Municipal Networks

Here they go again. Using false and tired arguments, big cable is attacking three community broadband networks that residents and their elected officials chose to build and own. And like it did earlier in 2023 in Bountiful City, Utah, it is hiding behind a surrogate that doesn’t reveal its financial supporters. It is profoundly ironic that the country’s richest media companies are attacking “government-run” networks when they are at the same time bringing in billions of dollars of subsidies from the federal government and seeking billions more in grants from state governments.

Pulse—the city’s community-owned, cutting-edge internet network—has reached a milestone with the completion of its Loveland capital construction. With an investment of nearly $110 million and a meticulously managed four-year timeline, Pulse’s network construction stands as the largest capital project in the city’s history. Persevering through the challenges posed by a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and severe inflation, the project crossed the finish line on time and on budget, thanks to the unwavering determination of over 250 local Pulse employees and contractors.

Mass Priorities is the group calling on local governments to prioritize improvements in water quality, education, and bridge infrastructure over investments in government-owned broadband networks. It is making its message known with a half-million-dollar, three-month advertising barrage, which kicked off on October 31. What is not clear, though, is where the freshly launched group got its money. The Mass Priorities website says that it is a project of the Domestic Policy Caucus, which Policy Director Christopher Thrasher confirmed.

The Superior (WI) City Council approved an ordinance that has made broadband internet a public utility. This means that the city can go through with the construction of its own broadband internet service for residents. Slow and expensive internet has been a major problem for Superior residents. Having broadband as a public utility was the project’s final step before construction could start. Residents will be able to choose to be on the city’s internet service when it is completed.

Burlington Telecom has launched the Internet Assistance Program (IAP), a new program aimed at helping the community connect. The program was created to provide affordable dynamic broadband and internet services to qualifying participants. The IAP will offer two broadband choices to eligible customers. The Basic tier includes a 50MB/50MB internet connection at $9.95 a month. and the Enhanced tier includes a 150MB/150MB internet connection for $24.95 a month. Both packages include smart WiFi and free installation for a single outlet. 

More reliable and higher quality internet could be coming to Fort Worth’s (TX) underserved areas. The Fort Worth City Council approved a $7.5 million, 34-year contract with Dallas-based Sprocket Networks for broadband infrastructure. The contract authorizes the installation of an approximately 300-mile network to connect residents and businesses with internet in locations designated as underserved. Around 17 percent of residents in Fort Worth don’t have access to high-speed internet and 8 percent have no internet access at all.

This paper examines how the quality of Internet service from existing providers is affected when voters in Colorado approve referenda eliminating a barrier to their local governments providing broadband service. Using a difference-in-differences framework, the research design exploits variation in the timing of a community’s approval of a referendum in order to examine whether incumbent private providers adjust their speed offerings in response to the signal that public entry is more likely.

A discussion about why universal access to affordable, robust broadband is a matter of social justice and necessary for a thriving democracy. That might seem obvious to many of you—how can one fully participate in our society, our economy, our education, health care and financial systems or our democracy without a broadband connection?

The STOP CSAM Act of 2023 (S. 1199) would authorize appropriations to establish the Child Online Protection Board to adjudicate complaints against interactive computer service providers (such as Internet service providers, social media companies, and municipal broadband providers). The bill also would authorize the appropriation of funds to appoint guardians at litem (attorneys and social workers who protect child victims throughout court proceedings) and trustees who facilitate restitution payments owed to child victims.