At the “Municipal Broadband and Innovative Financing Models: Unlocking Economic Growth” webinar earlier today, attendees got an inside look at how successful community broadband networks have been funded – and how cities and towns can still finance networks even with the uncertainty now swirling around the federal BEAD program.

Co-hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), the webinar featured a wealth of municipal broadband financing knowledge from four guests with deep experience navigating the numbers.

Co-host Gigi Sohn, who was joined by ILSR’s Sean Gonsalves, began the webinar with a brief explanation on why AAPB and ILSR are joining forces for what will be a series of webinars designed to assist cities and towns in how local and state leaders can deal with solving local connectivity challenges where the big incumbent ISPs have failed to deliver ubiquitous and reliable service.

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“I've been traveling around the country and I hear from a lot of communities who are very interested in a model where they control their broadband networks in their communities,” she said. “We want to kind of demystify the finance part and try to get communities more comfortable with how they can move forward.”

The first guest expert to take center screen was Ernie Staten, the City of Fairlawn, Ohio’s Public Service Department Director.

At the “Municipal Broadband and Innovative Financing Models: Unlocking Economic Growth” webinar earlier today, attendees got an inside look at how successful community broadband networks have been funded – and how cities and towns can still finance networks even with the uncertainty now swirling around the federal BEAD program.

Co-hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), the webinar featured a wealth of municipal broadband financing knowledge from four guests with deep experience navigating the numbers.

Co-host Gigi Sohn, who was joined by ILSR’s Sean Gonsalves, began the webinar with a brief explanation on why AAPB and ILSR are joining forces for what will be a series of webinars designed to assist cities and towns in how local and state leaders can deal with solving local connectivity challenges where the big incumbent ISPs have failed to deliver ubiquitous and reliable service.

Image

“I've been traveling around the country and I hear from a lot of communities who are very interested in a model where they control their broadband networks in their communities,” she said. “We want to kind of demystify the finance part and try to get communities more comfortable with how they can move forward.”

The first guest expert to take center screen was Ernie Staten, the City of Fairlawn, Ohio’s Public Service Department Director.

At the “Municipal Broadband and Innovative Financing Models: Unlocking Economic Growth” webinar earlier today, attendees got an inside look at how successful community broadband networks have been funded – and how cities and towns can still finance networks even with the uncertainty now swirling around the federal BEAD program.

Co-hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), the webinar featured a wealth of municipal broadband financing knowledge from four guests with deep experience navigating the numbers.

Co-host Gigi Sohn, who was joined by ILSR’s Sean Gonsalves, began the webinar with a brief explanation on why AAPB and ILSR are joining forces for what will be a series of webinars designed to assist cities and towns in how local and state leaders can deal with solving local connectivity challenges where the big incumbent ISPs have failed to deliver ubiquitous and reliable service.

Image

“I've been traveling around the country and I hear from a lot of communities who are very interested in a model where they control their broadband networks in their communities,” she said. “We want to kind of demystify the finance part and try to get communities more comfortable with how they can move forward.”

The first guest expert to take center screen was Ernie Staten, the City of Fairlawn, Ohio’s Public Service Department Director.

At the “Municipal Broadband and Innovative Financing Models: Unlocking Economic Growth” webinar earlier today, attendees got an inside look at how successful community broadband networks have been funded – and how cities and towns can still finance networks even with the uncertainty now swirling around the federal BEAD program.

Co-hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), the webinar featured a wealth of municipal broadband financing knowledge from four guests with deep experience navigating the numbers.

Co-host Gigi Sohn, who was joined by ILSR’s Sean Gonsalves, began the webinar with a brief explanation on why AAPB and ILSR are joining forces for what will be a series of webinars designed to assist cities and towns in how local and state leaders can deal with solving local connectivity challenges where the big incumbent ISPs have failed to deliver ubiquitous and reliable service.

Image

“I've been traveling around the country and I hear from a lot of communities who are very interested in a model where they control their broadband networks in their communities,” she said. “We want to kind of demystify the finance part and try to get communities more comfortable with how they can move forward.”

The first guest expert to take center screen was Ernie Staten, the City of Fairlawn, Ohio’s Public Service Department Director.

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

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“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

Image

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

Image

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

Image

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

Image

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

Image

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”