News

UTOPIA Fiber is celebrating another banner year as the nation’s largest community-owned open access network recently announced its subscriber growth numbers for 2024. The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency recently announced it officially hit the 70,000 subscriber mark and is now delivering fiber-to-the-home access in 21 Utah cities, partnering with 19 private-sector ISPs.

The Delaware County, Ohio Board of Commissioners and Consolidated Cooperative have announced the start of a $4.9 million joint initiative to dramatically expand affordable fiber optic broadband access to large swaths of the heavily underserved county. The expansion will be funded via American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and the deployment will target more rural communities largely in the northwestern and north-central portions of Delaware County.

Leveraging years of regional fiber collaboration, Carson, California has broken ground on a municipal broadband pilot network. City officials hope to expand the network to bring affordable fiber optic broadband to the entire city of 95,558, situated just 13 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

If you missed our inaugural Community Broadband Film Fest series kick off last week, the entirety of the event can still be viewed here. Following the live screening before an audience of over 100 virtual participants there was a lively discussion with several of the film’s key figures, including Holland Mayor Nathan Bocks.

Conexon Connect, the ISP arm of fiber broadband builder Conexon, said it has completed its tenth fiber broadband deployment in four years in collaboration with the Sac Osage Electric Cooperative. The network, Conexon’s second deployment in Missouri, will bring affordable fiber broadband for the first time to the cooperative’s 9,000 mostly rural members.

The city of Willmar, Minnesota has voted to move forward on plans for a city-owned open access fiber network. The $24.5 million investment, which saw finalized approval by the Willmar city council earlier this month with a 4-3 vote, aims to drive accountable, affordable, fiber access to long underserved parts of the northern Minnesota city.

At the 17th Tribal Broadband Bootcamp, Pueblo of Jemez Tribe members immersed themselves in fiber and wireless network technology as the Tribally-owned broadband provider JNET embarks on a fiber-to-the-home project. The half-dozen network builders from the Pueblo are being led by Network Operations Supervisor and Digital Navigator Program Manager Angela Diahkah and JNET Director Kevin Shendo.

A new study by The Brattle Group found that the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) generated more savings for taxpayers than it cost. Healthcare savings generated by the low-income program alone more than offset its annual burden to taxpayers, undermining claims that the program was dismantled as an act of fiscal efficiency.

Mountain View officials hired the consulting firm, Entrust Solutions, to take a closer look at the city’s broadband availability metrics and device potential options for the city. The finished report and accompanying technical memorandum note that Comcast enjoys a monopoly over vast swaths of the city, resulting in expensive, slow, and spotty access.

ILSR and AAPB to host a virtual community broadband film fest on March 27 to premiere “Building Fiberhoods in Holland,” a short documentary on how the city of Holland, Michigan came to build a municipal broadband utility to supercharge its local economy. The livestream event will kick-off with virtual red carpet introductions of some of the film’s stars, including Holland Mayor Nathan Bocks

A coalition of Vermont healthcare leaders, librarians, and state broadband officials are looking to leverage the state’s unprecedented deployment of community-owned fiber networks to create a scalable, community-centered telehealth model. It’s called VITAL VT – an exploratory effort being launched with a $10,000 grant from the Leahy Institute For Rural Partnerships, working in collaboration with the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Vermont Library Association.

Oswego County, NY officials are celebrating the award of a new $26 million New York State grant to bring affordable fiber access to long-underserved rural communities in the northwestern part of the state. Oswego County will own the finished open access network and lease the fiber to Internet Service Providers (SPs), including Empire Access.

California ISP Onward, which has increasingly partnered with California cities to expand affordable fiber access, is leveraging $4.7 million in American Rescue Plan Act broadband grants to further expand its footprint into long-unserved areas of San Diego County. The effort is running parallel with the San Diego County Library Tech Connect Program that has provided 7,000 Google Chromebooks and MiFi hotspots with unlimited data plans to residents and students to the internet for free.

The popular community provider celebrates rapid growth rate and says that ongoing community support means the city is on track to repay its construction bond by the 2029 due date. NextLight currently passes about 90 percent of the 47,000 premises in Longmont.

The Arkansas State Broadband Office continues to leverage American Rescue Plan Act funds to drive affordable fiber access into underserved parts of the Natural State. Three funding rounds are winding their way to completion, as fiber connectivity is being made available to rural markets for the first time, with a heavy reliance on local cooperatives.

Volunteer Energy Cooperative in Birchwood Tennessee says it’s leveraging American Rescue Plan Act funding to expand affordable fiber access into long underserved parts of The Volunteer State. VEC has begun construction on a new fiber expansion plan that will bring affordable fiber access to nearly 300 homes in Birchwood thanks to a $615,617 ARPA grant.

As digital inclusion advocates look to get their bearings amid an all-out assault on federal broadband funding programs, the upcoming March 13 Building For Digital Equity livestream offers a port in the storm. “Charting the Course: Adapting to Policy Shifts While Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” promises to bring hundreds of digital inclusion practitioners together to regroup and recalibrate while hearing from those working in the trenches still to adequately address broadband access challenges across the nation.

The broadband industry keeps trying to get the Supreme Court to help them, and the Supreme Court keeps saying no. The high court said again Monday that it will not hear the industry’s challenge to a New York law capping broadband prices for low-income customers.

The Maine Connectivity Authority continues to make steady inroads bridging the state’s long standing digital divide on the back of federal grants and a public private-partnership between Lincoln County and Consolidated Communications. In January, Fidium announced it was beginning construction on the project, which should bring fiber connectivity to 8,300 homes and businesses.

At the “Municipal Broadband and Innovative Financing Models: Unlocking Economic Growth” webinar today, experts provided an inside look at how successful community broadband networks can be funded. Co-hosted by ILSR's Community Broadband Networks initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband, the four-person panel provided key insights on finanacing network construction even with the uncertainty now swirling around the federal BEAD program.