The city of Morristown, Tennessee received more positive economic news recently when Sykes Enterprises, a global company that operates in more than 20 countries, announced plans to open a call center in an abandoned big-box store and connect to the city’s municipal network, FiberNet. Sykes estimates that the call center will employ up to 500 workers … Read More
KOIN TV, July 10, 2015 SANDY, Ore. — The city of Sandy is providing city owned, high speed Internet to its residents. It’s something many cities are considering and something that has been a financial disaster for others. In Sandy, officials said the investment is already paying off. Construction and hookups are expected to be completed … Read More
Next Century Cities, the nonpartisan coalition of 100 communities across the country, recently announced its new publication, “Connecting 21st Century Communities: A Policy Agenda for Broadband Stakeholders.” ILSR’s Christopher Mitchell serves as the Policy Director for Next Century Cities. This policy agenda covers a wide array of topics at the federal, state, and local level. Each … Read More
Thanks to Jeff Hoel for providing the transcript for Episode 157 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast with Blake Mobley on FTTH in rural Rio Blanco County. Listen to this episode here. 00:06: Blake Mobley: The county needs to make sure that the infrastructure remains in our control — that we own it. So that IF … Read More
Located at the foot of Mount Hood in Oregon, Sandy’s municipally-owned full fiber network offers gigabit Internet service for under $60 to every resident in the city. Sandy is one of the few municipal FTTH networks that has been built without having a municipal electric department. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance released this short … Read More
Storm Lake’s city council recently approved a resolution to collaborate with other entities in Buena Vista County to install a fiber optic network. For this fiber project, the city, school district, and county have forged a partnership to share the costs and reap the benefits of the estimated $1,374,335 project. As the county seat, the city … Read More
Thanks to Jeff Hoel for providing the transcript for the episode 37 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast with Blair Levin on Gig.U. Listen to this episode here. 00:10: Lisa Gonzalez: Hi, there, and welcome again to the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I’m Lisa Gonzalez. Christopher Mitchell interviews Blair Levin, … Read More
Rio Blanco County is a large, rural county in northwestern Colorado that has two population centers. The county has a sharp plan for building FTTH to the population centers and wireless across most of the county to improve Internet access in a region the national carriers have little interest in. In this week’s episode, we interview … Read More
With the release of the city of Seattle’s community broadband feasibility study, media outlets turned to ILSR and our own Christopher Mitchell for context, and to help uncover what can be done to help improve connectivity for all Seattleites. The same week, Christopher was invited to the city by Upgrade Seattle to help launch their initiative. … Read More
