Santa Monica's approach to building community owned broadband that puts the community first has been wildly successful. They have not focused on providing residential connections, and likely will not in the future, focusing instead on meeting their municipal needs and businesses to spur economic development. They can deliver up to 10Gbps to businesses that need it and they have connectivity throughout the City for whatever projects they choose to pursue. This includes free Wi-Fi in parks, controlling traffic signaling (prioritizing mass transit, for instance), and smart parking applications. On top of all that, their investments have saved more than a million dollars that would have been wasted on slower, less reliable connections provided by leased lines. In the matter of controlling traffic signals, Santa Monica wants all intersections with fiber-optics.

Arizona Avenue, the Mid-City area and the city's office district will all be getting makeovers if the City Council approves two contracts that will connect 40 signalized intersections to City Hall's centralized traffic control system. The work represents the fourth phase in a five-phase effort to connect all of Santa Monica's intersections using fiber optic cables.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

Tullahoma's LightTUBe FTTH network, owned and operated by the Tullahoma Utilities Board, has attracted J2 Software Solutions to locate its headquarters in town [PDF]. Its CEO, Jerry Wright offers some background:

Wright said J2, which specializes in providing high-tech software to law enforcement agencies to handle dispatching, records management and other related functions, needed to have the highest speed, most dependable Internet service available. He said TUB, through its LightTUBe broadband communications service, provides exactly what his company needs to thrive and expand. "What LightTUBe has is top of the line," Wright said, adding that normal cable TV service and higher speed digital subscriber line, commonly referred to as DSL, were not adequate to meet the company’s volume and demand.

Sounds like confirmation of the story we we just wrote about AT&T's CEO admitting DSL is obsolete. Congratulations to Tullahoma for making smart investments in its own future.

We watch in frustration as the federal government, dressed as Charlie Brown asks AT&T, wearing Lucy's blue dress and smiling brightly, if she really will hold the football properly this time. "Oh yes, Charlie, this time I really will create all those jobs if you let us buy T-Mobile," says AT&T Lucy. Over at HuffPo, Art Brodsky recently revisited AT&T's promises in California to create jobs, lower broadband prices, and heal the infirm if the state would just deregulate the cable video market -- which it did, 4 years ago. California upheld its end of the bargain -- wanna guess if AT&T did? Hint: Charlie Brown ended up on his back then too. The answer comes from James Weitkamp (via Art's HuffPo post), from the Communications Workers of America, a union that all too often acts in the interests of big companies like AT&T and CenturyLink rather than workers:

"AT&T and Verizon have slashed the frontline workforce, and there simply are not enough technicians available to restore service in a timely manner, nor enough customer service representatives to take customers' calls. Let me share some statistics. Since 2004, AT&T reduced its California landline frontline workforce by 40%, from about 29,900 workers to fewer than 18,000 today. The company will tell you that they need fewer wireline employees because customers have cut the cord going wireless or switched to another provider, but over this same period, AT&T access line loss has been just under nine percent nationally. I would be shocked if line loss in California corresponds to the 40 percent reduction in frontline employees. 
"Similarly, since 2006 Verizon California cut its frontline landline workforce by one-third, from more than 7,000 in 2005 to about 4,700 today. I venture that Verizon has not lost one third of its land lines in the state."

Note that AT&T, Verizon, and other massive incumbents like Comcast have been wildly profitable over this term. The same trend holds in cellular wireless - as noted by the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. wireless industry is booming as more consumers and businesses snap up smartphones, tablet computers and billions of wireless applications.