News

Colorado 

Annual State of the City address: Fort Collins' success depends on everyone, leaders emphasize by Nick Coltrain, Fort Collins Coloradoan

Last week, community leaders, local ISPs, residents, and policy experts gathered in three North Carolina communities — Albemarle, Fuquay-Varina, and Jacksonville — for a conversation about improving local connectivity.

In a February Facebook post, the good folks at Municipal Broadband PDX out of Portland, Oregon, shared the news that the city will be contributing to the cost of a broadband feasibility study.

Expect to see more Massachusetts communities connected to their Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks during 2019. Westfield Gas + Electric (WG+E) has been working with the rural towns on the western side of the state, and an increasing number of the projects are nearing completion.

It was one of telecom’s famous David and Goliath stories, and when it was over, the people in Fort Collins, Colorado, were ready to press on to invest in better connectivity for their community. That’s what they’re doing now and community leaders anticipate rolling out service as early as this summer.

Deep Pockets vs. Self-Determination

Gentlefolk of the Jacksonville, North Carolina, region — there has been a change of venue for the Let’s Connect! Speaking Tour and Community Meeting scheduled for tonight 6 p.m.

Fortunately, the gathering has only been moved across the street. This from event organizers:

In Missouri, rural electric cooperatives are bringing high-quality connectivity to an increasing number of small towns where large corporate Internet access companies don't consider population density high enough to justify investment.

Our Christopher Mitchell and Katie Kienbaum are participating in Let’s Connect! speaking tours at several communities in North Carolina.

Spring seems like a lifetime away as we hunker down in our frozen Minneapolis office, but we know it will be here sooner than we expect and with it will come Net Inclusion 2019.

Maryland

Master plan will look at developing a municipal broadband network in Baltimore by Stephen Babcock, Technical.ly

People in the North Carolina towns of Albemarle, Fuquay-Varina, and Jacksonville, are gathering together this week to discuss rural broadband.

The town of Marshall launched its FiberNet Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service in 2018 and has rapidly blanketed the community with some of the best connectivity in south central Michigan.

An op-ed written by Katie Kienbaum, Research Associate at ILSR, was published by the Jacksonville Daily News.

For more than two years, officials from the Port of Ridgefield in Washington have planned for better connectivity by deploying dark fiber. This month, they took a significant step by issuing a Request for Information (RFI) for Partnership as they search for entities interested in leasing dark fiber to bring services to the community. Responses are due March 15, 2019.

The federal government shutdown continues to drag on, but people heading up rural broadband projects are not waiting until it’s over to investigate federal funding sources. Tools like the ReConnect Opportunity Map from Cooperative Network Services (CNS) will help reduce some of the uncertainty and time required to prepare an application for this and other funding opportunities.

Susan Crawford has published the right book at the right time. Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution -- And Why America Might Miss It, makes a compelling case for local organizing around better Internet networks upon which the future will be written. 

Colorado

Loveland will officially bond about $97 million for broadband by Julia Rentsch, Reporter Herald 

Today, the U.S. pauses to remember one of the greatest people in our modern history, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His work to inspire and organize civil rights warriors changed the path of our country and bettered the lives of countless Americans living during his time and moving forward. 

On January 16th, Next Century Cities (NCC) launched a resource that will help communities of all sizes prepare themselves for the future. NCC's Becoming Broadband Ready: A Toolkit for Communities combines best practices and experiences from places across the country to assist local communities as they begin broadband projects.

Last spring, we reported on Anacortes, Washington’s efforts to evaluate private sector partners to deliver high-quality connectivity via their publicly owned fiber optic infrastructure. After examining their financial position, the desires of the community, and considering the pros and cons, the community has decided to offer services directly to the public. The island community will start deployment in 2019 and plans to have the network completed within four years.