Many Idaho Falls city council members feel that the decision to provide fiber to residents and businesses is critical to the economic future of the city. In a conversation with East Idaho News Councilman John Radford noted that fiber connectivity is essential infrastructure – as crucial as gutters, sewers, and roads were in the 1900s. … Read More
The city of Santa Monica’s efforts to shrink the digital divide ranks as one of the Top 25 Programs in American Government of 2017. That’s according to Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, who names the top programs in governance based on innovation in government policy.… Read More
Despite receiving billions in federal funding to help rural Americans access the internet, the biggest telecom companies have focused investment on urban areas, leaving rural communities with DSL that the cannot meet the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband definition. In the latest policy brief, the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) mapped out broadband availability by six of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Comcast, Charter, AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Verizon. The resulting maps and analysis illustrate where broadband service is available across the U.S. from each of the six ISPs and where each faces competition.… Read More
In this policy brief from our Community Broadband Networks team, we crunched the numbers to determine the extent to which the largest cable and telecom companies are underinvesting in rural broadband they’re being paid to provide. Explore the brief… Read More
Ocala, Florida, is one of those communities that doesn’t think twice about offering high-quality Internet access to businesses and residents. They’ve been doing it for decades and, when media coverage around gigabit connectivity began to expand, they were a little surprised because they had been offering similar services since the early 2000s. The benefits were nothing new to Ocala.… Read More
The City of Westfield in western Massachusetts recently launched a new marketing initiative designed to attract business and promote sustainable growth. The GoWestfield campaign features a website and promotional video that focuses on showcasing the many incentives for businesses that the small city of around 41,500 offers, including an environment where businesses can thrive. As the city points out in the video, one of Westfield’s largest selling points is its high-speed fiber optic Internet network.… Read More
Buried under Jackson, Mississippi’s streets are miles of untapped dark fiber. The city council and new mayor’s office hope to change that, and have made moves to relight the fiber optic cables and put Jackson on the path to become the next regional tech hub.… Read More
While smaller communities in Maine are laying plans to develop community broadband networks for high-quality Internet access, the state’s third largest city indicated a shift in how they view fiber optic connectivity. At a recent city council meeting, Bangor elected officials passed a resolution declaring, “Fiber and access to the Internet is an essential service in the City of Bangor, Maine.”… Read More
In North Carolina, no other rural community embodies the rural struggle for high-quality Internet access as well as Pinetops. At a recent hearing in D.C., one of the leading voices in Pinetops, Suzanne Coker Craig, testified before a legislative committee assembled to delve into the issue. During her short five minutes at the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Coker Craig described her town’s rescue by the local municipal network and subsequent betrayal by their state legislature.… Read More
