Chairman Tom Wheeler will be stepping down as FCC Chairman as of January 20, 2017; the day President Obama leaves office. The decision is not surprising, as FCC chairmen typically leave their position when a new administration takes the helm, but Wheeler had not yet made it official. His departure emphasizes the apprehensive uncertainty that has … Read More
This post was written by Kate Svitavsky, an intern for the Community Broadband Networks initiative. Super-fast, reliable, and affordable Internet access is coming to residents living in public housing in Wilson, North Carolina. Greenlight, Wilson’s municipal network, recently began providing 40 Megabits per second (Mbps) for $10 per month to public housing residents — about a … Read More
The fact sheet highlights the great work that Minnesota cooperatives and municipalities have done to bring fast, affordable, reliable Internet service to rural areas throughout the state. They’ve built many Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks, but there is still much work to do. One in 4 Minnesotans lives in a rural area, and of those rural households, 43 … Read More
The Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS) plans to save $150,000 per year by investing in its own fiber infrastructure. Over a 20-year period school officials expect to save approximately $3 million. Fiber For Education And Savings MCPS will be the first in the state to self-provision its wide area network (WAN), the connections between district facilities. … Read More
We didn’t need a crystal ball, magic potion, or ESP to predict that local Colorado voters would enthusiastically reclaim telecommunications authority yesterday. Twenty-six more local governments put the issue on the ballot and citizens fervently replied, “YES! YES, WE DO!” Colorado local communities that want to take action to improve their local connectivity are hogtied by … Read More
Much like the the bone-chilling flicks celebrating eerie entertainment that dwells in the depths of our dark imaginations, monster cable and DSL Internet service providers strike terror in the hearts of subscribers…if they survive. Mesmerizing fees, hair-raising customer service, and shockingly slow connections can drive one to the brink of madness. In celebration of Halloween 2016, … Read More
A few of us from the Community Broadband Networks Initiative recently attended the BBC Community Toolkit Program & Economic Development conference in downtown Minneapolis. On the first day, Gigi Sohn, Special Counselor for External Affairs for Chairman Wheeler at the FCC received the award from the Coalition for Local Internet Choice for the Local Internet Choice … Read More
Interested in learning more about the status of municipal broadband networks around the country? Follow our in-depth coverage at MuniNetworks.org, the home for our Community Broadband Networks initiative. We publish there twice daily. The results of a study are in and its authors recommend Stark County invest in a regional middle mile fiber-optic network, establish a … Read More
When big corporate incumbent providers fear a hint of competition from a new entrant, they pull out all the stops to quash any potential threat. One of the first lines of offense involves the courts. Iowa City now leases its fiber to Cedar Rapids based ImOn and to stop it, Mediacom is reprocessing an old argument. … Read More
