MuniWireless has published a story noting the outcome of Tempe's lawsuit against Commonwealth Capital Corp in which the city was awarded $1.8 million in pole rental charges from a private company dealing with a failed Wi-Fi network.
Tempe, like many other communities circa 2006, had hoped a private company would be able to build and run a citywide Wi-Fi network that would create another broadband option for residents and businesses frustrated with the DSL/cable duopoly. For a variety of reasons, nearly all of these networks failed to deliver on promises and were either abandoned or turned into occasional hotspots.
Unfortunately, the term "Muni Wireless" was used to describe these networks despite the fact that local governments had little more to do with them than they do with franchising cable companies (and Comcast is not called "Muni cable"). Regardless, the general failure of Wi-Fi to match the hype gave muni broadband and community broadband a bad name due in part to this inappropriate "Muni Wireless" title.
What I found interesting about the MuniWireless.com story about Tempe is the section entitled "What should Tempe do now?" This is an excellent question. The suggestions offered by Esme Vos are interesting and worth mulling over. Over time, I hope the comments add some more suggestions.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently unveiled plans to improve public safety, housing, and the overall livability of the Big Apple, which includes $6 million in new funding to expand the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) “Neighborhood Internet” network. But the effort still remains a far cry from the bolder, bigger, “master plan” initiative scrapped by the Adams administration in 2022.
New York State officials have unveiled the first round of broadband deployment grants made possible by the state’s $100 million Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP). The plan aims to drive affordable fiber and cheap Wi-Fi to low-income state residents trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, ILSR celebrates the growing number of Tribal nations exercising digital sovereignty by building Tribally-owned broadband networks. Our freshly updated Indigenous Networks map and census highlights the burgeoning Tribal broadband movement, offering a window into this critical work across Indian Country. Our updates underscore how much has changed since 2020 when ILSR first undertook research on Tribal networks.
A California telecom and electrical cooperative says the state’s ongoing last-mile broadband grant program will help deploy affordable fiber to multiple communities across four heavily unserved and underserved California counties. The cooperative says it’s poised to receive roughly $67 million in FFA grants to expand affordable broadband to roughly 6,600 unserved and underserved locations across Sierra, Plumas, Lassen, and Nevada Counties.
As states gear up to administer federal BEAD funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law, a handful of states are already making significant investments in municipal broadband using federal Rescue Plan dollars. California, Maine, Vermont, and New York have each established grant programs that center municipal broadband projects (mostly fiber builds) – with New York being the most recent state to announce more than $70 million in awards through its ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program (MIP).
Recent federal government efforts to expand use of public Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum could be of significant help to municipalities and local communities looking to bridge the digital divide with the increasingly popular wireless technology. For municipalities, the spectrum has already proven to be a valuable way to deploy wireless access to the public, though not all community deployments of CRBS have delivered satisfactory results.