Local/Municipal

There are suddenly a lot of open-access networks springing up around the country. Traditionally, open-access networks have been built by local governments such as the public utility districts (PUDs) in Washington. Today, there are also open-access networks being built by commercial network owners. I’ve been asked by several internet service providers (ISPs) if they should consider operating on an open-access network. Here are a few of the most important factors to consider about operating on an open-access network:

Billions of dollars are up for grabs to expand broadband availability across the country. But the Federal Communication Commission maps that will determine where the money goes are inaccurate, according to the Texas comptroller, because internet service providers inflated their coverage areas. The Texas office charged with challenging and improving those maps at the state level says it can’t.

There is a mountain of complaints to be made about the Federal Communications Commission's new National Broadband Map. In some parts of the country, there are a lot of missing rural locations, including entire subdivisions. Close analysis of the map shows what folks in the broadband world have always known, but were unable to prove, that the big cable companies and telcos don’t cover everybody. It is these unserved folks in the middle of cities that I call the hidden unserved locations. These little pockets came about for a variety of reasons.

A group of vendors has been working on a CBRS private wireless network for a school in an underprivileged area of Sacramento, California, for a couple of years. And as a result of their trial, the Sacramento City Council recently approved $1.4 million in funding to create a permanent private 5G network for the school and two public housing communities in the city. The vendors involved in the project include Athonet, Federated Wireless, Intel, JMA Wireless, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Megh Computing, and Future Technologies Venture.

The Broadband Map Integrity service is a new offering is designed to help states, municipalities, schools, and other interested parties to quickly and efficiently submit challenges to the recently-released FCC maps, the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric), that will inform the allocation of $42.5 billion in BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) grants.

Broadband provider Brightspeed has completed a network deployment in Eutawville, South Carolina, that was funded, in part, through the South Carolina 2021 Rural Broadband Grant Program. The network provides service to more than 3,000 addresses in the town and the surrounding Orangeburg County area. The network is capable of 940 Mbps data speeds. Brightspeed invested half of the cost of the build. Brightspeed has bigger plans for South Carolina moving forward.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is highlighting a variety of digital equity and inclusion activities occurring in 40 different city and county governments on the Digital Inclusion map on the BroadbandUSA website. The site includes local government digital equity and inclusion websites, leaders, coordinators, resources, and plans.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that the District of Columbia received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative. The District of Columbia is receiving $5,463,126.49 in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to plan for the deployment and adoption of affordable, equitable, and reliable high-speed Internet service throughout the District.

Clearwave Fiber’s installation of ultra-fast, state-of-the-art, all-Fiber Internet network is nearly complete in Lansing, Kansas, enabling over 3,100 locations for fiber services. This latest launch for the Savannah-based operation marks a continuation of almost 6,000 route miles of Fiber in the Southeast and Midwest.

Broadband companies are lworking with local and state leaders to bring their resources, expertise, and connections to finish the job of connecting everyone in the US to the power and opportunity of broadband. As they forge alliances to close their digital divide, several criteria are critical: