Community Broadband Networks

The town of Pinetops (NC) has a six-month reprieve. On Oct 20, the Wilson (NC) City Council voted to continue to provide telephone and Internet access to customers outside of Wilson County, which includes Pinetops, for an additional six months at no charge.

As we reported earlier, the City Council had been backed into a corner by state law, which would force them to discontinue Wilson’s municipal Greenlight service, or risk losing their exemption entirely. In August, the Sixth Circuit for the US Court of Appeals reversed the Federal Communications Commission decision to preempt North Carolina’s state law that prevented Greenlight from serving nearby Pinetops. When Hurricane Matthew struck Pinetops, however, the Wilson community could not fathom piling yet another burden - lack of high-quality Internet access - on the struggling rural community. The situation is not permanent, say Wilson's leaders, but it will give the community of Pinetops a chance to recover from Hurricane Matthew.

Residents of Salt Lake City’s Lorna Doone Properties will be enjoying Internet speeds of up to one gigabit for no cost, thanks to a partnership between Google Fiber and the Utah Nonprofit Housing Corporation (UNHC).

In July 2015, the company announced that the Google Fiber Gigabit Communities program would bring free access to select low-income housing locations throughout cities within their service areas, and the residents of Lorna Doone are newest to this list. Google will supply Internet access and UNHC has a computer rental program, which is in part supplied by the local business community. In addition, the City of Salt Lake has helped to fund mobile computer labs to bring more low-income households online.