The possible merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable and the FCC’s recent announcement to review state barriers have created a significant buzz in the world of telecommunications. Two recent NPR interviews with Susan Crawford and Jim Baller provide insight into how the merger may affect consumers and why a new light is shining on municipal … Read More
Residents in the Iron Triangle neighborhood of Richmond are now receiving free Wi-Fi as part of a new pilot program. The pilot, sponsored by Building Blocks for Kids (BBK), hopes to make Internet access widely available to the many local families who cannot afford it. New towers have been placed on local homes to extend access … Read More
The 2014 Broadband Communities Summit is scheduled for April 8 – 10 in Austin, Texas. Chris Mitchell will be speaking at 3 p.m. on April 8 during the Economic Development Program as part of the talk titled “Economic Development: The Killer App.” Chris will be back on April 10th to speak during the Rural TeleCon segment. He will … Read More
This is the second in a series of posts examining a premier Gigabit Community – Wilson, North Carolina. The first post is available here. It’s all about the Upload. If you are the owner of a small engineering business with dense blueprints to send to your European clients, or a specialized country doctor who depends on … Read More
The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) just announced that the 1,200-mile fiber network MassBroadband 123 is now complete. According to the official announcement, the middle-mile network will eventually serve over 1,200 community anchor institutions. The open access network, constructed with $45.4 million in stimulus funding and an additional $40 million in state bond proceeds, lit up in … Read More
This fact sheet provides information on the most common ways local communities finance their municipal networks. When a community decides it needs to establish its own publicly owned network infrastructure, one of the biggest challenges is financing the investment. Each community is unique but three main methods of financing are most popular. This fact sheet offers … Read More
Santa Monica has built a fiber network called City Net that has lowered its own costs for telecommunications, helped to retain businesses, and attracted new businesses to the community. Built incrementally without debt, it offers a roadmap any community can draw lessons from. Unlike the majority of municipal fiber networks, Santa Monica does not have a … Read More
Having just returned from a short trip to Sweden, Lisa Gonzalez and I discuss what I learned and how Stockholm has become one of the most connected cities on the planet. We talk about how Stockholm built a massive dark fiber network that has enabled competition at the service layer, the status of telecommunications in Sweden, … Read More
Government Technology, March 4, 2014 From the thermostats on our walls to the sensors under the asphalt of our streets, digital technology – the so-called Internet of things – is pervading and infecting every aspect of our lives. As this technology comes to cities, whether lazy suburban ones or frenetic urban centers, it is increasingly wearing … Read More
