Universal Broadband

Things are happening in the wake of voters' November approval of the creation of a telecommunications utility that would provide high-speed internet services. The City Council has directed $1.8 million from the General Fund to cover startup costs associated with the new utility. The city also is preparing to issue bonds to cover the cost of engineering and building a fiber-optic network that would deliver its promised 1 gigabit-per-second speed for uploads and downloads. Construction of the system is still far away.

I3 Broadband, which acquired the fiber-optic network in Champaign-Urbana (IL) in 2017, said it expanded to 2,750 new homes in the last 12 months, and its goal for 2018 is to connect more than 10,000 homes. I3 has partitioned C-U into neighborhoods and expands its network to each one based on a variety of factors, such as whether it is adjacent to one that already has access and if 30 to 45 percent of households in one register their interest. Right now, i3 is in about 24 neighborhoods, including many in northern Champaign and Urbana, and just east of the University of Illinois campus. 

As it builds a downtown fiber network, Cincinnati (OH) is laying the foundation for improved traffic management and other smart city initiatives, as well as offering the kind of communications infrastructure necessary to further grow the region’s economic development efforts. The city is installing 20,000 feet of fiber-optic cable around the central business district, while also bisecting the area with another line of cable.

[Commentary] This version of the Bytes Chat discusses the wisdom of restrictions against municipal broadband with three economists who are following the issue closely.

Kyle Wilson: It’s worth remembering that unlike schools, installing a municipal network creates a new stream of revenue, even though it may not be enough to break even.

Representatives Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), Mike Doyle (D-PA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the Community Broadband Act, legislation that will empower local communities to ensure their residents have broadband access by preserving the right to provide community-owned service to consumers. According to the Congressional Research Service, twenty states have passed laws that either restrict or outright prohibit local communities from investing local dollars in building their own broadband networks.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a draft 2018 Broadband Deployment Report to his colleagues and below are the key findings and additional information:

Cable operators want to make sure that the Federal Communications Commission makes rules allowing "overlashing" part of its overall plan to speed the deployment of broadband to all Americans. That is the practice of piggybacking new plant on utility poles (say fiber) on existing plant (fiber) that has already been approved by the pole owner.

With a great amount of fanfare, Google picked Kansas City as its first Google Fiber city in July 2012. But the community’s commitment to full digital inclusion predates and runs much deeper than Google Fiber. Connecting for Good is one of Kansas City’s key digital inclusion partners. Michael Liimatta and Rick Deane knew each other through different community activities when, in 2011, they brainstormed the idea of Connecting for Good and found in it a mission they could share.

Over the last decade, California’s urban centers have become technology hubs, cities where free Wi-Fi and fiber optic lines are ubiquitous. But in low-income neighborhoods, across the state’s inland regions and in rural communities — often home to large migrant populations — families struggle to connect at all. Some elected officials see that reality as proof that a digital divide is leaving many people behind. And they’ve set out to remedy it. In 2007, the state established the California Advanced Services Fund to offer companies incentive to help bridge the gap.

A second round of broadband infrastructure bills have been introduced by members of the House Communications Subcommittee. The bills focus on supporting innovation and advancing broadband infrastructure in rural communities.