Introducing Becca
Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed a new byline this week starting with the OpenCape post - ILSR welcomes back Becca Vargo Daggett.
Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
News
In Iowa, Indianola Networks Helps Local Businesses
The latest addition to our Community Broadband Network Map is Indianola, Iowa. The Indianola Municipal Utilities own a network that a private partner, MCG, presently uses to offer services to commercial companies.
Telecom for Medicine: Public Networks Beat Monopoly and Duopoly
This is a good news/bad news story. The good news is, cable companies are starting to challenge telco dominance in health care communications.
Florida Pro Corporate Group Argues for Less Broadband Competition
The Florida Independent has taken a look at a pro-massive cable monopoly group in Florida and compared their opinions to ours regarding broadband policy.
The Coalition for the New Economy — which works to ensure “that investments in broadband networks are used efficiently and effectively”— wrote Tuesday t
OpenCape is Almost Open for Business
Cape Cod brings thoughts of ocean waves and wind swept beaches. OpenCape and SmarterCape Partnership want to add “really fast pipe” to that image.
This winter, crews have begun installing over 300 miles of fiber optic lines [pdf] connecting 70 anchor institutions in the region.
Public Ownership of Networks Can Solve Broadband Policy Fights
We are running a guest commentary today. Eric Null is a third-year law student at Cardozo Law School in New York City. He is passionate about corporate and intellectual property law, as well as technology and telecommunications policy.
Tech News Today: Georgia Hates the Internet
On Wednesday, Tech News Today on the This Week in Tech (TWiT) network had Christopher Mitchell on to discuss pending legislation in Georgia that would essentially outlaw publicly owned networks in the state.
I come on about 25 minutes, 45 seconds in to the show.
Honesty From Heartland: Munis Outgunned in Competition with Private Sector
The Heartland Institute is one of those organizations that will say anything its massive corporate funders want it to.
Bloomberg: The Case for Publicly Owned Internet Service
Susan Crawford's op-ed in Bloomberg makes a tremendous case for publicly owned broadband networks.
AT&T Trying to Redefine Broadband in Georgia, South Carolina
The absurdity of AT&T's push to define broadband as 200kbps is so great, it boggles the imagination. We developed the graphic below to highlight just how slow 200kbps connections are.
Feel free to spread it around.
Feel free to spread it around.South Carolina Cable Association Also Wants to Limit Competition
Many complain about gridlock in Washington, DC, but I sometimes subscribe to the cynical counter-reaction that gridlock is great. It is when the Democrats and Republicans agree that Americans should beware.
Though this may or may not be true about politics, it is certainly true when applied to two of the most hated industries in America: cable television companies and DSL companies like AT&T.
Washington Legislation to Spur Rural Broadband Killed in Committee
Lobbyists for major cable and DSL companies (Comcast, Frontier, and others) already earned their pay in Washington state this year by killing a bill that would have allowed some public utility districts to offer retail services on broadband networks in rural areas that were unserved.
Broadband Communities Conference
The 2012 Broadband Communities Summit will be at the InterContinental Hotel in Dallas April 24-26. I will be there and am excited for the Open Access Program as well as the Economic Development discussions.
Beyond Access: Owning Community Broadband Audio Discussion
Two weeks ago, I joined a conference call hosted by the Media Action Grassroots Network discussing community ownership of broadband networks.
In the last few years local communities, governments, non-profit organizations and neighborhood residents from across the U.S.
Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: Listen to AT&T's CEO, not Lobbyists
AT&T lobbyists in Georgia and South Carolina are arguing that local governments should not be allowed to build the networks that communities need, suggesting that the private sector is prim
Nonprofit Approaches Solve The Rural Broadband Problem
Wally Bowen has again penned an op-ed that we gained permission to reprint. The original ran in North Carolina's Durham News Observer.
70 Groups Call on Congress to Drop SOPA / PIPA
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance joined many other groups in signing a letter calling on Congress to cease considering the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and instead initiate a balanced process meant to seriously consider a proper way to defend copyrights that does not threaten the open Internet.
Rural Wisconsin Residents Struggle to Connect to the Internet
A group of rural residents living east of Madison, Wisconsin, gathered near Portage of Columbia County to discuss their lack of affordable high speed access to the Internet. These are people for whom slow, overpriced DSL would be an improvement.
North Carolina County Turns on First White Spaces Wireless Network in Nation
A local government in southeast North Carolina is the first entity to deploy a "Super Wi-Fi" white-spaces broadband network.
Corporations Oppose Limits to Local Authority in South Carolina
With AT&T continuing to push H.3508, a bill to further erode local authority over broadband and ensure AT&T faces no competition in areas of the state, a number of corporations have signed a letter asking the South Carolina Legislature not to chase jobs out of the state.