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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Reports
Cook Report: Broadband Mapping, Connectivity, the Five Freedoms, and Prosperity
This is an interesting interview that explains why mapping is important and how it should be done to ensure the final product is useful for policy. Unfortunately, much of the broadband mapping in the U.S. has been done by a telco-front group called Connected Nation that produces shoddy, unverifiable maps without making any useful data public.
In this report, Gordon Cook interviews Sara Wedeman, a mapping expert who also works in behavioral economics. Cook describes the interview here, on his blog. The discussion ventures beyond mapping, offering keen insights into why universal broadband availability is so important.
A Study of the Economic and Community Benefits of Cedar Falls, Iowa's Municipal Telecommunications Network
Doris Kelley takes a look at one of the early citywide publicly owned broadband systems - Cybernet in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Cybernet is run by Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU) and is an HFC (cable) network that also offers some fiber-optic connections for businesses. In this paper, Kelley takes a look at some of the benefits the network has brought to the community.
Broadband Policy: Beyond Privatization, Competition, an Independent Regulation
Larry Press takes a rather quantitative approach to demonstrating that the deregulatory telecommunications policies of the past few decades have failed to produce the desired outcomes.
The Case for Public Fiber-to-the-User Systems
Jim Baller and Casey Lide are two of the foremost experts on municipal broadband systems in the United States. This report offers a clear and rational defense of publicly owned broadband systems. The discussion takes on philosophical, economic, and pragmatic arguments and comes to the conclusion that communities should not be prevented from building their own networks.
Future of Broadband in Saint Paul
This is the report developed by a Broadband Advisory Committee established in 2006 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It recommended a phased approach to building a network that could ultimately offer a full FTTH open-access network to everyone in Saint Paul.
Bureaucrats as Entrepreneurs: Do Municipal Telecommunications Providers Hinder Private Entrepreneurs?
We consider how government-owned enterprises affect privately owned rivals. Specifically, we compare the types of markets that municipally owned telecommunications providers in the United States serve to the types of markets that competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) serve.
Open Access Fiber Networks
At a high level, everyone understands what it means for a network to be open: (1) whatever else it might do, the network offers a pure “transmission” service, so that users can freely communicate with each other; (2) users can connect any devices they want, as long as they don’t harm the network; (3) the network connects to other networks; and (4) the network doesn’t discriminate among users or among the services, information, and applications users want to provide to each other. None of these points should be controversial. The concept of open networks is at least 40 years old in the US. The FCC’s seminal 1968 Carterphone decision held that a network operator may not forbid the use of devices on the network that benefit the user and do not harm the network itself. A decade later the FCC established its equipment registration program requiring interfaces to the telephone network to be standardized and fully disclosed.
Broadband and Economic Development: A Municipal Case Study from Florida
In this paper, we explore whether broadband investment by municipalities has an effect on economic growth. To do so, we employ an econometric model to compare economic growth in Lake County, Florida, with other similar Florida counties.
Empirical Study: Does Municipal Supply of Communications Crowd-Out Private Communications Investment?
There are 2,007 municipalities across the United States that provide electricity service to their constituents. Of these, over 600 provide some sort of communications services to the community.
Paying the Bills, Measuring the Savings
Full Title: Paying the Bills, Measuring the Savings: Assessing the Financial Viability and Community Benefits of Municipally Owned Cable Television Enterprises. This paper provides evidence that municipally owned and operated cable television enterprises are financially viable and provide large rate savings to their communities. The findings contradict allegations in Costs, Benefits, and Long-Term Sustainability of Municipal Cable Television Overbuilds, a 1998 paper authored by Ronald J. Rizzuto and Michael O. Wirth, that such enterprises are likely to be poor investments for cities.
Bringing Fiber to the User: Market Opportunity and Case Studies
Discussion about Bristol Virginia Utilities and Chelan Public Utility District in Washington.
Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU), a not-for-profit electric municipal utility, began offering voice and data services to local schools and government operating in the Bristol, Va., area in 2001. Using a fiber optic network, the company affordably provided the community with access to the most advanced communications technology available. As a result, BVU satisfied a primary objective of enabling economic prosperity and new business development from the improved communications infrastructure.
Municipal Fiber to the Home Deployments: Next Generation Broadband as a Municipal Utility
Deployments by municipalities were among the first FTTH systems operating in the United States. Though, in aggregate, they do not approach the number of FTTH subscribers of a Verizon – which currently accounts for two-thirds of all FTTH deployments in the U.S. – municipal systems do have a significant percentage of all non-Verizon subscribers. Further, they represent an important aspect of national FTTH deployment, namely, the option and opportunity for local elected officials and civic leaders to upgrade local connectivity - when private enterprise will not take on the job.