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The Question of Internet Affordability Beyond ACP - Episode 594 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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LA County Moves Closer to Municipal Broadband

Last November the LA County Board of Supervisors quietly and unanimously approved a project that could dramatically reshape affordable Internet access in the largest county in the United States. The newly approved plan first aims to deliver wireless broadband to the 365,000 low-income households in Los Angeles county that currently don’t subscribe to broadband service, starting with a 12,500 home pilot project. But the vote also approved a new feasibility study into a Los Angeles county-wide municipal fiber network.

Field Reports: Municipal Broadband and Digital Equity in Baltimore

This week, we bring you a special field report from Maryland-based radio and podcast producer Matt Purdy. Through interviews, Purdy documents the connectivity struggles that have persisted in Baltimore's historically marginalized neighborhoods for decades. Those challenges have only become more pronounced with the pandemic, prompting local officials to begin making moves in the direction of something we've not yet seen in a community the size of Baltimore: building a city-owned, open access fiber network.

Join Us Thursday, March 10th at 5pm ET, To Get Technical, Talk Serving MDUs & More! - Episode 36 of the Connect This! Show

In this episode of the Connect This! Show, co-hosts Christopher and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by Christy Batts (CDE Lightband), Robert Boyle (Planet Networks), and Jim Troutman (Jim Troutman (Tilson Broadband & NNENIX) for an exciting technical conversation.

The panel will dig into serving MDUs, building passive vs active networks and more!

Is High-Speed Internet Access Getting More Affordable, Really?

A recent report by BroadbandNow suggested that the average price for broadband access for Americans has fallen, by an average of 31 percent or nearly $34/month, since 2016. But you don’t have to follow broadband policy closely to get the sense that something a little off is going on here. The reality is that the report, unfortunately, poorly frames the national broadband marketplace. At best, it muddies the waters with a lack of clarity about the relationship between broadband access speed tiers and relative pricing. At worst, it leaves the average reader with the incorrect assumption that broadband prices must be falling, and gives the monopoly cable and telephone companies ammunition to push for millions more in taxpayer dollars while building as little new infrastructure as possible.

A Wave (of Fiber) Crests Across Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Building on the fiber backbone that connects Choptank Electric Cooperative’s smart grid, the member-owned cooperative began construction of a fiber-to-the-home network (FTTH) last year that will reach all 54,000 of its members spread out across nine counties. Now subscribers are being lit up for service as the co-op continues to extend the network.