citylink fiber

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Wadsworth, Ohio Converting City-Owned Broadband Network From Coaxial To Fiber

Parade marshal lighting torch from back of bucket truck to kick off the Blue Tip Parade in Wadsworth Ohio
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Wadsworth, Ohio officials say they’re making steady progress on the expansion of a city-owned broadband network that’s extending affordable fiber connectivity to the city’s nearly 25,000 residents.

Originally a coaxial-based network, the city now says it’s in the process of delivering Wi-Fi to many city residents while they go block-by-block removing older coaxial cable and upgrading residents to more future-proof fiber optic connectivity.

All told, city officials say they currently have around 5,800 existing subscribers that will ultimately be upgraded to fiber.

Wadsworth Citylink logo

Wadsworth, Ohio first launched its hybrid fiber-coaxial CityLink network back in 1997, and has been offering broadband, television, and phone access to the community ever since.

In 2020 ILSR spoke with Wadsworth IT Manager Steve Lange in Episode 438 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast.

Affordable, Popular Alternatives To Monopoly Power

The network, unlike many similar deployments, is separate from the city’s municipal electric department. Wadsworth Assistant Service Director Mike Testa recently told the Medina County Gazette that the city has completed around 400 fiber installations so far, including a recently updated area along Weatherstone Drive where 120 homes were connected.

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Building Momentum with CityLink in Wadsworth, Ohio - Episode 438 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Steve Lange, IT Manager for the city of Wadsworth (pop. 26,000) in eastern Ohio, which built its hybrid fiber-coax municipal network CityLink back in 1997. 

The two talk about the history of the network, its push to bring more competition to the town, and its operational structure — the network, unlike in many places, is separate from the city’s municipal electric department. Christopher and Steve also talk about the phenomenal momentum the network has built over the last few years, almost tripling it subscriber base to 5,400 this year, with Steve attributing this to their focus on thoughtful planning and customer service.

This show is 35 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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Webinar: Getting the Broadband That Your Community Wants Factors in Deciding to Build it Yourselves

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ETI Software Solutions sponsored an event to help untangle the set of considerations facing communities discussing what route they want to take to improve Internet access for families and businesses in the community. 

Heather Gold (HBG Strategies) presided over the panel which included ILSR's Christopher Mitchell as well as Ben Fineman, President of the Michigan Broadband Cooperative, Steve Lang, IT Manager for the city of Wadsworth, Ohio and its CityLink Fiber, and Will Aycock, General Manager of the Greenlight Network in Wilson, North Carolina. They cover a lot of ground, from the different models worth considering, to the phases of planning, to financing, construction, and customer service.

Watch the video at ETI's YouTube channel, or below.

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Santa Fe Ready to Improve Local Internet Choice

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The City of Santa Fe is taking first steps to improve the community's Internet choice, quality, and availability. Recently, the City announced that it has chosen a partner for a middle mile investment and will move forward with the $1 million fiber deployment project.

CenturyLink and Comcast serve Santa Fe, home to approximately 70,000 people. Residents and businesses both complain about slow speeds and relatively high costs. Residents pay $50 per month for average speeds of 5 Mbps while nearby Albuquerque pays the same price for 10 Mbps, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

CenturyLink owns the sole fiber hut connecting the community with the Internet. The company also owns the line bringing access to the web to downtown, giving it control over data transmittal in the city. A city press release, reprinted at SantaFe.com in May 2013 described the problem:

Every home and most businesses already have two physical routes to the Internet: A telephone line and a television cable...But in spite of this abundance of pathways, there is a crucial missing link in the infrastructure, an enduring legacy of the former telephone monopoly. This missing link spans from the central telephone office to a location about two miles away where several fiber optic cables emerge from the ground after traversing many miles of road, railroad and countryside from remote junctions across the state. Absent this two-mile link, local providers have only one way to connect to the outside world, and must pay a steep toll on the data transmitted over it. 

The City recently announced that it would work with local ISP Cyber Mesa to build an independent line from downtown to CenturyLink's fiber hut. The City hopes the line will introduce much needed competition, encouraging better service and prices.

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Smart Conduit Considerations for Forward-Looking Communities

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Local governments are often looking for low-risk options for expanding broadband access to residents and local businesses. There are not many. Seattle put some extra conduit in the ground as a part of a different project that was tearing up the streets but Comcast was the only provider interested. The problem with a haphazard program of putting conduit in the ground is that while it benefits existing providers, it does very little to help new entrants. And conduit is inherently limited -- only a few providers can benefit from it and when used up, there is no space for more providers. In short, more conduit may slightly improve the status quo but it does little to get us to a future where residents and local businesses have a variety of choices from service providers offering fast, reliable, and affordable access to the Internet. Smart conduit policy can lay the groundwork for lowering the cost of a community network, which can get us where we want to be. It may take time, but will create benefits far more rapidly than private providers will be building next-generation networks in most of our communities. John Brown, a friend from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has offered some tips for communities that want to develop smart conduit policies. Brown runs CityLink Telecommunications, an impressive privately owned, open access, FTTH network that connects residents, businesses, schools, muni buildings, etc. We tend not to support privately owned networks because for all the great work a companiy like CityLink Fiber does, one does not know who will own it in 5, 10, or 20 years. However, we recognize that CityLink Fiber is a far better partner for communities than the vast majority of companies in this space. The following comments are taken from an email he shared with me and is permitting me to republish. Direct quotes are indented and the rest is paraphrased. Not all conduit is created equal. A 2 inch pipe will be sufficient for perhaps 2 providers. If conduit does not have inter-duct, it is much harder for multiple providers to share it. Inter-duct creates channels within the conduit that allows a provider to pull its fiber cables through without disturbing other cables in the conduit.
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