News

DC Revolving Door, Comcast, and Campaign Finance Reform

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One of the reasons community broadband networks face so many unique hurdles (often created deliberately by states in response to cable/dsl lobbying) is because of the many ways in which campaign finance corrupts our national and state governments. Community broadband networks are focused on meeting community needs, not sending lobbyist armies into Washington, DC, and state capitals (though one of

Who Makes the Rules for the Internet?

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Our focus tends to be at the most local -- how do people in local communities access the Internet? But we do worry about how the Internet itself is governed. Think it should be totally unregulated? That sounds nice until you type google.com into a browser and it takes you to search.microsoft.com. Or you type microsoft.com and you end up at apple.com. We need rules and standards.

Provo to Write off Some Debt of Struggling iProvo Network

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Provo built a city owned FTTH network after its public power utility started connecting its substations with fiber-optic cables in the early 2000's. iProvo ultimately developed along similar open access lines as UTOPIA, but unlike UTOPIA, Provo did not actually want to operate on a purely wholesale model.

Broadband Blindness Documentary

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A new documentary from California explores the failure of the private sector and competition more generally to sufficiently invest in fast, affordable, and reliable access to the Internet.  It comes in three parts and runs about 25 minutes in total.  

AT&T Abandons Wireless Consolidation Attempt

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It is hard to avoid becoming cynical when watching the federal government interact with big corporations like AT&T. So when AT&T announced it would merge with T-Mobile, giving AT&T and Verizon a combined 3 out of 4 cellular subscribers, I thought two things: 1) What a terrible idea.

Tullahoma Utilities Start Smart Meter Meetings

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Tullahoma, home to the LightTUBe FTTH network of Tennessee, is starting to roll out smart meters for its electrical and water utilities (owned by the city). They have initiated a series of public meetings to discuss the AMI - Advanced Metering Infrastructure.