In this commentary for the Knoxville News Sentinel, ILSR’s Christopher Mitchell details how municipal broadband networks like Chattanooga are proving Tennessee legislation that limits the investment in these networks is just plain wrong. Read the commentary here:… Read More
Another year in Missouri and another bill from the big telephone companies to limit broadband competition in the state house. The bill introduced by Senator Ed Emery (R-Lamar), SB 186, seeks to limit the power of municipalities to provide competition to entrenched incumbent Internet Service Providers.… Read More
On Monday the Colorado Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee heard SB 42, a bill to repeal the state’s requirement for referendum to reclaim local telecommunications authority. The committee of seven Senators voted 4 – 3 to postpone the bill indefinitely, leaving it in legislative purgatory. We’ve provided the audio above, but we missed the first minute or so of the recording.… Read More
The city of West Plains, Missouri, is now offering high-quality fiber connectivity up to 1 Gigabit (1,000 Megabits) per second to local businesses. The community is also exploring the possibility of a pilot project to a limited area of households as the city considers whether or not to also offer Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).… Read More
On February 7th, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 72 – 24 to pass HB 2108, otherwise known as “Byron’s Bad Broadband Bill.” The text of the bill was a revised version substituted by Del. Kathy Byron after Governor Terry McAuliffe, local leaders across the state, and constituents very handily let her know that they did … Read More
This article was written by Community Broadband Networks initiative intern, Kate Svitavsky. Publicly owned Internet infrastructure is typically funded with revenue grants, interdepartmental loans, or through avoided costs at the local level. Part of the planning and infrastructure costs, however, can sometimes be covered by state and federal grants known as Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Nelson … Read More
In the fight for better broadband Internet access, the state of Massachusetts has made progress. For this story for The Berkshire Eagle, reporter Larry Parnass reached out to our broadband expert Christopher Mitchell to see what he thought of the state’s prospects.… Read More
The next time you’re attending a city council meeting, attending a local broadband initiative, or just chatting with neighbors about better local connectivity, take a few copies of our Why Local Solutions? fact sheet. Our new one-pager addresses three main reasons why local telecommunications authority is so important: State and federal government won’t solve the problem … Read More
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam doesn’t want the public’s money to pay for publicly owned Internet infrastructure. He has no problem, however, writing a $45 million check backed by taxpayers and payable to the likes of AT&T in Tennessee. “A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down Your Pants” On Wednesday, Haslam introduced the “Tennessee … Read More
