News

With Digital Inclusion Week (DIW) less than a month away, ILSR and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) are gearing up for the next Building for Digital Equity (#B4DE) event on October 3. The popular virtual gathering will be held from 12 noon to 1:15 pm ET and will focus on the DIW-inspired theme: “Building Connected Communities: Sustaining Momentum.”

A massive coalition of more than 300 broadband policy experts and organizations have written a letter to the U.S. government, warning that smaller broadband providers, nonprofits, and municipalities will be elbowed out of an historic $42.45 billion broadband grant program without some notable changes to program rules. BEAD program rules currently require grant recipients to obtain a letter of credit (LOC) from a bank, collateralized by cash or cash-equivalent. According to the coalition’s letter to lawmakers, such requirements present unnecessary obstacles for smaller ISPs and cash-strapped municipalities

Berthoud is the latest Colorado community to explore community broadband alternatives to expand public access to affordable fiber. Currently in the process of crafting a request for quote (RFQ), the city says it hopes to make its final determination by November and have a preliminary plan in place by the end of the year.

The key for states to unlock their portion of the $42.5 billion in federal BEAD funds is the submission and approval of their Five Year Action Plans and Final Proposal. Today, we will look at two states (Maine and Louisiana) and follow up with the others as we are getting a clearer picture of how each state intends to put this historic infusion of federal funds to use.

Launched in 1975, the member-owned Nushagak Electric & Telephone Cooperative, based in Dillingham, Alaska, offers locals broadband access through microwave towers. But the co-op, which also offers a electric, telephone, and cable TV service, says it’s on the cusp of new fiber deployments that should finally bring next-generation speeds to a chunk of the co-op’s members.

Arizona State University (ASU) and the Marconi Society announce the creation of a first-of-its-kind Digital Inclusion Leadership Certificate program that aims to provide “a foundational understanding of the technology, policy and digital inclusion essentials needed to create true digital equity.” The Digital Inclusion Leadership Certificate is the nation’s first professional certificate in the field as the program is geared to educate individuals and teams at all levels of government, as well as nonprofits and anchor institutions.

Officials in Loveland and Timnath, Colorado recently announced the ratification of an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) that greenlight’s a plan to bring ubiquitous, affordable high-speed Internet access to yet another community in the Centennial State, as an increasing number of Colorado cities and towns embrace municipal broadband after years of frustration with the inadequate, high-priced service from the region’s monopoly incumbents.

Each year since its creation in 2017, the Indigenous Connectivity Summit (ICS) has convened those working on the frontlines of Tribal connectivity. This year the Summit was held in Anchorage, Alaska, where participants agreed on a series of calls-to-action for governments and other entities with an eye on promoting digital equity in Indigenous communities.

The farm bill may soon play a key role in maintaining the $14 billion Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) currently overseen by the FCC. However, the farm bill doesn’t represent the only shot of extending and funding the ACP. A bipartisan coalition of 45 lawmakers are simultaneously pushing for the ACP to be funded by other appropriation measures currently winding their way through the halls of Congress. Both the appropriations and farm bills face a looming September 30 deadline Congress seems unlikely to meet.

Decorah, Iowa is moving forward on a long-percolating plan to expand the city’s core fiber ring to provide affordable broadband access to long-neglected residents and businesses. While the project has been discussed for years, local officials tell ISLR the project gained renewed momentum during peak COVID, and is creeping closer to launch. While contracts are still being finalized, the city hopes to spend somewhere around $12 to $15 million to deliver fiber to all 3,000 potential subscriber locations.

The American Association for Public Broadband is calling for help in creating a handbook that helps communities examine their option to create and maintain public broadband networks. The handbook will be a “hands-on, high-level resource for moving through the entire process including getting started, building community support, technology and business case analysis, role of partners and finance.”

For over 20 years, the city of Palo Alto, the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley,” has flirted with the idea of building a city-owned municipal fiber network. Now after years of debate, numerous studies, several false starts, and many unfulfilled RFPs, city officials say they’re finally moving forward with a city-owned fiber network they hope will transform affordable broadband connectivity citywide. Phase One of the city’s planned fiber deployment should begin later this year, delivering fiber access to around 20 percent of the city–or 6,500 homes and businesses.

After years of strategizing, Waterloo, Iowa officials unveiled a new website for the city's fiber-to-the-home project and annouced service pricing. The city’s network will cost $115 million, take roughly three years to build, and ultimately deliver affordable fiber access at speeds up to 10 Gbps to all municipal buildings, anchor institutions, and all 67,695 city residents.

The establishment of a new broadband office in Mississippi heralds a new era in the state’s efforts to bring high quality broadband to all its residents, especially those living in the most rural parts of the state. On the forefront of that effort is the Delta Electric Power Association, an electric cooperative building out fiber networks in the Mississippi Delta region, where about a quarter of residents do not have access to broadband of any kind.

The Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC) and its Firefly Broadband Initiative has successfully completed its $150 million fiber expansion project, having deployed 3,600 miles of new fiber, passed 40,000 total homes and businesses, and directly connecting 20,000 state residents–many for the first time ever–in less than 52 months. About 90 percent of households connected had no broadband access previously.

The Whatcom County Public Utility District is now leading the charge in one of the most difficult-to-reach parts of the state in building an open access dark fiber network that will bring high-speed connectivity to over a thousand homes and businesses in Point Roberts.

As a young woman of the Nuxalk Nation, Mallory Hans is one of about 50 people hailing from various Tribes and First Nations across North America in attendance for the latest Tribal Broadband Bootcamp, hosted at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort on the Saint Regis Mohawk reservation along the New York/Canada border. .

Edison, New Jersey is proceeding with the construction of an affordable, gigabit-capable fiber network after receiving $2 million cash infusion from state leaders. The resulting network will be built on the back of decades’ worth of local frustration with the high prices, spotty availability, and slow broadband speeds provided by regional monopolies.

In this week’s round-up of broadband news, we culled three stories we think are worth reading. As always we look to separate the signal from the noise.

Portland activists are renewing their calls to prioritize the construction of a municipally owned broadband network in the Oregon city of 635,000. With an historic infusion of federal subsidies and a looming shakeup of city politics, advocates for community-owned broadband say the time is right to finally revolutionize city telecom infrastructure with an eye on affordability.