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No Shareholders, Just Service: Sherwood, Oregon’s Community Broadband Success - Episode 634 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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In this episode of the podcast, Chris speaks with Mayor Tim Rosener and IT Director Brad Crawford of Sherwood, Oregon, about the city’s journey in building a community-owned broadband network. 

They discuss Sherwood's unique approach to expanding fiber access, how they’ve leveraged Urban Renewal funding to support the network’s growth, and their commitment to keeping service affordable for residents. 

The conversation highlights the importance of local control, the economic benefits of broadband investment, and Sherwood’s expansion into surrounding rural areas. 

Tune in to hear how Sherwood is proving that community broadband can be both cost-effective and high quality, all while prioritizing local service and support.

This show is 22 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license

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Sherwood, Oregon Ferments ‘Future-Proof’ Fiber To Preserve and Expand Municipal Network

Sherwood Broadband sign on side of street
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In the City of Sherwood, a mostly residential bedroom community 16 miles south of Portland, officials have been quietly cultivating a digital vineyard across Oregon’s “Gateway to Wine Country.”

As part of its on-going work to build out a citywide fiber network, Sherwood Broadband recently secured a $9 million grant from the Oregon Broadband Office Broadband Deployment Program (BDP) to continue expanding Sherwood’s municipally-owned network into neighboring rural communities just outside city limits.

The grant award is part of $132 million in federal Rescue Plan funds the state is doling out to an array of community-owned broadband initiatives for 16 projects across 17 counties.

Award winners include Beacon Broadband, a subsidiary of the Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative ($19.4 million); Jefferson County ($19.2 million); Douglas Fast Net, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Douglas Electric Cooperative ($8.5 million); the Idaho-based member-owned cooperative Farmers Mutual Telephone Company, which offers broadband service in Malheur County, OR ($18.9 million); and a handful of independent providers like Blue Mountain Networks ($6.5 million) and Ziply Fiber ($10.2 million), recently acquired by Bell Canada.

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How MINET is Expanding Broadband in Oregon - Episode 630 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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In this episode of the podcast, Chris speaks with PJ Armstrong, General Manager of MINET, about the innovative ways this municipal network is expanding connectivity in Monmouth, Independence, and Dallas, Oregon. 

They discuss MINET’s remarkable 75% market penetration, their unique partnership with investors for rural expansion, and their efforts to provide free Wi-Fi in local parks and public trolleys. Learn how MINET’s in-house team is taking on new challenges, such as underground infrastructure work, and how they’re navigating opportunities with federal programs like ARPA and BEAD.

Armstrong also shares insights into the community’s appreciation for reliable, locally operated Internet service and the complexities of extending broadband to unserved and underserved areas.

This show is 22 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license

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Municipal Broadband Networks Deliver On Affordability Before And After ACP

American Prospect logo
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In a recently published piece in The American Prospect, Sean Gonsalves, ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative Associate Director for Communications, reports on four cities across the U.S. that are well prepared to deal with the demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).  

The article – titled "The Municipal Broadband Solution" – begins by laying out why Congress created the popular program and how letting the ACP go bankrupt undermines the national "Internet For All" Initiative now underway. However, while digital equity advocates across the nation rightly lament the demise of the program, the focus of the article is on cities that have figured out how to deliver afforable high-quality Internet access even without the ACP.   

Here's a few excerpts:

Congress created the ACP to soften a harsh reality: Americans pay among the highest prices for broadband of any developed nation in the world, leaving tens of millions unable to afford internet service—something experts have long noted is a telltale sign of a broken market dominated by monopoly providers, and is at the very heart of why the U.S. digital divide is as massive as it is.

However, although federal lawmakers have known for over a year that the fund would be bankrupt by this spring, GOP congressional leaders have not budged on even bipartisan attempts to save the ACP, prompting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to announce in January that the agency was being forced to wind down the popular program.

It’s a major setback for the “Internet for All” effort, especially in light of a recent FCC survey that found 29 percent of ACP beneficiaries would be left without any home internet service whatsoever without the benefit, in an age when internet connectivity is a necessity for meaningful participation in 21st-century society.

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Activists Say Time Is Right To Renew Fight For Community Broadband In Portland

Portland Riverbank Skyline at night
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Portland activists are renewing their calls to prioritize the construction of a municipally owned broadband network in the Oregon city of 635,000. With an historic infusion of federal subsidies and a looming shakeup of city politics, advocates for community-owned broadband say the time is right to finally revolutionize city telecom infrastructure with an eye on affordability.

“Ten years ago was a perfect time to embrace community broadband and nothing has changed,” Russell Senior, President of Personal Telco, a nonprofit wireless network, and Municipal Broadband PDX, a nonprofit advocating for publicly-owned fiber networks in Multnomah County, Oregon told ILSR.

“ISPs continue to exercise monopoly power and have their boot on the neck of subscribers,” he said. “The most practical and effective way to get out from under that boot, in light of persistent federal complicity, is local public ownership of the infrastructure that gives them that power.”

Municipal Broadband PDX logo

Portland has historically been at the very center of the debate over monopoly power and competitive broadband access, and city officials have been contemplating a publicly-owned broadband network for more than 20 years. It’s a concept other Oregon cities, like nearby Hillsboro, adopted years earlier.  

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HiLighting Hillsboro, Oregon - Episode 538 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by General Manager Brad Nosler and Senior Customer Support specialist Elizabeth Pereira, both from the city of Hillsboro, Oregon. The city's municipal broadband network, HiLight, is new, having begun signing up subscribers in the spring of 2021.

Notably, HiLight began building in the areas highest-need neighborhoods, where connectivity rates were disproportionately low. Equally importantly, HiLight has among the best income-qualified subscription tiers for families struggle to pay for access of any network in the nation, offering symmetrical gigabit service for just $10/month. Brad and Elizabeth talk with Christopher abou

This show is 33 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

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The Straight Talk About Rural Fiber Deployments - Episode 517 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Joseph Franell, President of Blue Mountain Networks (which serves more than 30 rural communities west of Portland) in Oregon. Joe joined the team at Ashland Fiber Network (AFN) before moving on to do work in rural parts of the state. During the conversation, Christopher and Joe talk about building fiber in some of the least-dense parts of the state. They discuss the importance of creativity and a willingness to pursue a variety of partnership models, the critical role that local broadband champions play in convincing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to come to rural areas, and how dramatically different a provider looks when it's driven by principles and a commitment to the community that goes beyond a lightning-fast return-on-investment.

They dive into the specter of private equity, which has shown increasing interest in broadband infrastructure and the grassroots work done by broadband action teams over the last couple of years.

This show is 45 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

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Trailblazing Ashland Fiber Network (AFN) Faces Its Fiber Future

Ashland, OR
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Ashland, Oregon has long been a trailblazer in terms of meeting community demand for faster, more affordable broadband access.

The city-owned network has also had a bumpy road—at times being branded as an example of municipal broadband failure. But the network continues to grow as it faces down an urgently-needed pivot toward a fiber-based future. 

Despite the current economic healthiness of the network and the clear benefits it’s brought to the community over the last 20 years, local officials are talking about divesting instead of making the financial commitment to continue the investment the city has already made.

The community-owned Ashland Fiber Network (AFN) was first developed in the late 1990s by locals angry at the high prices and historically terrible customer service by the local cable company. Like so many community broadband alternatives, it was a network built from grassroots frustration at consolidated market failure. 

Benefits of the community networks were on stark display during the telecommuting and home education boom of the Covid-19 crisis, when the city announced it would be providing free 30 Mbps broadband to all city residents without access to the Internet. 

AFN is an open access network, meaning that numerous companies are allowed shared access to the core city network, delivering a variety of broadband, phone, and TV services. As a result, the network’s no-contract broadband pricing tends to be simpler and less expensive than options found in cities dominated by one or two private sector telecom monopolies.

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Perspectives From An Established Muni Network - Episode 491 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by PJ Armstrong, Interim General Manager at Monmouth Independence Networks (MINET) operating in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. During the conversation, the two discuss how MINET came into existence over fifteen years ago, unique perspectives from an older municipal network, progress on MINET’s recent investor-backed expansion into Dallas, Oregon, and how the pandemic has affected the operations and marketing of municipal networks. Christopher and PJ also geek out about MINET’s custom-built operational support system (OSS) and the technology that powers their networks.

This show is 24 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

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One Cooperative in Oregon Hopes Broadband Will Help Revitalize A Community's Economy - Episode 472 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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On this week's episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, ILSR's Senior Reporter, Editor, and Researcher Sean Gonsalves, along with Senior Researcher and Multimedia Producer Maren Machles, chat with Paul Recanzone, the general manager of Beacon Broadband, about Beacon's plan to build out broadband where no one has before. 

Beacon Broadband is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, which has been serving electricity to parts of Coos and Curry counties for the last 80 years. In April 2021, the cooperative broke ground on a fiber-to-the-home network that promises to serve the more than 20 percent of cooperative members who don't have broadband. 

The three discuss the impetus for the project, as well as hopes for the network's impact on the economy and community as a whole. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

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