On Friday, I wrote a harsh, quick response to FCC Chairman's Genachowski's so-called gigabit challenge announced in a guest column on Forbes.
Since then, I have learned more about the 1 Gbps Challenge and I have to reiterate my frustration with it. We need the Chairman to reduce barriers to community-owned networks, not just recognize their successes. I'm not the only one reacting this way - Karl Bode has a thoughtful response as well.
Let me start by giving some credit: Thank you for recognizing that the cable and DSL companies are failing to deliver the networks communities need. This announcement should be used to pressure the existing providers to invest in their networks. It is another important piece of evidence that communities having to choose only between cable networks and a slower DSL option are being left behind.
But we need to also recognize that pressuring the existing providers to do better is not a solution in itself. Our slow, overpriced networks are the symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. The problem is that the massive cable and DSL companies are unaccountable to most of the communities they serve. Begging for more investment is better than doing nothing, but solves few problems.
I have a challenge for the FCC Chairman: Use your power to make it less of a challenge for communities to build the networks they need. For too long, you have sat silently by as massive telecommunications firms made it all but impossible for smaller entities - public and private - to build competing networks. When the FCC Chairman finally gets around to supporting communities with definitive action to reduce the many unnecessary industry-created barriers to competition, that will actually be praise-worthy.
Communities are smart to find ways of building their own networks, whether by owning and operating or finding partners to help. Nearly all the communities in the U.S. that have gigabit (and symmetrical at that!) connectivity today are served by networks owned by the community. This includes Chattanooga, Morristown, and Bristol in Tennessee; Lafayette in Louisiana; Bristol, Virginia; Burlington, Vermont; and the communities in Utah served by UTOPIA. Also, Chelan Public Utility District offers up to 1 Gbps connections in many communities in Washington State.
This is why we have to remove unnecessary barriers to public investment in their own networks and encourage communities to take responsibility for their own future. As Harold DePriest asked when announcing that Chattanooga would build its own FTTH network, "The issue is, does our community control our own fate, or does someone else control it?"
Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal: making symmetrical gigabit fiber available to all locations county wide.
Alabama's open-access middle mile network spurs last mile investments and competition. Alabama has already invested over $324 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding on middle-mile infrastructure. Of that, $264 million has been earmarked to deploy 5,000 miles of middle-mile infrastructure – reaching all 67 Alabama counties – as part of the Alabama Fiber Network.
After decades of redlining and broadband “digital discrimination” by the nation’s biggest telecom monopolies, the FCC rules taking aim at the problem are poised to be dismantled, courtesy of the Trump administration’s broad, controversial frontal assault on discrimination reforms and civil rights. Trump’s incoming FCC boss Brendan Carr issued a statement falsely claiming that the administration is eliminating discrimination reforms to purportedly stop…discrimination. The move is primarily to the benefit of telecom monopolies accused of discrimination, which filed a federal lawsuit to prevent the rules last year via the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Wadsworth, Ohio officials say they’re making steady progress on the expansion of a city-owned broadband network that’s extending affordable fiber connectivity to the city’s nearly 25,000 residents. Originally a coaxial-based network, the city now says it’s in the process of delivering Wi-Fi to many city residents while they go block-by-block removing older coaxial cable and upgrading residents to more future-proof fiber optic connectivity.
Sherwood Broadband recently secured a $9 million grant from the Oregon Broadband Office Broadband Deployment Program to continue expanding Sherwood’s municipally-owned network. The grant award is part of $132 million in federal Rescue Plan funds the state is doling out to an array of community-owned broadband initiatives for 16 projects across 17 counties.
A growing number of ISPs in states like Minnesota say they may not participate in the BEAD program. A number of Minnesota ISPs are still bristling at BEAD’s requirements, according to Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance, an organization that represents 70 ISPs across the North Star State.