'Digital town squares' boost internet speeds in mid-sized communities

Three mid-sized and rural communities are using the internet at faster speeds than ever before, according to smart city nonprofit US Ignite and the National Science Foundation, who shared success stories from the U.S. Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities initiative. Eugene (OR), Urbana-Champaign (IL), and regions of rural Utah are all a part of the US Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities initiative, which launched in 2017 to improve broadband infrastructure and reliability in rural areas across the country via a partnership with the National Science Foundation. The NSF subsidizes the installation and equipment costs for each community. The communities are using facilities that enable network switching between regional internet service providers, who pay to connect their customers to fiber-optic cables. The infrastructure, which US Ignite calls a “digital town square,” or DTS, ultimately results in faster internet and lower latency for residents and businesses, according to Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce managing director Matt Sayre. The network upgrade in Eugene is carrier-neutral, which means that residents don’t have to pay extra to receive the benefits of faster internet when traffic is exchanged at the DTS. Essentially, the technology connects Eugene’s “islands” of scattered businesses and homes that already have gigabit speed internet to keep internet traffic and data local, rather than having to traverse connections to far-away ISP facilities in Portland or San Francisco.