Local/Municipal

Gigi Sohn will serve as the Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB). Sohn will ensure public entities will have a visible, powerful, and consistent voice that will make the positive case for states to fund and communities to choose public broadband and oppose barriers to local choice. Founded by state and local broadband officials, AAPB is a 501 (c)(6) non-profit organization that will build a diverse membership of public broadband networks nationwide and advocate for municipal broadband and local choice at the federal, state, and local levels.

After four years at the helm, Francella Ochillo announced that she will move on from her role as Executive Director of Next Century Cities (NCC), an organization committed to bringing connectivity within reach for every resident in every community. Since joining Next Century Cities in 2019, Ochillo has been recognized as one of the most impactful digital rights advocates in the country.

The Maine Connectivity Authority is launching a new program to provide targeted support to Broadband Utility Districts (BUDs) in Maine. Broadband Utility Districts are community-based organizations formed to build and operate broadband networks to increase access to high-speed internet. The utility district ownership model is a critical part of helping enable regional scale impact resulting in improved connectivity and digital equity in Maine. The districts often partner with service providers to operate the network, while the communities in the districts own the internet infrastructure.

Governor Jared Polis (D-CO) signed the bipartisan Senate Bill 23-183 (SB23-183), removing the biggest barrier to providing all Coloradans with access to high-speed broadband and allowing the state to capitalize on upcoming federal broadband funding for capital projects and digital adoption programs. SB23-183 revises a law established in 2005, SB05-152, which prohibited most uses of municipal or county money for infrastructure to improve local broadband service without obtaining voter approval to opt-out.

What challenges exist at the federal, state, and local levels that delay or burden broadband deployment?  How can Congress help expedite or streamline the process for broadband deployment? Is attaching telecommunications equipment on municipally or cooperatively-owned poles more difficult or expensive than on other poles?

Representing 26 towns across Massachusetts from Cape Cod to Chelsea, an informal group of mostly town officials has formed the Massachusetts Broadband Coalition in search of a way out of a broken broadband market and to ensure everyone in their individual communities has access to high-speed Internet. The newly-formed coalition has recently started to meet monthly to share information about what kind of alternatives there might be or could be, to the big cable monopoly provider in their towns.

History always renders a powerful and positive verdict for any group that understands that there are some things that cannot be allowed to divide a nation. And then acts to close that divide. I don’t want claim that the achieving universal broadband connectivity has the same moral imperative as ending slavery or drastically reducing poverty. But it is no small thing. And sometimes things that are not front-page news, overtime have enormous impacts.

Sterling Ranch, a master-planned community in Douglas County (CO), has made fiber-based broadband the centerpiece amenity of its community. It is achieving its broadband goals through a partnership with Lumen Technologies and Lumiere Fiber, a network integrator. By expanding its relationship with Lumen, Sterling Ranch, the first all-gigabit community in Colorado, will offer its residents 8 Gbps symmetrical fiber-based internet services.

In the metropolitan hubs of the world, access to ubiquitous high-speed fiber within city limits is almost taken for granted these days. But for many people in rural areas, such access is limited. Service providers understandably often can’t provide fiber access to the last mile in rural areas because of the sheer expense of laying and maintaining fiber to each home in sparsely populated areas. This has left many people underserved for decades, relying on legacy copper networks to attempt to bridge the digital divide.

UTOPIA Fiber,  America’s largest open access fiber network, built more than 4,387 miles of fiber-optic infrastructure in 2022 throughout Utah, Idaho, and Montana. This impressive feat was accomplished facing fierce headwinds from supply chain constraints and labor market shortages. Additionally, UTOPIA Fiber inked the deal to provide residential services to its 20^th Utah city, while also completing fiber buildouts in 14 cities, including UTOPIA’s 11 original cities.