News

The next time you hear someone claiming that the reason US Internet is slower than international peers is because of our vast landmass with low population density, encourage them to listen to "America the Slow" on American Public Media's Marketplace Tech Report.

On the heals of our recent post discussing false incumbent claims about Salisbury's Fibrant community fiber network, I wanted to put up another piece looking at some of the problems that have delayed the network launch.

DC-Net, the muni-owned and operated fiber network connecting hundreds of community institutions (schools, libraries, local government buildings), is expanding in scope and mission following three broadband stimulus awards.

As Salisbury prepares to officially launch its publicly owned FTTH network offering triple-play services, it offers lessons for other communities that want to follow in its footsteps. As we wrote a month ago, Fibrant has candidly admitted it cannot win a price war with incumbents.

In all the talk of the need for competition in broadband (or in the mobile space), there is remarkably little attention paid to the difficulties in actually creating competition.

Advocates for community broadband networks in urban areas that already have cable and DSL options are often asked why the community needs something better. Aside from the many benefits in terms of reliability and symmetrical offers, we do need faster connections.

In Virginia, Danville's open access all-fiber network, nDanville, currently serves only businesses and large clients. In the early summer, Danville Utilities decided to recommend expanding the network to between 2,000 and 3,000 residential homes with a 10 year, $2.5 million loan.

Tim Wu, a professor and long time champion of network neutrality, discusses why getting these policies right is so important. Perhaps more interesting is the reaction from David Isenberg and Tim Wu's comment to that reaction. The take-home lesson?

In an editorial for the October, 2010 issue, Scientific American explains "Why broadband service in the U.S. is so awful, and one step that could change it." This is an excellent shorthand explanation for the poor decisions of the FCC during the Bush Administration.

Missouri's Cass County, has received both a loan and grant from the broadband stimulus program run by the RUS in the Department of Agriculture.

Back in 1998, the Braintree Electric Light Department (Massachusetts) built an HFC network for remote monitoring of their electrical services. In 1999, they extended the network to become the first broadband provider in town.

Sounds like the Scottsboro Electric Power Board is doing well. They offer fiber-optic services to businesses in addition to the cable services they offer to the general public.

Our Cable employees have also had a busy summer.

On August 19, 2010, I was one of hundreds of people telling the Federal Communications Commission to do its job and regulate in the public interest.

Lafayette's LUS Fiber network, after recently kicking off its ad campaign, has decided to offer 100Mbps residential connections after a number of requests from subscribers.

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Almost $45 million from the broadband stimulus is heading to OneCommunity, a nonprofit organization in Northeast Ohio (originally named OneCleveland), in order to expand their network across 27 counties.

The nation's newest community fiber network (FTTH) is launching in Salisbury, North Carolina, in the next month. Fibrant, a $29 million project financing by general obligation bonds, is slightly behind schedule but way ahead of the cable and DSL competition.

A few weeks ago, the Herald Tribune ran a number of articles about broadband by Michael Pollick and Doug Sword that discussed some community fiber networks and efforts by Counties in Florida to build their own fiber-optic networks.

If Seattle moves forward on the Community Fiber Network it has been considering, it will be the largest such network in the nation. However, as we recently noted, progress has been slow.

Folks around the world, including New York City, are celebrating the open Internet.