Christopher took a break from his hosting duties and joined The Broadband Bunch podcast  recently as a guest to talk about the roles and responsibilities of cities in expanding Internet infrastructure and access. 

He talks about the quiet success of most municipal networks around the country in terms of the value they bring, as an engine driving reinvestment in the community, and the benefits of local accountability and transparency. The episode also covers the different models available to cities - including open access - and how the venerable Community Broadband Bits Podcast got its start.

Listen to the episode over at The Broadband Bunch, or below.

Here's the 2011 debate Christopher refers to in the episode with Jim Baller, Rob Atkinson, and Jeff Eisenach.

Cortez is the latest community in the state of Colorado to decide whether to opt out of SB 152, which has since passage in 2005 has preempted local authority and prevented communities from building publicly owned telecommunications infrastructure and offering retail service.

The community (pop. 8,500) is located in Montezuma County in the southwest part of the state, just north of Mesa Verde National Park. As first reported in The Journal at the end of January and subsequently approved unanimously by the City Council in the middle of February, a ballot measure later this spring will give city residents the option to restore the municipality’s ability to offer retail Internet service to business and households themselves.

From the ballot flyer provided to residents by the city:

A voter-approved exemption from SB 152 would restore local independence and ability to evaluate all possibilities for next generation broadband services in the City of Cortez and our communities. An exemption supports local choice and options, allowing citizens to make the best decisions based on the needs of our own individual communities, without raising taxes.

It further explains the realities of the limitations imposed by SB 152:

Without such approval, the law limits the ability of Colorado local governments to provide a wide spectrum of services, including: free Internet service in city libraries, parks and community centers; leveraging government infrastructure and partnering with private businesses to provide affordable and high-speed Internet service throughout the entire community; [and] direct provision of broadband services by municipal governments where needed.

A Chance to Build on Past Success

Separating the physical and service layers of our telecommunications infrastructure offers a host of benefits that communities should consider when investing in their future: from encouraging lower prices through competition, to offering schools and hospitals the ability to set up secure and instantaneous networks on the fly, to providing a seedbed for experimentation as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Tuesday, April 27th at 2pm ET will feature a free webinar with a panel of experts on the obstacles to and promise of open access networks. 

From the event description:

The goal of Open Access Networks extends beyond access to the Internet. OANs should be a sustainable network that provides the freedom of information exchange, fosters a competitive ecosystem, [and] enables digital innovation essential for its growth and long-term affordability. In this panel, we examine the obstacles that prevent this vision becoming reality. We talk with OAN practitioners to identify how they have progressed towards this vision.

The webinar is moderated by CEO of consulting firm HBG Strategies, Heather Burnett Gold.

Panelists include ILSR's Christopher Mitchell, Sean Colletti (Mayor, City of Ammon, Idaho), David Corrado (CEO, UTOPIA Fiber), and Kim McKinley (CMO, UTOPIA Fiber).

Register here

With all the buzz around the prioritization of municipal and cooperative broadband networks in the American Jobs Plan unveiled by President Biden last week, let’s not forget about one leading voice in Congress calling for broadband for all. 

Last year, with assistance from the House Rural Broadband Task Force he created, Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, introduced the Affordable, Accessible Internet for All (AAIA) Act, a bold bill that proposed a $100 billion investment to build high-speed Internet infrastructure in unserved and underserved parts of the country. 

Although the legislation stalled in the Mitch McConnell-led U.S. Senate prior to the 2020 election, it did set the Democratic agenda on broadband moving forward. Now, as the Biden Administration has settled into the White House and with Democrats in control of Congress, Clyburn has reintroduced a slightly slimmed down $94 billion AAIA, alongside companion legislation in the U.S. Senate sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN.

If it passes, the bill would be a game changer, as it goes beyond funding high-speed Internet infrastructure to attack the digital divide from essentially every angle. The bill includes funding and dedicated support to address barriers that prevent millions of Americans from having access to affordable, high-speed Internet connectivity. It backs measures that would encourage pricing transparency, promote Internet adoption and digital literacy initiatives, guarantee affordability, and protect the rights of workers who would build the networks. 

While all of these measures are critical, one of the most important requirements included in the revamped legislation is for input from local, state and Tribal governments to be taken into account when determining what projects AAIA will fund. 

On Episode 9 of Connect This!, hosts Christopher Mitchell and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Kim McKinley (Chief Marketing Officer, UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (President, CCG Consulting) to talk about the recently signed American Rescue Plan Act, which has the potential to funnel an unprecedented level of funding to communities which can be used for Internet infrastructure.

The group talks about the different buckets of money that will become available and how cities, counties, and states might use them. They discuss the ways that communities can use the federal funds to reduce risk for local projects and push them forward, create partnerships with public organizations and private firms, and what local officials need to do to ensure that they are ready when the money starts flowing to effect long-term positive change.

Watch via this link, or watch below.

Subscribe to the show using this feed. 

Email us at [email protected] with feedback and ideas for the show. 

Welcome to In Our View, the first installment of a new series here. From time to time, we'll use this space to explore new ideas and share our thoughts on recent events playing out across the digital landscape, as well as take the opportunity to draw attention to important but neglected broadband-related issues.

The disaster in Texas resulting from an electric grid that was deliberately left exposed and likely to fail in rare cold weather events has received a lot of dramatic coverage, as well it should given the loss of life and damage to so many homes and businesses. It also raised some questions in my mind regarding competition and designing markets that will be discussed below. Texas was a leader in allowing different electricity firms to compete in selling electricity over the same electric grid, an arrangement that has some similarities to open access broadband approaches.

In digging into that recent electricity history, I made another interesting and relevant finding that I discuss first as part of the background to understand the lessons from Texas. In 20 years of competing models between, on the one hand, municipal and cooperative structures to deliver electricity and, on the other hand, a largely deregulated and competitive market, the munis and co-ops delivered lower prices to ratepayers.

Many of the sources used in this article are behind paywalls. We wish that weren't the case but we support both paying for news and the libraries that have databases that may allow you to track this down if you have the inclination.

Electricity Deregulation, Texas Style

More than 20 years ago, Texas largely deregulated electricity markets. Residents still have a monopoly in charge of the physical wire delivering electricity to the home, but they could choose among various electricity providers that would effectively use the wire and charge different amounts, differentiating themselves via a variety of factors, including how the electricty was produced.

A recent announcement by fiber network builder, operator, and consulting firm Lit Communities signals both a proof of concept for a new public-private partnership and that progress is accelerating for residents in one region of Ohio who will soon enjoy Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service from a new provider.

In a press release last week [pdf], the company announced it had secured significant funding from private firms Stephens Capital Partners and The Pritzker Organization to support its work in partnering with communities that are looking to leverage their existing information infrastructure to finish connections to residents in cities and towns around the United States. The news means an infusion of cash for Lit Communities’ local last-mile venture, Medina Fiber, which will bring new fiber service to tens of thousands of homes in Medina County (pop. 180,000) at lower costs by utilizing the existing publicly owned, middle-mile open access Medina County Fiber Network (MCFN). 

Publicly Owned Middle-Mile Supporting Privately-Owned Last-Mile

The collaboration will allow Lit Communities to save money and expedite residential rollout by connecting to MCFN. It is also a sign of success for local officials who have been looking for ways to use the existing infrastructure to spur high-speed Internet access beyond government buildings, schools, and commercial transport to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans in the near future. 

MCFN will continue to own and operate the middle-mile portion of the network, with Medina Fiber owning and operating the last-mile residential connections as a private entity, paying MCFN for backhaul with the fees it generates from households that choose to subscribe.

Idaho is better known for producing potatoes than the state of Washington. But actually, it’s the 2,800 square miles (an area about twice the size of Rhode Island) within Grant County in central Washington that grows more spuds per acre than any county in the United States.

As you might expect, the Grant County Public Utility District (PUD) has a long history of supporting the region’s potato farmers. But for the past 20 years, the county-owned utility has been planting more than potatoes in the fertile soil of the Evergreen State, the benefits of which are being enjoyed by county residents on and off the farm.

Building a Fiber Foundation

In early 2000, Grant County PUD built an open access fiber optic network, allowing multiple local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to compete in delivering Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service to the county’s 97,700 residents. After investing $182 million to bring high-performance Internet connectivity to 75% of the county, over the past several years the utility has been working to expand the network to cover the remaining 25% into the most rural parts of the Grant County PUD service area.

Privately-owned broadband infrastructure builder and operator SiFi Networks is sprouting roots in cities from California to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Fullerton FiberCity network was SiFi’s first FiberCity — a privately built, financed, and operated open access network. Network construction in Fullerton started in November 2019 and involved over 600 miles of micro-trenching underground fiber, a technique designed to minimize traffic and neighborhood disruption sometimes associated with ripping up roads to install fiber conduit. The first residential customers were hooked up in June, with an anticipated completion date in the fall of 2021.

And while construction of the fiber network in Fullerton isn’t quite finished yet, eight other communities across the country are in the process of becoming the next SiFi fiber cities.

Salem

In Salem, Ma., SiFi Networks announced at the end of November it had completed a “construction trial” which is a “practice run” ahead of the actual construction of the citywide network, slated to start this spring.

Once completed, the Salem project, in which SiFi Networks is partnering with GigabitNow, will offer the city’s 43,180 residents an alternative to the monopoly services of Comcast. GigabitNow, which will be the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for Salem FiberCity, estimates they will be able to begin providing services as early as summer 2021.