Estes Park EDC Meeting to Discuss Fast, Affordable Broadband for the Estes Valley

Adam Shake, Estes Park EDC – For the Trail Gazette

The Estes Park Economic Development Corporation (Estes Park EDC) invites you to attend a public meeting on Monday, March 5, 2018, to learn about the future of nationally competitive, fast, affordable, reliable broadband services in Estes Park. The meeting will be held from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm in the Town Hall Board Room, 170 MacGregor Avenue.

“Estes Park EDC supports the Town of Estes Park implementing a build-to-demand, phased approach for building a fiber optic network that can support robust broadband services, as well as enhanced communication services and allow the Town to implement electric power smart grid technologies” said Jon Nicholas, President/CEO of Estes Park EDC.  Continue reading

Dave Clark: Why I voted no to Loveland broadband

By Dave Clark

On Feb. 6, the City Council voted to spend $2.5 million to get a “build ready” design for a public municipal broadband service in the city of Loveland and additional measures for this process. I voted no on each of those measures. Did I vote no because I am against broadband service in Loveland? Am I a supporter of Comcast and want to make sure they have no competition? Am I against “progress” in the future? The critics will answer yes. Well, they are wrong. Below is a list of my concerns and questions.

One of my biggest concerns is the lack of information we have received. Again, the critics will argue that the City Council has had 16 or more meetings to review this issue. While that is true, the real issue is the lack of information on all of the options available to the city, not just the option of a municipal broadband service. They say they have done their due diligence; I say the information presented has been fairly one-sided. To counter that, some of us on council (namely, Councilors Overcash, Olson, Jersvig and myself) finally requested a special meeting be held where the other side could be heard. So, on Jan 30, there were six private companies that presented to council their proposals for city broadband services — either to expand/improve existing services or provide new.

Continue reading

Riverside County Introduces Broadband Initiative for Area the Size of New Jersey

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RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA, April 19, 2017 – At 7,200 square miles, this Southern California county is nearly the size of New Jersey. On April 3, the county put out a “Request for Participants” in an effort to jump-start a $2 billion to $4 billion initiative building a gigabit fiber network.

The project is dubbed RIVCOConnect, and represents one of the most ambitious county-led efforts to entice the private sector to do what it hasn’t yet done: Upgrade speeds and connectivity throughout less-populated regions of this sprawling county. Continue reading

From unserved to connected: Leverett’s fiber-optic system a model for rural towns

By Larry Parnass, [email protected]

LEVERETT — Inside a green metal building in Leverett, lightning-fast internet connections pulse through yellow-coated fibers, one per customer.

One strand belongs to Susan Valentine, an artist who lives down the hill on Long Plain Road in this Franklin County town.

“Man, it was a long time coming,” she said recently. Continue reading

Centennial’s gigabit internet service now taking pre-orders

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Three years after Centennial voters approved a measure clearing the city to explore building its own broadband network, a Canadian company is asking, will you pre-order gigabit internet for $89 a month?

If enough people bite, Ting Internet will bring its fiber-optic network to residents of the city as early as next year. Continue reading

Calix announces five municipal broadband fiber-optic network deployments

Rangely Museum

Rangely Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lightwave Staff

Calix Inc. will provide its fiber to the premises (FTTP) network gear to five municipal markets.

Independence Light and Power, Telecommunications (ILP, T) in Independence, IA, plans to upgrade its hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) plant to an all-fiber network to deliver managed WiFi services to subscribers and expand the company’s reach outside of the city limits. The service provider will deploy Calix 725GE optical network terminals (ONTs) and E7-2 modular access systems.

“Every week, we are adding more and more broadband subscribers who are looking for a robust and reliable broadband service,” says Josh Vandenburg, network engineer at ILP, T. “By moving to the Calix solutions, we are now able to seamlessly transition to fiber, which allows us to roll out new services and fully utilize the 10 Gbits/sec ring that runs through Independence.” Continue reading

Gigabit Internet: Surveying the Landscape

Gigabit Internet has become such a hot topic that related announcements seem to be coming out at, well, gigabit speeds. To help interested parties keep track, Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) has released a gigabit tracking database, dubbed appropriately, Gigabit Monitor, available at http://www.gigabitmonitor.com. The visual database references current and planned gigabit deployments around the world, from mobile, cable and telco service providers. Continue reading