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Digital Equity LA Summit Pushes CPUC to Ditch Priority Areas Map
The Digital Equity LA Summit last week focused on the challenges ahead. Front and center: urging state officials to fix the broadband priority maps the state will use to target where to invest $2 billion in state broadband grant funds
Save the Date: ILSR’s Building for Digital Equity Returns
Save the date! ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks team is back for a second season of our Building for Digital Equity series.
AARP Accepting Applications for Seventh Annual Community Challenge Grant Program
AARP has announced it is accepting applications for its seventh annual Community Challenge grant program, a funding source for nonprofit organizations and governmental entities to apply for “quick-action” projects that make communities more livable and have the potential to seed long-term change.
Arvig Buys Business-Facing Municipal Fiber Network in Alexandria, Minnesota
In an announcement last week, Alexandria, Minnesota's (pop. 15,000) electric and water utility (ALP Utilities) announced it would be selling its business-facing fiber network to Arvig, a 40-percent employee-owned Internet Service Provider (ISP) that has 54,000 subscribers across urban and rural Minnesota.
Dryden, NY Launches Municipal Fiber Network
Dryden, New York, population 14,500, has formally launched the town’s municipal broadband network, becoming the first municipality in the state to provide residents with direct access to affordable, publicly owned fiber.
LA County Selects Pilot Communities for Major Broadband Expansion
LA County is accelerating its plan to deliver affordable broadband access to the city’s unserved and underserved, with an eye toward building one of the biggest municipal broadband networks in the nation. But the county is first taking baby steps, recently announcing target communities prioritized in a pilot program aimed at bridging the digital divide.
Watch: What It's Like to Live in the Bermuda Triangle of Internet Access
On the most recent episode of the Connect This! Show, Geoff joins to share what happened when he moved to a house and discovered that it was in the Bermuda Triangle of broadband service, and what he's done to try and fix it.
Want to Work on Tribal Broadband Policy? ILSR is Hosting a 2023 ACLS Leading Edge Fellow
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is pleased to announce that it has been selected by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) as a host organization for a Leading Edge Fellowship for the second time. The application window has opened for recent PhDs in the humanities to apply for a two-year, full-time fellowship to be a Tribal Broadband Policy Analyst. The fellow will continue and contribute to foundational work by ILSR on Internet access in Indian Country while gaining experience in the regular portfolio of research and policy activities by the Community Broadband Networks initiative at ILSR.
Daily Yonder: Do You Really Have the Broadband the FCC Thinks You Have?
As we head into the holiday break, we present you with a bit of commentary made possible by a practical gift created by our GIS and Data Visualization Specialist Christine Parker.
IN OUR VIEW: Friday the 13th Mapping Challenge Deadline Highlights Failed Process
What is going wrong with the distribution of the $42.5 billion to build new, modern Internet access networks, the mapping process, and continued failure of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to show competence in the broadband arena? And how can these important problems be fixed as every jurisdiction from Puerto Rico to Hawaii feels overwhelmed by the challenge?
121 Colorado Communities Have Opted Out of Anti-Muni Broadband Preemption Law
More than 121 Colorado cities and towns have now opted out of SB152, a 17-year old state law backed by telecom monopolies greatly restricting the construction and funding of community broadband alternatives. And the trend shows no sign of slowing down.
Wireless Is Essential, But Fiber Remains the Future (For Now)
From the miraculous benefits of WiMax to the hype surrounding 5G, U.S. wireless companies have long promised near-Utopian levels of technological revolution. Yet time after time these promises have fallen short, reminding a telecom sector all-too-familiar with hype that fiber optics remains, for now, the backbone of bridging the digital divide.