Chattanooga Community Fiber Network Profiled on The Southern Way

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – a non-voting member of the New York City Council with the right to introduce and co-sponsor legislation – released a detailed “Get Connected” report calling “for the city to deliver high-speed, low-cost citywide municipal Internet service akin to a public utility.” The 53-page report lays the policy groundwork for what at least has the potential to become the Mamdani administration's signature infrastructure initiative.

Grays Harbor Public Utility District (PUD), a wholesale open access telecom utility in Washington state, will soon enter phase four of an ambitious fiber expansion project that will bring affordable next-gen broadband access to rural residents written off by the monopolies that were supposed to serve them. The PUD also says that Phase 4 of the PUD’s fiber internet expansion in south Elma, Porter and Cedarville will be reached later this Spring, bringing access to locals who have been waiting for years for faster, more reliable, and more affordable service.

UTOPIA Fiber says it deployed more than a million feet of fiber and conduit across Utah last year accumulating 67,000 total subscribers, as the collaborative open access fiber provider continues to make steady inroads in transforming the state’s broadband competition landscape. According to a new update by the organization, UTOPIA not only laid a million feet of fiber across Utah last year, the network continues to see steady subscriber growth and profitability.

In the marathon to bring universal high-speed Internet service to the most rural state in the nation, Vermont is heading into the last-mile stretch of the race with the finish line in sight. While federal grant programs from the American Rescue Plan Act and BEAD have been vital, advocates and community providers have long insisted that building the infrastructure is only half the battle. Getting people connected – and keeping them connected – requires tackling affordability head-on, as Vermont broadband leaders are doing with the state’s CUDs, demonstrating that community ownership and affordability can go hand in hand.

Locals in Longmeadow, Massachusetts say they’re being bombarded with misleading mailers, texts, and phone calls from a telecom-industry linked group trying to mislead the public ahead of a key vote on the city’s plan to begin construction of a municipal broadband fiber network today. Longmeadow residents are voting today (May 12) on whether to approve an $8.6 million loan to construct the first phase of what will ultimately be a town-wide fiber broadband network.

The Okanogan County Electric Cooperative and the Okanogan County Public Utility District say they’re making steady progress on bringing affordable fiber broadband access to Okanogan County, a highly rural stretch of rugged land in Washington state on the border of Canada. The coalition is poised to bring next-generation fiber to as many as 1,366 peppered along the upper Methow Valley this year starting near Chewuch River and ending at Lost River. Many of these areas will be seeing fiber upgrades for the first time ever after years stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.