Municipal Networks

The city of Bardstown (KY) has reached an agreement to sell its small cable TV company Bardstown Connect to Charter Communications, ending city ownership that began nearly four decades ago. The city decided to sell because Bardstown Connect was losing cable and broadband Internet subscribers, resulting in a recent 2% drop in combined revenue stemming from increased competition from online streaming services and various Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

As communities around the US work to close their digital divides, more and more are pursuing municipal broadband networks as a solution. As a recent example, in mid-January 2024, the state of New York was awarded $228 million by the Treasury Department for a grant program that will provide funding to "municipalities, non-profits, and other entities to construct open and accessible public bro

Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), discusses municipal broadband networks in the US, including why and where they're popping up and which are most successful.

Martinsville, Virginia, is looking for quick ways to create new revenue and the answer may be staring the city in the face. MiNet is a city-owned telephone and internet service provider for local businesses and residents in Martinsville. As of the 2020 census, the population of Martinsville was 13,485, but MiNet only has a total of 376 customers with 98 and of them classified as residential.

The Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority recently reversed its position on whether state law could cause problems for an unprecedented surge of federal investment for expanding access to high-speed internet. In the first draft of the state’s plan for administering more than $1 billion in federal funding, the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority said that to avoid a conflict with federal law it would waive an obscure state statute that restricts when local governments can build their own internet networks. But in the 

Eagle (ID) is ready to light up the first phase of its long-planned, federally-funded broadband network. Residents of the northern Ada County suburb will soon be able to take advantage of free Wi-Fi in city parks as work continues on a city-wide broadband network funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.

The availability of high-speed internet has become one of the driving factors in attracting new residents to settle in the Monadnock region, giving some towns a competitive advantage for people who work or attend school remotely. Rebecca Morse, broker for RE/MAX Town Square in New Ipswich, said towns with lower internet services are generally less desirable, though not entirely off the table to most buyers, unless they have specific work-from-home needs.

The US has gained an additional 47 municipal broadband networks since January 2021, bringing the total to nearly 450.

Michelson will continue growing its Digital Equity in Tribal Communities project by supporting the Tribal Resource Center (TRC), a Native American-led non-profit initiative under People-Centered Internet that is dedicated to offering trustworthy guidance for tribal communities seeking greater access to broadband. Digital inequity is especially apparent on tribal lands in California, with over a quarter of households lacking broadband service at 100 Megabit per second speeds.

On the Hopi Reservation’s more than 1.5 million acres of desert landscape in northeast Arizona, most residents live in villages atop arid mesas. Below ground, there’s a network of copper wires that provides telephone and internet service. In 2004, Hopi Telecommunications bought the company that had installed them, but has been struggling ever since to upgrade the network to broadband speeds. Hopi Telecommunications serves both the Hopi reservation and parts of the surrounding Navajo Nation.