Christopher Mitchell on PK's In the Know Podcast

Locals in Longmeadow, Massachusetts say they’re being bombarded with misleading mailers, texts, and phone calls from a telecom-industry linked group trying to mislead the public ahead of a key vote on the city’s plan to begin construction of a municipal broadband fiber network today. Longmeadow residents are voting today (May 12) on whether to approve an $8.6 million loan to construct the first phase of what will ultimately be a town-wide fiber broadband network.

The Okanogan County Electric Cooperative and the Okanogan County Public Utility District say they’re making steady progress on bringing affordable fiber broadband access to Okanogan County, a highly rural stretch of rugged land in Washington state on the border of Canada. The coalition is poised to bring next-generation fiber to as many as 1,366 peppered along the upper Methow Valley this year starting near Chewuch River and ending at Lost River. Many of these areas will be seeing fiber upgrades for the first time ever after years stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The public-private partnership the city struck Arizona-based Wecom Fiber is expected to inject at least $100 million into local economy over five years while saving the city an estimated $18 million in capital expenses. The fiber network will ultimately pass 30,000 locations within Flagstaff city limits, but also connect 34 municipal facilities. Construction of the network began in April of 2025, and is poised to deliver more than 815 miles of new fiber across Coconino County.

Local government organizations are voicing their strong opposition to the American Broadband Deployment Act, an industry friendly proposal being cooked up in the House that would take public rights of way management and property decisions away from state, local, and tribal governments through federal preemption and industry-friendly defaults. The American Broadband Deployment Act (HR 2289) saw initial approval by the US House Energy and Commerce Committee last January. It’s being presented by telecom companies as a way to dramatically streamline government broadband permitting and regulation, something they insist will speed up the deployment of fast, affordable broadband access.

Roanoke Cooperative’s Fybe has been awarded $2.4 million in state funds to expand affordable access to high speed Internet to 826 locations across eight predominantly rural North Carolina counties. Fybe, the cooperative's fiber business, will receive $2.4 million through the state’s Stop-Gap Solutions program to connect 826 locations across Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, and Northampton counties. The fiber expansion is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

The remote islands of San Juan County, Washington are increasingly being served with next-generation fiber and wireless thanks to Rock Island Communications, a locally-owned Internet subsidiary of the Orcas Power & Light Cooperative. RIC is celebrating a decade of what it calls “remarkable growth” for the tall task of remote island deployments to the county of 18,000. The subsidiary says it just reached 7,000 subscribers across San Juan County, and that its annual revenue has grown dramatically during the last decade – from approximately $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $12.3 million in 2025.