Tag: municipal broadband

Commentary: Fiber network not a good deal for Westerly

  By

 

By MARC BROWN

Westerly’s Town Council is currently considering whether to enter into a contract with SIFI Networks of London to build a $30 million fiber optic network. SIFI is proposing to build the network and the town would lease-purchase it from the company at an annual cost of $1 million to $2.5 million over 30 years. SIFI has promised that a third-party internet service provider will sell broadband packages on the new network, sharing revenue with Westerly to cover the town’s lease cost. SIFI has “guaranteed” it. That guarantee is only backed by the word of the company — a company that hasn’t actually built a single mile of fiber anywhere in the United States. The town can supposedly back out of the contract at any time — but SIFI would then retain ownership of the network, and would be free to use it as they see fit without town involvement.

Steve Blum, a broadband consultant hired to study SIFI’s contract in another community, recently told The Westerly Sun that the town “should assume it will have to be subsidized by some other source, whether it’s a tax or a utility fee…They will not make enough money from operation of the system.” Even a cursory look at the numbers should raise a red flag. Using SIFI’s assumption of 36 percent penetration, the average monthly household bill would have to exceed $200 per month for the town’s revenue to cover the $1.5 million annual lease commitment. Continue reading

Santa Cruz, Calif., Deploys Fiber-Like Wireless Gigabit Internet Through Public-Private Partnership

  By

BY

From watching Netflix to building a business to conducting cutting-edge research, we don’t just need technology to be successful — we need it to be fast. That’s why the city of Santa Cruz, Calif., has recently formed a partnership that will use fiber-like wireless technology to deliver gigabit-class-level Internet speeds throughout the city.

This innovative fiber-like wireless technology makes the project, made possible through a partnership among the city, Siklu Communication Ltd. and local Internet service provider Cruzio,the first of its kind in the United States. The tech is composed of a Siklu millimeter wave radio attached to Cruzio’s existing fiber. Continue reading

Fairlawn, OH, to start FairlawnGig gigabit broadband project

  By

The city is actually building infrastructure and not becoming a service provider. They will offer access to other service providers.

Lightwave Staff
English: A fiber optic splice lab being used t...

English: A fiber optic splice lab being used to access underground fiber optic cables for splicing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The city council of Fairlawn, OH, approved four ordinances on April 4 that will kick start the launch of FairlawnGig, a municipal broadband project. Through a combination of wireless and fiber-optic network infrastructure, the project aims to make gigabit broadband services available to all residents and businesses in Fairlawn, as well as to the Akron-Fairlawn-Bath Township Joint Economic Development District (JEDD).

The votes came after the completion of an RFP process that explored the feasibility of the project as well as potential partners. The city plans to have Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. design, build, operate, and maintain the fiber to the premises (FTTP) and wireless networks. Extra Mile Fiber, LLC, of Dayton, OH, will serve as FairlawnGig’s anchor service provider. Continue reading

Progress Edition: Laying the groundwork: MPW installs fiber for faster Internet

  By

Melissa Caliger

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Imagine Internet speeds capable of downloading 12 TV shows, 900 songs and one High Definition movie in 36 seconds.

Muscatine Power and Water officials say it is possible and they have a plan to make surfing the web a better experience by increasing Internet speeds and a switch from coaxial cable wiring to lightning-fast fiber-optic cable by the end of 2017.

Continue reading

FCC, States Square Off in Court Over Municipal Broadband

  By
Seal of the United States Court of Appeals for...

Seal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By John Eggerton

Just days after the Tennessee legislature voted down a municipal broadband expansion bill, the state was squaring off with the FCC in federal court over the issue of municipal broadband buildouts and the state’s ability to limit them.

After FCC chairman Tom Wheeler signaled the FCC had the power to preempt state laws blocking the expansion of municipal broadband, the cities of Wilson, N.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn. petitioned the FCC to do just that. A divided commission complied in March 2015, and Tennessee and North Carolina then filed suit. Continue reading

Will San Francisco realise its dream of a city-wide Gigabit network?

  By

© Flickr/cc-licence/Gunther Hagleitner

San Francisco performed an impartial and thorough review of  different options to deliver broadband service throughout the city and determined open-access is the least riskiest and best way to offer broadband service in the city. This is just an analysis with recommendation. The city council will ultimately determine which direction to go, and as we know it may not always be the most prudent for citizens.

By Guy Daniels
  • New report looks at financing models for a municipal Gigabit network
  • 12% of the city’s population does not have Internet access at home
  • Public and private development and ownership investigated
  • Network build-out costs range from $393m to $867m

Given its proximity to Silicon Valley, and the large numbers of wealthy tech founders who have managed to push up local housing prices to astronomical heights, you would think that San Francisco would be a shining beacon in the world of high-speed broadband and connected cities. Think again. Around 12 per cent of the population of San Francisco do not have any Internet access at home, and an additional 6 per cent only have access to dial-up speed Internet. But things may be about to change; and we don’t mean the selective, cherry-picked approach from Google Fiber. City Supervisor Mark Farrell had asked the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office for a financial analysis of a municipal fibre network to provide Internet access to all residential, commercial and industrial premises in San Francisco at speeds of a least 1Gbps, with the capacity to increase in the future as the definition of high speed or broadband changes. He wanted to evaluate three different approaches: Continue reading

Despite Gigabit Hype, U.S. Broadband’s Actually Getting Less Competitive Than Ever

  By

 

by Karl Bode

Despite government programs, national broadband plans, billions in subsidies and a lot of recent hype paid to gigabit services like Google Fiber, U.S. broadband is actually getting less competitive than ever before across a huge swath of the country. Companies like AT&T and Verizon have beenbacking away from unwanted DSL networks they simply don’t want to upgrade. In some cases this involves selling these assets to smaller telcos (who take on so much debt they can’t upgrade them either), but in many markets this involves actively trying to drive customers away via either rate hikes or outright neglect.

As an end result, the nation’s biggest cable companies are enjoying a larger monopoly in many markets than ever before as they hoover up those fleeing customers. According to the latest postmortem of 2015 subscriber totals, the seventeen largest broadband providers acquired 3.1 million broadband subscribers last year. But if you look at the numbers more closely, you’ll notice that nearly all of them were acquired by the cable industry: Continue reading