Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Two utility cooperatives in South Carolina – one electric, the other a telephone co-op – have teamed up and are now cooperating to bring fiber-to-the-home Internet service to members living in Anderson, Greenville, Oconee, Pickens, and Spartanburg counties. The Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative (BREC) partnered with WCFIBER, a subsidiary of the West Carolina Telephone Cooperative.

Jamestown plans to construct a citywide municipal fiber network using American Rescue Plan funds, the first city in the state of New York to do so. The city is currently working with EntryPoint Networks on a feasibility study to estimate the overall cost of the project, as well as surveying residential interest in building a municipally owned open-access broadband network in Jamestown. Under the open-access network model Jamestown is pursuing, the city would own and maintain all network infrastructure, which the city would then lease to third-party internet service providers (ISPs) to compe

A common misunderstanding of exactly where the digital divide is located has led to faulty assumptions about where investments need to be made, as if broadband access is a challenge confined primarily in rural America. The actual shape of the problem is different than many elected officials realize; a lack of fast, reliable, and affordable broadband is also a major problem in urban and suburban America. America’s connectivity crisis—created by uncompetitive market conditions—is actually a three-fold challenge: access, affordability and adoption.

Internet connectivity in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is downright medieval by modern telecommunication standards. With the exception of a handful of homes in more densely populated communities, the only choice for most folks living in the rural environs of the Northeast Kingdom is between DSL and satellite. That’s all changing now thanks to one of the state’s nascent Communication Union Districts (CUD), enabled by a 2015 Vermont law that allows two or more towns to join together as a municipal entity to build communication infrastructure.

On May 13, Gov Jay Inslee (D-WA) signed the Public Broadband Act (H.B. 1336), removing all restrictions on public broadband in the state of Washington, according to the bill’s primary sponsor, WA State Rep Drew Hansen (D-23). This critical leap forward in Washington drops the number of states with laws restricting community broadband to 17. The bill grants public entities previously restricted by statute from offering retail telecommunications services the unrestricted authority to provide Internet services to end-users.

Tired of waiting for connectivity solutions to come to town, one Minnesota community has instead partnered with a local telephone cooperative to build a fiber network reaching every home and business in the city. In embarking on its journey to improve local Internet access six years ago, Long Prairie (pop. 3,300) ended up partnering with one of the most aggressive fiber network builders in the state - Consolidated Telephone Company (CTC) - on a solution that meets local needs. The two finished a ubiquitous Fiber-to-the-Home build in 2018, with CTC now owning and operating the network.