado

It’s been almost two years since 82 percent of Loveland voters chose to opt out of Colorado’s restrictive SB 152.

Large, corporate providers like AT&T have to make shareholders happy, which is why they shy way from investing in regions where they don’t expect much profit. Routinely, those areas include sparsely populated rural communities and urban neighborhoods traditionally considered low-income.

Not-for-profit Southern Tier Network (STN) is already providing infrastructure for local ISP Empire Access to compete with incumbents in some areas of south central New York state.