SandyNet has introduced some incredible fiber connectivity deals for local businesses. Like residents, businesses can now get gigabit service for $60 per month and 100 Mbps for $40 per month. The utility also continues to offer enterprise connections, with rates established on a case-by-case basis.

Speeds are symmetrical which can be a critical factor for businesses that often must upload large amounts of data to work with clients. 

Until SandyNet began to deploy the FTTH network, business customers that needed more bandwidth relied on the town's dedicated Wi-Fi service which offered advertised speeds of up to 30 Mbps download, however, that cost $175 per month.

Smaller businesses could sign up for traditional Wi-Fi - the system residents also used - but speeds maxed out at only 5 Mbps or 10 Mbps download. Prices were $25 per month and $35 per month respectively.

Wi-Fi business customers can now make the switch to fiber for no extra fee. Those that are new customers to SandyNet will need to pay a one-time $350 connection fee.

Hungry for more on the SandyNet story? For more on how they did it, check out our video Gig City Sandy: Home of the $60 Gig. You can also listen our interview with Joe Knapp in Episode #17 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. 

According to a recent report in the Jackson Sun, the city of Jackson, Tennessee is now the seventh “Gig City” in the state of Tennessee. Jackson Energy Authority (JEA), Jackson’s municipal utility received the special recognition at a January business summit.  The Sun focuses on several existing and expected economic benefits that accompany municipal gigabit connectivity.

“These ultra-fast Internet speeds will help to assure innovation as it relates to the next generation of education, medical care, public safety and economic development,” JEA CEO John Ferrell said.

Ferrell also noted that ultra-fast Internet connectivity benefitted businesses in the Jackson community by allowing them to avoid excess inventory while still being able to provide customers with fast access to physical products when they need them.

"A good example is where an automotive supply company produces a part for a car at one plant — such as an interior headliner — and ships that part to the assembly plant to be installed in the car," Ferrell said. "Many times, this part is produced on the same day at one plant that it is installed at another plant."

Community leaders in Jackson hope their new Gig City status can help them to gain the same kind of economic development benefits that have come to places like Chattanooga, Tullahoma, and Morristown over the past several years. EPB told the Sun:

"The economic impact has been huge," J. Ed. Marston, vice president of the Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, said. "New companies have moved to Chattanooga, and a lot of investors, outside investors, are looking at Chattanooga."

Our report, Broadband at the Speed of Light: How Three Communities Built Next-Generation Networks, delves into Chattanooga’s story. Where communities invest in municipal networks, economic development almost always follows. Check out our Municipal Networks and Economic Development page for more examples.

Two more communities in Ohio and Colorado are seeking information through broadband feasibility studies.

The Aspen Daily News recently reported that Pitkin County has already completed phase one of its feasibility study. This past spring the primary Internet path coming into Aspen via CenturyLink fiber was severed causing widespread outage for 19 hours. The first half of the feasibility study sought ways to introduce a redundant path.

The first option was a 100 percent fiber solution and a hybrid fiber/microwave solution was proposed as an alternative. For option A, the consultants recommended a fiber backbone along Highway 82 with fiber lines running into Redstone, Marble, and Snowmass. Microwave could serve nearby Fryingpan Valley. Option B would travel the same route but make more use of microwave.

Early cost estimates:

Estimated operating costs for option A would be more than $122,000 per year, while option B would cost just over $92,000 annually. Yearly maintenance costs for the fiber-only model were projected at just under $62,000, and the hybrid model would run more than $123,000.

A survey or residents in several communities in Pitkin County indicated most are not happy with speeds or reliability of current Internet access. Approximately half of the region does not have broadband as defined by the FCC at 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. 

[One of the consultants] said that according to the survey, customer satisfaction in the area is “significantly low.” It also noted that 34 percent of responders said they run a business out of their home, and an additional 10 percent replied that they will start up an in-house business within the next three years.

Adams relayed that more than half of respondents felt that the county should build some sort of “state-of-the-art communications network.”

“It’s clear that the residents would like to see the county do something,” he said.

Businesses are now finding affordable connectivity in Eugene, Oregon, through a partnership between the city, the Lane Council of Governments (LCOG), and the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB), reports the Register-Guard. A new pilot project has spurred gigabit Internet access in a small downtown area for as little as $100 per month.

According to the article, the city contributed $100,000, LCOG added $15,000, and EWEB spent $25,000 to fund last mile connections to two commercial locations. LCOG's contribution came from an $8.3 million BTOP grant.

The fiber shares conduit space with EWEB's electrical lines; the dark fiber is leased to private ISPs who provide retail services. XS Media and Hunter Communications are serving customers; other firms have expressed an interest in using the infrastructure.

Moonshadow Mobile, a firm that creates custom maps with massive amounts of data, saves money with the new connection while working more efficiently.

To upload just one of the large files Moonshadow works with daily — the California voter file — used to take more than an hour. Now it can be done in 77 seconds, [CEO Eimer] Boesjes said.

“This completely changes the way our data engineers work,” he said.

“It’s a huge cost savings, and it makes it much easier for us to do our work. We can do our work faster.”

The upgrade also will help spur innovation, he said.

“We can start developing tools that are tuned into fiber speeds that will be ubiquitous five to 10 years down the road, so that gives us a huge advantage,” Boesjes said.

The upgraded fiber also could bring more work and jobs to Eugene, he said.

“In December one of my customers said, ‘You can hire another system administrator in Eugene and we’ll move this work from Seattle to Eugene if you have fiber,’ and [at that time] I didn’t have fiber so that opportunity went away,” Boesjes said.

Erie County's leadership recently decided it is time to get serious about publicly owned broadband infrastructure. The Erie County Legislature approved funding to engage a consultant for a feasibility study. Patrick B. Burke spearheaded the initiative, reports the county's website. Burke stated:

“Consumers, businesses, schools and government agencies need to have affordable and accessible high speed internet service in order to function in today’s world; the build out of a fiber cable network is a no-brainer. This is a win for social justice, economic development and public safety.”

In addition to funding, the county has also formed a Municipal Broadband Committee and released a policy agenda which addresses service problems in the county. Next the county will issue an RFP for a consultant.

Earlier this year, the Broadband Committee released a report [PDF] that estimated a municipal fiber network would, among other things, boost GDP in the county by 1.1 percent or $450 million per year. That report recommends public ownership of infrastructure, with private partners acting as managing operators with private ISPs offering services via the network.

The report also noted that the Buffalo Metropolitan Area peak speeds come in 294th in the state at 22.2 Mbps. The horrible result is in part due to dead zones in the southern areas where there is NO Internet access. Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state - this result is completely unacceptable in the 21st century.

In March, Burke told WBFO:

"This has to happen...There is no doubt that there will be a build- out of fiber networks in this region and throughout the country."

Community leaders in the city of Biloxi want to expand massive water and sewer infrastructure improvements to include broadband infrastructure. The City Attorney Gerald Blessey recently addressed members from the Leadership Gulf Coast group and during the speech he shared the idea to spread fiber throughout Biloxi.

Mayor FoFo Gilich has already spoken with the Governor who, reports WXXV 25, is interested in the idea. Streets in town are being excavated for the water and sewer project and Gilich wants to use this opportunity to install conduit and fiber.

Biloxi recently settled a lawsuit for just under $5 million with British Petrolium (BP) for economic losses arising from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. Community leaders consider fiber a strong investment to help the area recover.

“And not only is it going to be economic development, but it’s going to be quality of life. Our school system needs this. The medical system needs this. The casino industry needs this,” said [Vincent Creel, city of Biloxi Public Affairs Manager]. 

The Biloxi plan may be happening in coordination with a larger initiative to bring fiber to the coastal area. The Mississippi Gulf Coast Fiber Ring would link 12 cities along the southern coast; each community would determine their own level of service.

The Sun Herald reports that Governor Phil Bryant has offered an additional $15 million in BP state settlement funds to deploy fiber. While any network is still in the idea stage, the plan will likely involve establishing a nonprofit organization to own and operate the fiber ring.

The Coast counties need the economic development a fiber network could bring. According to the Sun Herald:

Since Hurricane Katrina, the recession and oil spill, the three Coast counties are down 2,700 jobs compared to the pre-recession numbers of 2008, and down 5,600 jobs compared to pre-Hurricane Katrina in 2005, [Blessey] said.

…

Momentum is growing in WiredWest territory and each town that votes takes on a fresh enthusiasm. New Salem is one of the latest communities to overwhelmingly support joining the municipal broadband cooperative. The Recorder reported that all but one of the 189 registered New Salem voters chose to authorize borrowing $1.5 million to move forward with the initiative. There are now 22 towns that have joined.

According to Moderator Calvin Layton, a typical town meeting draws 60 to 70 voters, far less than this one did. Apparently, investing in better connectivity is a hot button issue in places like New Salem, where Internet access is slow, scant, and expensive.

Poor connectivity has impacted local commerce and even driven some residents with home-based businesses away from New Salem. For Travis Miller, a role playing game designer, and his wife Samantha Scott, an IT professional, the town’s slow Internet speeds were holding them back so they moved away. In a letter to the New Salem Broadband Committee, Miller wrote:

A lack of broadband Internet service was one of the elements in our decision to move. A substantial online presence has become a basic requirement for successful table top game designers. Many of the platforms used to interact with fans and clients require broadband service. Our lack limits my income and makes further penetration into the market difficult if not impossible.

Adam Frost — owner of an online toy store, The Wooden Wagon — also found New Salem’s slow Internet speeds to be a limiting factor for his business. He said:

Though The Wooden Wagon is a specialty business, our needs are not unique: pretty much any business owner or person hoping to telecommute has the same requirements. Businesses outside the region with whom we work expect us to be at the same level technologically as they: they will not make concessions just because our Internet service is outdated. We must keep up, or be left behind.

Community Network Services (CNS) has been serving six rural southwest Georgia communities since the late 1990s. Recently, we learned that the network added two more communities to its service area when it took over a small municipal cable system in Doerun and purchased a private cable company in Norman Park.

CNS has been our radar since 2012 when we learned how Thomasville, Cairo, Camilla, Moultrie, Baconton, and Pelham joined together to create a regional network that reached into 4 counties. The network has brought better access to rural Georgia, improved educational opportunities, and helped lower taxes.

Mike Scott, Moultrie City Manager, gave us details on the expansions into both of these very small communities. Scott repeated the CNS philosophy:

We don't look at it as a just a business plan…we look at it as economic development for the entire county.

Doerun, population 774, had its own municipal DSL and cable TV system but it needed significant upgrades. Doerun also faced increased costs for content, technology, and personnel challenges, and customers wanted faster connectivity. CNS and the community of Doerun had discussed the possibility of a CNS take over of the system in the past but network officials hesitated to take on the investment until Doerun upgraded due to the condition of the system. Doerun's school was already connected to the CNS network.

In addition to the problems with the network, an upgrade required considerable make-ready work. CNS estimated that preparing existing utility poles for fiber would be expensive, according to Scott, and network officials did not feel comfortable making that additional investment. 

Like many other small rural communities, Doerun operates its own municipal electric utility. The electric system was also in need of upgrades but due to lack of available capital, the city would need to borrow to fund the work. CNS and Doerun worked out an agreement to transfer the cable TV and Internet access system to CNS for mutual benefit.

In June, 2005, voters in Lafayette chose to invest in a municipal FTTH network, now known as the only municipal gigabit network in the state, LUS Fiber. To celebrate the milestone, City-Parish President Joey Durel has declared July LUS Fiber Month. Current customers' Internet access has been boosted up to gigabit speed at no extra charge for July and the city will celebrate with a series of events this week. The entire community is invited to participate onsite but most of the events will be broadcast live so if you are not there, you can be part of the celebration. See the list of events below.

In the past ten years, the network has attracted thousands of new jobs, created better educational opportunities, and helped bridge the digital divide. Just last fall, three high tech companies committed to bringing approximately 1,300 new jobs to the "Silicon Bayou." The presence of the network, the University of Louisiana's local top-ranked computer science program, and its quality grads were two more key factors for choosing Lafayette. In April, Standard & Poor gave LUS Fiber an A+ bond rating based on the system's "sustained strong fixed charge coverage and liquidity levels, and the communication system’s improved cash flow."

The July issue of the local Independent tells the story of the network. According to Terry Huval, Director of LUS Fiber, the self-reliant streak has always been part of Lafayette's culture - in 1996 the city celebrated its 100th year vote to create its own electric and water system. The Independent article describes that culture as it permeated the vision shared by City-Parish President Joey Durel and  Huval.

The community of Lafayette voted 10 years ago this month to create its own municipal FTTH network. In doing so, they created a standard that other communities have tried to emulate. On Tuesday, July 14th at 1:30 p.m. CDT, City-Parish President Joey Durel and LUS Fiber Director Terry Huval will host a Reddit Ask Me Anything about the initiative.

This is a great opportunity to learn about the community's vision, mobilization efforts, and the way it overcame challenges to create a highly successful municipal fiber network.

Prepare your questions and join the conversation at http://reddit.com/r/iama

Here is your video invitation from Terry Huval: