News

Language added to a New York State budget bill is threatening to undermine a municipal broadband grant program established by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office earlier this year. Buried near the bottom of the Assembly budget proposal is a Trojan horse legislative sources say is being pushed by lobbyists representing Charter Spectrum, the regional cable monopoly and 2nd largest cable company in the U.S. that was nearly kicked out of New York by state officials in 2018 for atrocious service.

A new documentary tells the uplifting story of how Vermonters rallied around the emergence of Communications Union Districts (CUDs) as the state's primary vehicle to bring high-quality Internet service to every resident and business in one of the most rural states in the nation.

In a recently published piece in The American Prospect, Sean Gonsalves, ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative Associate Director for Communications, reports on four cities across the U.S. that are well prepared to deal with the demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Hardy Telecommunications, a small community-owned cooperative, connected its first fiber customer in 2013. Slowly and consistently, the cooperative has been expanding its fiber network and is now serving over 5,000 subscribers.

Today, the first Building for Digital Equity livestream of the year will kick off at 3 PM ET with a focus on "Life After ACP."

Officials in Washoe County, Nevada have struck a new public private partnership (PPP) with Digital Technology Solutions (DTS) to deploy affordable fiber service into the long-neglected rural towns of Gerlach and Empire, Nevada. The deal is part of a broader effort to bring affordable access to underserved residents just out of reach of broadband access.

One year after launching a municipal fiber network, Dryden, NY officials say they’re making steady progress in their quest to expand affordable fiber broadband to the entire town of 14,500. While the effort hasn’t been without obstacles, town leaders say the public response to their foray into broadband has been overwhelmingly positive.

IT-minded Tribal leaders and instructors gather in southern California for the 11th Tribal Broadband Bootcamp as the three-day intensive learning experience continues to offer the ultimate Indian Country networking experience. All of the previous TBB’s offered hands-on training, but this particular bootcamp took it up a notch as TBB instructors set up a full deployment demonstration, illustrating how fiber is buried and/or deployed aerially.

Bringing together a nationwide cross-section of leading digital inclusion practitioners, the first Building For Digital Equity (#B4DE) livestream of the year is set to zoom in on the imminent end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) on March 20.

Four different Alabama electric cooperatives receive nearly $35 million in grant funding to expand fiber access to more than 11,092 rural Alabama homes and businesses. Meanwhile, the big incumbents operating in the state, Charter and Mediacom rake in lion's share of the rest of the state's federal Capital Projects Fund.

The American Association of Public Broadband’s (AAPB) publishes a new step-by-step handbook to guide communities in building their own broadband networks. The handbook is a key part of AAPB's strategy to double the number of public networks in the next five years, supporting communities in leveraging these networks for economic development, smart city initiatives, and attracting new residents.

A panel discussion at Net Inclusion 2024 sparked thought-provoking conversation, raising difficult questions for the digital equity movement about whether we are on track to achieve our goals and whether the main strategies used today can result in digital equity or are destined to fall well short.

Edison, New Jersey officials are moving forward on a municipal fiber plan built on the back of a $2 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant. However, the full cost and scope of Edison’s as-yet-unfinished plan remains unclear.

Thanks to tenacious island communities and forward-thinking state leadership, a growing roster of community-owned broadband networks are leading the charge toward affordable access in the state of Maine. Now local Maine communities are taking matters into their own hands, beginning with long-neglected island residents no stranger to unique logistical challenges.

As the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) nears its end, the first Building For Digital Equity livestream of 2024 to be held on March 20 will focus on what digital inclusion practitioners across the nation are doing to ensure that as many ACP enrollees as possible do not lose their access to high-speed Internet.

At a recent Martinsville City Council meeting, the council offered unanimous support for a phased expansion of the city’s Municipal Internet Network (MiNet). What exactly the expansion will look like, and how it will be funded, very much remain a work in progress. Despite having been first constructed in the 1990s, Martinsville’s MiNet only has about 376 customers in a city of nearly 14,000 residents. There’s roughly 20 users currently on a multi-month waiting list, eager to get access to affordable fiber at speeds up to a gigabit per second (Gbps).

Ottawa County, Michigan officials say they’ve struck a new public private partnership (PPP) with 123Net on a $25 million fiber deployment that aims to bring more uniform – and affordable – broadband access to Michigan’s seventh largest county by population.

Golden, Colorado has struck a new right-of-way agreement with Google Fiber that should expedite the competitive delivery of affordable fiber to the city of 20,000. The deal gives Google Fiber non-exclusive access to public right-of-way to build a commercial broadband network, though it delivers no guarantee of uniform access across the entire city.

In January, we released our new census of municipal networks in the United States for 2024, and the significant growth that we've seen over the last two years as more and more cities commit to building Internet infrastructure to add new tools for their local government, incentivize new economic development, and improve connectivity for households. The trend has not gone unnoticed by the monopoly players and their allies, and a new short documentary by Light Reading does a great job of outlining the stakes for local governments, residents stuck on poor connections, and the incumbents as the wave of municipal networks grows.

The first Building For Digital Equity (B4DE) livestream event of the year is now set for March 20. The popular (and free) virtual gathering will focus on the imminent demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program and will be designed to help digital inclusion advocates set the table for life beyond ACP and how communities can prepare and move forward.