This city’s leaders look to build a broadband network even as Comcast expands 

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Savannah city leaders are moving forward with a plan that could create a municipal broadband network in the coastal Georgia city.

What’s curious about the move is it comes on the heels of an announcement by Comcast that it will bring a super-high-speed network to Savannah beginning later this year.

The company’s Comcast Business division revealed in March that it will begin construction of a fiber-optic network in the third quarter of the year to bring download speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second to businesses, colleges and government agencies. Continue reading

FCC Narrowly Misses Its Gigabit Deployment Goal

by Karl Bode

Back in 2013, then FCC boss Julius Genachowski issued a “1 Gbps challenge”: basically a pledge to ensure there was at least one gigabit network operating in all fifty states by 2015. As we noted at the time it was kind of a show pony goal; notorious fence-sitter Genachowski was simply setting a goal he knew the industry would probably meet with or without’s government help, so that government could come in at a later date and insist it played an integral role.

Well, 2015 has come and gone, and while there is at least one gigabit network planned for every state, we narrowly missed Genochowski’s goal by most estimates:

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We combed through our archives and other online resources and, by our tally, at least one network operator has announced plans to offer gigabit service in every state. Not all of these networks are actually deployed or supporting service yet. But generally network operators don’t announce specific markets more than a year or two in advance of when they expect to deliver service.


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NTS Communications Brings 1 Gig Service to Abilene

 
A shot of downtown Amarillo, Texas, U.S.A.

A shot of downtown Amarillo, Texas, U.S.A. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ABILENE, Texas, Jan. 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — NTS Communications, Inc.

NTS Communications, Inc. (“NTS”) today announced the launch of high speed Internet service up to 1 Gigabit in Abilene, TX. The service is delivered over a state-of-the-art pure fiber to the premise (FTTP) network. Effective immediately, local business customers in serviceable areas, including the downtown area, will have access to NTS’ Gigabit Fiber Network, which will provide speeds up to 1 Gbps (1,000Mbps).

Cyrus Driver, President & CEO of NTS stated, “We are very excited to continue the rollout of our Gigabit Internet speeds to Abilene, making it NTS’ next ‘Gigabit City’. Our Gigabit Fiber Network will provide the Abilene business community with a highly reliable technical infrastructure for many years to come. NTS’ Gigabit services are delivered over a pure fiber network and directly connect to our customers at their premise. This pure and powerful solution will not only provide highly desirable services to current businesses, but will position Abilene as an even more competitive location for new business and industries in Texas.” Continue reading

Google Fiber Eyes Its Two Largest-Ever Targets: Los Angeles and Chicago

Alphabet Inc. is making its biggest bet yet on spreading connectivity across the U.S., through its newly independent fiber business.

By ALISTAIR BARR

Alphabet Inc.GOOGL -0.93% is making its biggest bet yet on spreading connectivity across the U.S., through its newly independent fiber business.

Google Fiber, Alphabet’s fast Internet service, said Tuesdayit is planning to come to Los Angeles and Chicago, the second and third-largest U.S. cities by population, if they pass a long review.

“While we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to bring Fiber to Chicago and L.A., this is a big step for these cities and their leaders,” Jill Szuchmacher, director of Google Fiber’s expansion efforts, wrote in a blog. “Expansion planning for a project of this size is a huge undertaking.” Continue reading

Chattanooga Is Offering Internet Faster Than Google Fiber | WIRED

Move over SALISBURY, NORTH CAROLINA . Another city is getting a blistering 10 gigabit fiber Internet service. Say hello to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Today the Chattanooga Electric Power Board, the city-owned power utility, says that it is now offering 10 gigabit connections—nearly 1,000 faster than the average broadband connection in the US—to every business and residence in the city for about $300 a month. It will also offer three and five gigabit speed connections in addition its existing one gigabit service. Continue reading

CenturyLink expands gigabit Internet service to small businesses in Boulder, Fort Collins

Downtown "Old Town" Fort Collins

Downtown “Old Town” Fort Collins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An official for CenturyLink on Monday said that the company’s decision to begin offering 1-gigabit fiber-optic Internet speeds to a large chunk of businesses in Boulder and Fort Collins was not influenced by those cities’ ongoing exploration into creating their own municipal broadband utilities.

CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) began offering such service to small and medium-sized businesses in Denver and Colorado Springs last summer. Previously, only enterprise-sized businesses that could afford the added expense of having such service brought to their buildings, or large office buildings that provided CenturyLink with sufficient density for a positive return on investment, had access to such service from the company. Continue reading

Fiber Penetration Hits 42.5 Percent in U.S.

Spinning Optical Fiber

Spinning Optical Fiber (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BOSTON, MABusiness fiber penetration of commercial buildings in the U.S. increased to 42.5 percent in 2014, according to latest research from Vertical Systems Group. This compares to a penetration rate of only 10.9 percent in 2004. These statistics measure fiber availability at company-owned and multi-tenant buildings with twenty or more employees, which covers more than two million individual business establishments.

“Accessibility to fiber-based business services in the U.S. nearly quadrupled between 2004 and 2014, with hundreds of thousands of sites newly fiber-connected during this time period. As a result of this growth, our fiber penetration benchmark now exceeds 40 percent for the first time,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “Looking forward, the high stakes endgame for network operators is to deepen and broaden their service infrastructures around fiber – the future of wireline.” Continue reading