The City of Ammon, Idaho, in partnership with Next Century Cities will host an event titled “The Launch of the Ammon Fiber Utility” to bring together representatives from Ammon and the region, policy and broadband experts, and key stakeholders to show off Ammon’s open access fiber network. 

The City’s open access fiber network, named 2016 Community Broadband Project of the Year by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), is delivering gigabit connectivity to a community of 14,500 people.

The Launch of the Ammon Fiber Utility

The event will offer attendees the opportunity to hear more about the Ammon Model, learn how a conservative, rural town secured a high take rate, its software defined networking technologies (SDN), as well as a tour of its cutting edge facilities.

The full day event will take place Thursday, October 5, 2017, at the Ammon Operations Center and will include presenters from local government, nonprofit, and the private sector. In addition to Christopher, you can expect to see:

• Glenn Ricart, Founder and CTO of US Ignite (Keynote)
• Dana Kirkham, Mayor of Ammon
• Bruce Patterson, Ammon CTO
• Tom Wheeler, former FCC Chairman (video address)
• Michael Curri, Founder and President, Strategic Network Group, Inc
• Shawn Irvine, Economic Development Director, City of Independence, Oregon
• Deb Socia, Executive Director, Next Century Cities

A Learning Experience

If you attend the conference, the morning program will start with keynote speakers and a series of panels:

Smart Cities Panel; researchers, developers, legal and policy experts will discuss current and future challenges.

Policy Discussion with Christopher Mitchell; on the role of government to solve the broadband challenges faced by communities utilizing historical experience inform future policy.

This is the transcript for Episode 271 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Research Associate Hannah Trostle takes over as host in order to quiz Christopher Mitchell on the latest developments in community networks. Listen to this episode here.

Christopher Mitchell: I can't believe we're freek'n talking about satellite again!

Lisa Gonzalez:This is Episode 271 of the community broadband bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. What do the FCC satellite internet access mobile broadband. Madison, Wisconsin, and utility poles in Louisville, Kentucky, have in common. They're all in the recent community broadband news and they're all in this week's podcast. In this episode, Research Associate Hannah Trostle boots Christopher from the host chair to interview him about some significant recent developments. For more details on these and other topics check out the appropriate tags at MuniNetworks.org. Now, here's Hannah and Christopher.

Hannah Trostle: Welcome to the Community Broadband Bits podcast. This is your host this week Hannah Trostle. Joining me is the normal host Christopher Mitchell.

Christopher Mitchell: I don't know how normal I am but thank you for having me on my show.

Hannah Trostle: Now we're going to kick you off, and I'm only going to do the podcast from now on.

Christopher Mitchell: I can't say I don't deserve it.

Hannah Trostle: Well you've been gone quite a bit. Where have you been?

And then there were three. After months of review and vetting, the field of bidders to purchase Burlington, Vermont’s, treasured municipal network is now a manageable number. On September 20th, city officials announced which entities were still in the running and released details of their proposals.

Ting

Toronto company Ting, which is owned by Tucows, submitted a bid to purchase the network. The company is already providing services in Charlottesville, Virginia; Holly Springs, North Carolina; and in Westminster, Maryland, where the public-private partnership has received several awards. The company is also planning construction in Sandpoint, Idaho, and Centennial, Colorado, where they will also be partnering with the municipalities to use publicly owned fiber.

They describe the key points of their offer as $27.5 million in cash and they will pay the city an additional $500,000 if BT earns $4.25 million earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) during the 2018 fiscal year. Ting is offering the city a minority interest in the network that they can later divest if they choose.

Ting will also relocate BT’s equipment, currently housed in the city’s Memorial Auditorium. The move is estimated to cost $800,000. As part of the deal, the company will also donate $250,000 toward the city’s Burlington Ignite and other programs to encourage entrepreneurship and closing the digital divide.

In their offer, Ting guarantees expansion within the city and beyond the city limits. Like the other bidders, Ting plans to keep the current operational team in place. They also guarantee customer rates for 30 months.

Review the details of the Ting/Tucows offer here.

Schurz

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.

High-Speed For Low-Income

In August, BT officials announced that they would be the first ISP in the state of Vermont to offer high-speed Internet to low-income residents through the federal Lifeline program. Lifeline provides a $9.25 monthly credit for qualifying households; BT will be offering symmetrical 25 Megabit per second (Mbps) service for $9.95 per month, leaving the balance for subscribers.

According to BT General Manager Stephen Barraclough, BT is able to participate in the program due to previous upgrades to the infrastructure:

“Because we have a gigabit network, because over the past three, four, five years we’ve essentially swapped out the majority of equipment that’ll allow a thousand meg to go to every home we have lots and lots of equipment that we’ve actually taken off the side of homes that is more than capable of delivering more than 25 meg symmetrical.  We have lots and lots of routers that can still be used. So if you look at it from a marginal cost perspective, how can we afford to do this, really there’s very little incremental out-of-pocket cost over and above what we already have.”  

Surpassing Goals

August was also an exceptional month for subscriber numbers at BT. In addition to reaching a new height for the number of subscribers added in one month, BT eclipsed their original goal of 7,000 total subscribers. As of the end of August, the network served 7,136 members of the Burlington community.

On their website, BT celebrated with this message for the community:

A Tennessee communications cooperative will soon bring fiber connectivity to Kentucky’s Warren County. North Central Telephone Cooperative (NCTC) will offer high-quality Internet access via gigabit (1,000 Megabits per second) connectivity via its North Central Communications, Inc., subsidiary.

Starting With New Construction

NCTC will start in a new subdivision and has already installed fiber prior to new home construction. The cooperative will also offer services in a nearby apartment complex. NCTC will make Internet access along with video service available to the new homes that are not yet built. They intend to expand to other multi-dwelling units and subdivisions in the area and hope to develop a larger regional footprint.

In order to accomplish their goal, NCTC is enlisting the help of other local entities:

“We’re talking to Warren Rural Electric Cooperative and Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, trying to implement your vision that everyone in Warren County is served by broadband eventually,” said [Nancy White, NCTC CEO]. “We all have the same vision to provide broadband to as many people as want it.”

Not A Stranger To Kentucky

Approximately 120,000 people live in Warren County with a little more than half making their homes in the county seat of Bowling Green. The population has increased steadily by double digits since 2000. It’s located in the south central area of the state and also home to Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College and Western Kentucky University.

On September 8th, the Warren County Fiscal Court approved a non-exclusive franchise agreement to allow NCTC to serve people in the county. NCTC is already serving subscribers in Allen County as part of the Kentucky Wired project. Warren County adjacent on the northwest border of Allen County. 

“They’ve been in Allen County for quite some time, and I have nothing but good things to say about them,” Allen County Judge-Executive Johnny Hobdy said. “They have continued to upgrade and bring service to parts of our county that hadn’t been served. I think Warren County will be satisfied with their service.”

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.

Fulfilling The Purpose

“This goes back to the core, as far as why this was formed,” broadband authority President and CEO Frank Smith said. “To create a network that other players can come in and use. We’re doing what we set out to do.”

ABS Technology is based in Virginia Beach and has an office in Roanoke. The company is starting with the single apartment building but told the Roanoke Times they may offer last mile services to more Roanoke residential subscribers in future. ABS regional sales manager Greg Henderson said that the RVBA infrastructure enabled ABS to develop the project. Without it, he said “there is no way” the company would have been able to pursue a residential build out.

Better Connectivity, Better Community

RVBA provides several options for local businesses, including dark fiber, data transport, and Internet access. ISPs such as ABS lease fiber to serve local businesses and large institutions with the expertise to manage their own networks. The resource is helping to reinvigorate Roanoke and the surrounding community.

Earlier this year, RVBA connected a business accelerator downtown aimed at attracting and keeping talent at home. The project is a collaboration between the city, the Virginia Western Community College, and the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. The city renovated an old historic building, the college will be offering business courses there, and the council will develop mentoring and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs who fill spaces at the incubator.

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. The city recently released its Request for Proposals as they seek a partner for deployment for a Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) network. Final proposals are due October 20th.

The RFP comes about a year after the community finished a feasibility study to examine costs, interest, and business models for a city-wide municipal network.

Publicly Owned With Help From A Partner

Madison has a specific business model in mind. They are looking for a partner willing to emulate Huntsville’s approach, in which the city designs, builds, and owns a dark fiber network. A private sector partner constructs fiber drop cables from the public rights-of-way to the subscribers’ premises. The partner handles lit services responsibilities and the city takes care of all dark fiber concerns. Madison also wants its partner to take on the task of obtaining access to necessary private easements. The community is looking for a firm that is willing to establish a long-term relationship.

The city has determined that the project will consist of 114,680 residential passings, which includes both single-family and multi-family dwellings. The number of business passings has been calculated to 10,331. All community anchor institutions (CAIs) will also be connected.

The Vision For Madison

Approximately 247,000 people live in the state's capital city, having seen an increase of 8.6 percent since 2010. Madison is considered a town with an exceptional quality of life, in part because the city has established a set of Racial Equity & Justice (RESJ) goals. Their desire to invest in the infrastructure to bring equitable service to all of the community is an extension of those goals.