When it comes to community-owned and operated networks, better, faster, cheaper broadband is often only one of the benefits. Some telephone cooperatives, like Paul Bunyan Communications in Northern Minnesota’s Beltrami County, share profits with its members, literally paying the benefits of shared telecom ownership back into the communities they serve.

The Cooperative recently announced it was giving a $3.6 million profit windfall back to local community members. It’s the fourth such payout to local subscribers in the last seven years.

For distributions of $150 or less, a credit was applied to subscriber’s bills. For sums greater than $150, the cooperative mailed checks out to locals.

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With origins that owe a part of its success to the Beltrami Electric Cooperative, it was in 1996 when locals were first offered broadband access through Paul Bunyan Telephone. Three years later, it began the necessary infrastructure upgrades that allowed it to offer phone, high-speed Internet access, and digital television.

In 2005, the cooperative expanded with fiber technology for the first time. In 2010, Paul Bunyan Telephone changed its name to Paul Bunyan Communications. 

“Our cooperative continues to grow and thrive, now serving over 35,000 active members across over a 6,000-square-mile service area,” said Paul Bunyan Communications CEO Chad Bullock.

“Through steady investment and expansion, we’ve built one of the nation’s largest rural all-fiber [networks], transforming how our members live, work, and play. It’s incredibly rewarding to see that success come full circle as we share the benefits with our members.”

Vermont’s Otter Creek Communications Union District not only recently finished its major fiber deployment, CUD leaders say the project came in significantly under budget, saving Vermont state leaders more than $3 million in taxpayer dollars. That money will now be redirected toward efforts to make access more affordable for state residents.

As we recently reported, Otter Creek CUD completed a major fiber expansion project that brought affordable fiber to 3,626 locations, including 1,278 previously unserved addresses across heavily rural parts of the Rutland County region of the Green Mountain State.

The project was funded by a $10 million grant by the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB). Between the Otter Creek grant awards and contributions from private providers, more than $24 million was invested in Rutland County to expand fiber access.

In a new announcement, Otter Creek CUD officials say the build, made possible by a lot of hard work by local volunteers, ultimately came in more than $3 million under budget, money CUD leaders say will now be used to improve network quality and affordability.

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“We are so proud of this tremendous accomplishment,” VCBB Executive Director Christine Hallquist said of the project. “It’s a great example of how Vermonters can benefit from the local leadership of CUDs in negotiating with private telecoms.”

Michigan-based Thumb Electric Cooperative says its ongoing fiber deployment has hit a new milestone: its 4000th connected broadband subscriber.

The cooperative’s latest customer, Verona Hills Golf Course in Huron County, Michigan, comes three years after the cooperative joined the growing trend of expanding into broadband access.

"We're very proud to reach this milestone," Cooperative Marketing and Communication Specialist Mitch Hirn said of the cooperative’s ongoing expansion.

"We look to continue our buildout over the next few years. We want more people to sign up for high-speed, reliable internet. The vast majority of our customers have been very pleased with our service."

In deployed markets Thumb offers two tiers of fiber broadband service via its TEC Fiber subsidiary: a symmetrical 500 megabit per second (Mbps) offering for $85 a month; and a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) offering for $125 a month. The cooperative’s fiber tiers do not feature usage caps, hidden fees, or long-term contracts.

First created in 1938, the Thumb Electric Cooperative is one of over 200 U.S. electrical cooperatives leveraging their century-old experience in rural electrification to bring affordable fiber access to long-neglected parts of the country – markets that in most cases were left behind by regional telecom monopolies disinterested in improving affordable access.

According to data from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), 700 of the nation’s 900 electrical cooperatives have yet to expand into broadband access, so there’s plenty of legroom for additional cooperatives to join the ongoing trend.

*This is the first installment of an ongoing series we are calling Connected Complex looks at how states, local communities, and Internet service providers are working to address the often complex challenges involved in bringing high-speed Internet access to multi-dwelling units.

Massachusetts state leaders have announced a new $31.5 million investment to bring reliable, high-speed Internet access to residents in affordable and public housing statewide.

A key part of the major new investment initiative focuses on something that’s particularly challenging in the northeast: updating long outdated wiring in multiple-dwelling-units (MDUs) like apartments, condos, and housing developments, many of which were built before the advent of the Internet.

The funds are being provided by the Massachusetts Broadband Office’s (MBO) Residential Retrofit Program, which aims to deploy state-of-the-art broadband infrastructure to public and affordable housing properties across Massachusetts. MBI’s funding, in turn, was largely made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

In partnership with the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), Gov. Maura Healey’s office awarded the grant money to four Internet service providers: Aervivo, Archtop Fiber, Comcast, and Community Broadband Networks FLX (CBN-FLX). All told, the funding is poised to deliver broadband access to 13,700 housing units across 60 Massachusetts municipalities.

The second installment in the ongoing Community Broadband Film Series spotlights  “Rocketeers: The UTOPIA Fiber Story” – an eye-opening documentary that tells the story of how a publicly-owned fiber network has ignited local Internet choice and competition across dozens of cities, delivering connectivity at the speed of light.

Hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), the screening will be streamed to a live audience on September 3 at 4pm ET.

Register now for the virtual event here.

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The event  will begin with a screening of the 24-minute film and then treat attendees to a live Red Carpet discussion with UTOPIA Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman and key leaders of two communities that are now part of the fast growing UTOPIA network – Sid Boswell, CEO of Yellowstone Fiber in Bozeman, Montana; and Bountiful, Utah Councilmember Kate Bradshaw.

The discussion will be moderated by AAPB Executive Director Gigi Sohn and ILSR’s own Sean Gonsalves, the Community Broadband Network team’s Associate Director for Communications.

On the virtual red carpet, the special guests will dive into UTOPIA Fiber's open-access journey and the network of people bringing future-proof connectivity and local Internet choice to thousands of homes and businesses.

Bring your popcorn and join us for another exciting showcase of how local communities are seizing control of their digital futures.

As states struggle to readjust their plans to expand high-speed Internet access in the wake of the Trump administration “termination” of the Digital Equity Act, Vermont is working to address the multi-million dollar shortfall by aligning the state’s Digital Empowerment initiative with its newly established Affordable Long Drop Program.

The Affordable Long Drop Program was established to provide grants to eligible Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to cover the connection costs for Vermonters whose homes are beyond standard drop distances.

Typically, an ISP will pay for a standard drop, which is the final external link that connects a provider's distribution network to the end-user's location – a distance that most often spans a couple hundred feet or less.

In rural areas around the country, community-minded operators like telephone and electric cooperatives will often cover the first quarter of a mile. This has also been the case in Vermont, where many of the state’s Communications Union Districts (CUDs) have been footing the bill to cover as much as the first 2,000 feet of drop distance. But, as with any predominantly rural state, there are a number of homes located just beyond that 2,000 foot range.

The construction costs of extending fiber lines can get pricey the further the home is away from the main fiber routes. Vermont’s Affordable Long Drop Program aims to help pay for the drops costs of the last mile networks that are currently being built across the state to help ensure residents in harder-to-reach locations can still get Internet access.

Vineland, New Jersey officials say they’ve secured a $3.7 million grant from the state that will help expand fiber and wireless broadband access to the city of 62,000. Local officials are hopeful the grant is just the beginning steps toward dramatic expansion of affordable access.

Vineland’s new grant was made possible by the New Jersey Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Equity (NJBIDE) grant program. NJBIDE will be delivering $40 million in broadband grants via the state’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF), made largely possible by the 2021 federal passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

NJBIDE grants prioritize fiber optic infrastructure of 100 megabytes per second (Mbps) and mandates the provision of at least one low-cost option (not specifically defined by New Jersey) to serve low income communities – something increasingly important in the wake of the federal government’s retreat from efforts to ensure equitable and affordable broadband. (Still early in the process, the city has not yet determined the exact pricing and service tiers the network will offer once construction is complete).

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A 2024 city proposal indicates that city leaders want to spend between $35 and $40 million to create a citywide broadband network, starting with a citywide fiber ring. The city paid for a viability study from Bonfire that found that at least 42 percent of the City does not have access to viable, quality, affordable broadband service.

Officials in Bountiful, Utah say they’ve completed the city’s $48 million open access fiber network a year ahead of schedule, bringing fast, affordable broadband access to the Salt Lake City suburb of 45,000.

“We have completed the Bountiful City fiber project and built out the entire city with an open access network,” Utopia Fiber Executive Director Roger Timmerman recently said at the Fiber Connect Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. “This was a three-year project, and we completed it nearly a full year ahead of schedule.”

In a unanimous city council vote in the summer of 2023, officials approved $48 million in bonds to fund construction of the city-owned open access fiber network. 

Like UTOPIA’s broader network, the city then leases access out to numerous independent ISPs, creating a massive influx of competitive, affordable last mile fiber access.

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The city of Bountiful owns the network while UTOPIA designed, built and manages the network and takes a share of the revenue.

Thanks to the partnership, locals now have access to 14 different competing broadband providers, offering symmetrical and affordable 250 megabit per second (Mbps), 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), 2.5 Gbps, and 10 Gbps tiers – plus a $38 to $44 local network access charge.

UTOPIA officials say the network currently passes around 16,500 addresses, and they’ve been seeing 200 signups per month.

“We need a year to really answer that question,” Timmerman said when asked for specifics on area adoption rates. “In Bountiful we’re confident we’ll get take rates of 40% or higher. There’s a lot of demand there.”