In 2011, we brought you information about New Hampshire FastRoads, an open access project. At the time, the discussion centered around legislative events. We decided to look into the FastRoads project for an update.

The FastRoads project received partial funding from the Network New Hampshire Now (NNHN) project and its American Recovery and Reinvestment grants. Private donations and matching funds added to the $65.9 million budget to expand broadband across the state. The entire NNHN network planning includes middle- and last-mile fiber installations, along with a middle-mile microwave public safety network. The NNHN network will span ten counties, some of which are still relying on dial-up.

The FastRoads network will bring together 22 communities and 220 Community Anchor Institutions on the western side of the state. The project also includes last-mile networks in Rindge and Enfield and is expected to connect approximately 1,300 businesses and residents in those two towns, many who rely on dial-up.

In March, 2011, FastRoads began the first phase of the project when it awarded the design and project management contract to Design Nine. According to the Design Nine website, the fiber build- out will cover 25% of the entire state.

Shortly after hiring Design Nine, FastRoads released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the building phase of the network. The contract went to Clemsford, Massachusetts' Waveguide last October.

Completion of the project is scheduled for June 30, 2013.

TCI wouldn’t go down easily, of course. For the next year, as the City built out its system, the cable giant took advantage of the utility’s biggest weakness: All of its plans, from the kind of equipment it would buy to its construction schedule, were public information. So when Tacoma Power put in an order with its supplier for, say, coaxial cable, it found that TCI had already bought every foot of it. “But we started in one area of town and luckily we were able to get just enough material,” says Pat Bacon, Click’s technical operations manager. “We just inched our way through it and, before you knew it, we were a presence.” By July 1998, Click had its first cable subscriber, and the first broadband Internet user signed on in December 1999.

Washington's Olympic Peninsula is one step closer to being laced in a new fiber-optic network. The first link in the new Peninsula-wide broadband project is between Blyn and Sequim and will serve the Jamestown S'Klallam tribe from its new Blyn library to a local medical clinic located in Jamestown. Also benefiting from the new expansion will be the Sequim Library.  Thirty people, including state and federal elected officials, a representative from the Jamestown S'Klallam tribe, NoaNet, and local public safety professionals, recently gathered together at the Sequim Library to celebrate the new expansion, as reported by Jeff Chew in the Peninsula Daily News.

Clallum County PUD's network is part of NoaNet, an open access wholesale only network, and now has 24 miles of fiber-optic cables between Port Angeles and Sequim. From Chew's artcle:

“High-speed broadband is the most exciting thing that has happened in law enforcement in my career,” Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher told about 30 at the Sequim Library.

Gallagher said broadband Internet will allow officers to work faster and more efficiently, enabling them to multitask in their patrol cars, such as checking a motorist's identification while checking on a city webcam and communicating all at once.

The construction of the project is overseen by NoaNet. The network is planned to run from Brinnon to Port Ludlow and  Port Townsend and then across the Olympic Peninsula to Neah Bay to Forks. This portion of the project, from Blyn to Sequim, was chosen first  because it was part of the first round of funding and because it is less complex than other legs of the network.

The 1 gig network is slated to be an aerial build, except where existing utilities are underground, in which instances, fiber cable will also be placed underground. Leverett plans to use a $40,0000 planning grant, obtained from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, to hire G4S Technology to design the last mile fiber-optic network to connect to MBI's stimulus-funded middle mile. The middle mile project is scheduled to be completed in June, 2013, and Leverett plans to be ready to connect soon after. The goal is to have every home connected with fiber by 2014.

Whereas most communities explicitly choose not to use tax revenue to pay for a community network, Leverett's present plan is for a slight increase in local taxes to assist in the financing. The town will borrow the amount necessary to build the network and pay it back over 20 years using a combination of tax revenue and revenues from the new broadband service. Peter d'Errico, Chair of the MBI Grant Broadband Committee observes that homeowners' net spending figures will decline once the system is in place. From the article:

A town survey concluded a municipal network could offer better Internet and phone service at far cheaper rates than private providers, he said.

"It will be a little more on their tax bill and a lot less on their Internet bill, so overall they will be pay less," d'Errico said.

In past reporting, we have briefly discussed Pend Orielle PUD’s efforts at filling the broadband service gap in rural areas. People living in rural areas, while possibly needing connectivity more than urbanites, are often left to fend for themselves. In this case, the community was largely passed over by the private sector but took up the challenge to do it themselves. In addition to implementing a pilot program in 2011, they attempted to restore their right to make their own decisions about broadband.

In a commentary posted on the Pend Orielle PUD website, Commissioner Dan Peterson describes the agency’s commitment to their first priority, providing reliable electricity, and how expansion of their fiber network will improve the process of delivery. Yes, there are risks of building a community fiber-optic network, notes Peterson, but is has been done, done well, and will enhance the ability to fulfill that first priority. Additionally, the Commissioner notes that broadband access is something the people of Pend Orielle County need to stay competitive and gain any possible edge:

It increases educational opportunities, economic vitality, property values, and jobs. Our rural county will leap forward in this information age with state-of-the-art infrastructure. Without this gift, such progress is otherwise impossible.

The Pend Orielle PUD received stimulus funds, which it used to expand the network, but are considering the fiscal future of the network and current and future customers. Peterson and the PUD sought legislative changes, SB 6675, that would give the PUD the authority to offer retail services on its network, currently a no-no. In his commentary, Peterson attempted to allay the fears of those he correctly anticipated would be opposed to such authority – the potential competition.

“We are partnering with DISH Network to provide more entertainment options to consumers through different mediums. DISH is at the forefront of recognizing that more and more people are changing the way they watch TV and that fewer of them are viewing their favorite programs on schedules determined by the content providers,” said Todd Marriott, Executive Director of UTOPIA. “DISH Network is one of the best content delivery companies out there, and we’re grateful to be doing business with them to offer content people want at a reasonable price.”

First, let’s consider that DISH already has a lot of customers in UTOPIA areas. They could immediately start marketing both data and voice service to those subscribers. Given that they can cross-subsidize using revenues from other markets, using the MStar tactic of aggressive marketing would be sustainable. They also have installation and customer service staff in place to handle that influx. That cross-subsidy can also help them pick up new customers on a triple-play package. One of the main barriers to signing up new customers has been the acquisition cost. DISH could potentially opt to subsidize or entirely eat the install cost as a way of speeding up deployment, something they have the cash to do.

Erik Poulsen, government relations director at Washington Public Utility District Association, said PUDs have used the wholesale authority they were granted in 2000, building 4,500 miles of fiber-optic cable, investing $300 million in infrastructure and joining with 150 retail providers.