In our recent podcast interview with Vince Jordan of Longmont Power and Communications (LPC), we shared the story of Colorado's newest community network. Vince told the story of the community's struggle to overcome a massive misinformation campaign by Comcast and progress since. LPC is proving itself to be innovative, creative, and centered on community - all attributes that should drive their success.

We asked what future plans may be in the works for the expanding the network or the different potential services coming to residents and businesses, wondering if triple-play services may be offered. Vince noted that in LPC's current online survey, video and voice are two products that have sparked the public's interest. Because video can be one of the most expensive and least profitable ventures, LPC is once again approaching the community desires creatively.

Milo Medin, the VP of Access Services at Google (responsible for the Kansas City deployment) gave a 40 minute presentation discussing important changes in the Internet. We should be moving from an age of scarcity to abundance, if the big cable companies will stop hindering that change. The slides from his presentation are available here.

You are surrounded by the radio waves of local television signals. They are available to you for free if you put up an antenna, but there was no easy way to take that free signal and then stream it to all your digital devices. Now there is. Aereo, available only in New York presently, combines an antenna with broadband to transmit television wherever you want it.

Ryan Kim provides the details in a February GigaOm article:

The system works by creating an array of hundreds of thousands of tiny TV antennas the size of a thumbnail and housing them in one data center in a market. When users hook up to Aereo, they take command of an antenna, renting it to get local broadcast channels such as ABC, CBS, Fox and others. They also have access to a cloud-based dual tuner DVR that allows them to initially record up to 40 hours of content.

Customers can view the content on iPads, iPhones, AppleTV, and Roku devices via the web. Rates vary from $1/day to $80/year. The company, backed in part by IAC, aspires to expand nationally.

This is an approach local community networks should follow, particularly those who want to build broadband networks but don't want to get lost in the mind-numbing details of offering a television package.

Needless to say, major broadcasters have gone to the court to stop the ambitious start-up. FOX, the Tribune Company, PBS, Univision, and others, lost their July bid for a preliminary injunction to stop Aereo from rebroadcasting their programming over the Internet. The plaintiffs argued that Aereo violated copyright protections, but Aereo's method does not amount to a copyright infringement according to the court. The individual control over each antenna does not allow sharing of content and does not amount to infringement through public performance.

Staci D. Kramer, from paidContent summed up the judge's rationale for denying the injunction:

Before the economic downturn, a typical small video service provider could expect between $1.25 and $2.00 a month per subscriber in ad revenues, noted Walter P. Staniszewski, president of Prime Media Productions – a company that sells advertising for small video service provider clients. Since the downturn, the numbers are more like $1.00 to $1.50.

“If you study the cable industry, even the big guys didn’t have their own sales force until they developed some real scale,” said Staniszewski. He cautioned operators with systems with fewer than 5,000 or 6,000 subscribers against hiring their own sales force.

On Friday, July 13, I was a guest on TWiT Specials on the This Week in Tech Network, discussing bandwidth caps with Dane Jasper, Reid Fishler, and Benoit Felten. Hosted by Tom Merritt. It was a very good discussion over the course of one hour.

The video can be viewed here.

We have followed events in Opelika's network project for almost two years. In addition to creating a smart-grid for its municipal electric utility, the City plans to offer triple-play services. We previously covered Charter Cable's astroturf campaign to oppose the network and how the campaign failed when Opelikans passed the referendum.

This week, the 27,000 residents of Opelika saw their efforts begin to materialize at a ground breaking ceremony at the site of the new Opelika Power Services Facility. Chris Anthony, of the Opelika-Auburn News covered the story:

Site work is well under way on the $3.7 million facility, which leaders say will be an integral part of the fiber-optic network being built throughout the city. In addition to housing the administrative office and warehouse, the facility will also be the home of Opelika Power Services’ fiber hub.

Mayor Gary Fuller notes how the people of Opelika entered the business of municipal utilities over one hundred years ago, when the community purchased the then-private electric utility. He spoke about how the people of Opelika carry on that self-reliant streak with their new fiber network.

According to, Beth Ringley, Interim Director of Opelika Power, 90% of the fiber is installed underground throughout the city and should be nearly completed by the end of the summer. The $41 million project is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2013 and the first customers are expected to connect at that time.

“It’s a big, big day for the city of Opelika,” Mayor Gary Fuller said. “It’s important for our future.”