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Fiber to the Home

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Carver County, Minnesota’s CarverLink Closes In On 100% Gigabit Fiber Coverage

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

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Carver County map

“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

New ISP Halo Fiber Leveraging ARPA Grants To Help Bridge Alabama’s Digital Divide

A new provider named Halo Fiber is hoping to leverage hundreds of millions in recent Alabama middle mile broadband network grants to extend affordable fiber broadband to state residents long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The new provider says it’s not quite ready to reveal full launch details (including target markets, speeds, or pricing), but told ILSR it should enter its first four fiber markets later this year thanks in part to a flood of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding in the state.

“We will be releasing pricing and target markets early this summer in May or June,” Halo Co-founder and CEO Brian Snider told ILSR. “Speeds are still being finalized as well but they will be symmetrical from 250 up and down to multi gig options.”

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Alabama Fiber Network map

Halo says its primary focus will be to partner with public and private entities to build fast and affordable broadband networks, empower access to better education, telehealth, and economic opportunities, and ensure quality customer service in neglected markets.

“Ten years ago, myself and other members of the Halo team worked on an initiative that identified infrastructure gaps across the entire state,” Snider said in additional comments to BamaBuzz.

“We found that was a big gap in middle mile connectivity – especially in Alabama’s Black Belt where there was almost no high speed infrastructure,” he added.

Nearly a fifth of Alabama residents – or just over a million people – lack access to reliable high speed Internet.

New Policy Brief: Dollars and Sense In Debate Over BEAD Fiber Rules

The $42.5 billion federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program is facing what appears to be a significant overhaul as the new administration aims to alter, among other things, one of program’s key tenets: a preference for building fiber networks.

Meanwhile, a new ILSR policy brief – “BEAD Should Continue to Prioritize Fiber Internet Network Investments” – makes the case for why “these changes would repeat past policy mistakes and waste billions of dollars while delivering subpar Internet access to rural families at much higher prices.”

The brief goes on to succinctly describe why fiber networks should continue to be prioritized:

“In designing BEAD, Congress recognized that it was foolish to spend thousands of dollars per home every 5-10 years to deliver obsolete connections and chose instead to build fiber optic networks that will last generations – ultimately both saving taxpayer dollars and delivering an equitable Internet access option to millions of rural homes.”

And while the policy brief points to important long-term consequences that should be considered to ensure rule changes don’t squander a “generational investment” by building “something more temporary and inferior to the services found on every street in urban and suburban areas,” the brief does not argue that other technologies should not be a part of the mix.

“To be clear, BEAD’s priority for fiber does not bar the use of other technologies when appropriate. In cases where the cost of fiber is simply too great, other technologies are on the table – likely wireless options of both terrestrial and low-earth orbit,” the brief says.

Four Tribal Communities in Alaska Ready To Come Out Of Connectivity Freeze

If the cloud of uncertainty suddenly hovering over federal broadband funding programs is lifted, four Tribal communities in Alaska can fully celebrate the announcement last week that state-of-the-art fiber connectivity will soon arrive at their homes on Kodiak Island just off the south coast of Alaska.

On January 16, Old Harbor Native Corporation secured a portion of $162 million in grants in the second round of funding from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) administered by NTIA.

Old Harbor Native Corporation will undertake the project, named Project Nunapet for an Alutiiq word meaning “our lands,” in partnership with Alaska Communications.

According to a recent press announcement, a 155-mile subsea cable originating at Alaska Communications’ fiber landing station in Homer will cross the Shelikof Strait to reach Kodiak Island in Ouzinkie before circling the eastern coast of the island with stops in Narrow Cape, Old Harbor, and Akhiok. Project Nunapet will also bring fiber-to-the-home connectivity to Old Harbor, Chiniak, Akhiok, and Womens Bay.

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Alaska Kodiak Island map

The two corporations hope that the infrastructure will serve as a foundation for future network expansion in the area.

Wadsworth, Ohio Converting City-Owned Broadband Network From Coaxial To Fiber

Wadsworth, Ohio officials say they’re making steady progress on the expansion of a city-owned broadband network that’s extending affordable fiber connectivity to the city’s nearly 25,000 residents.

Originally a coaxial-based network, the city now says it’s in the process of delivering Wi-Fi to many city residents while they go block-by-block removing older coaxial cable and upgrading residents to more future-proof fiber optic connectivity.

All told, city officials say they currently have around 5,800 existing subscribers that will ultimately be upgraded to fiber.

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Wadsworth Citylink logo

Wadsworth, Ohio first launched its hybrid fiber-coaxial CityLink network back in 1997, and has been offering broadband, television, and phone access to the community ever since.

In 2020 ILSR spoke with Wadsworth IT Manager Steve Lange in Episode 438 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast.

Affordable, Popular Alternatives To Monopoly Power

The network, unlike many similar deployments, is separate from the city’s municipal electric department. Wadsworth Assistant Service Director Mike Testa recently told the Medina County Gazette that the city has completed around 400 fiber installations so far, including a recently updated area along Weatherstone Drive where 120 homes were connected.

Sherwood, Oregon Ferments ‘Future-Proof’ Fiber To Preserve and Expand Municipal Network

In the City of Sherwood, a mostly residential bedroom community 16 miles south of Portland, officials have been quietly cultivating a digital vineyard across Oregon’s “Gateway to Wine Country.”

As part of its on-going work to build out a citywide fiber network, Sherwood Broadband recently secured a $9 million grant from the Oregon Broadband Office Broadband Deployment Program (BDP) to continue expanding Sherwood’s municipally-owned network into neighboring rural communities just outside city limits.

The grant award is part of $132 million in federal Rescue Plan funds the state is doling out to an array of community-owned broadband initiatives for 16 projects across 17 counties.

Award winners include Beacon Broadband, a subsidiary of the Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative ($19.4 million); Jefferson County ($19.2 million); Douglas Fast Net, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Douglas Electric Cooperative ($8.5 million); the Idaho-based member-owned cooperative Farmers Mutual Telephone Company, which offers broadband service in Malheur County, OR ($18.9 million); and a handful of independent providers like Blue Mountain Networks ($6.5 million) and Ziply Fiber ($10.2 million), recently acquired by Bell Canada.

Bolt Broadband One Of Many Winners In Latest Oklahoma ARPA Grants

The Oklahoma Broadband Office (OBO) says local providers have broken ground on several new grant-fueled fiber projects designed to provide high-speed Internet access to long unserved or underserved communities across wide swaths of the Sooner state.

According to two different announcements by the state’s broadband office, the OBO recently greenlit $65.9 million in new fiber expansion initiatives in the Southern part of the state, as well as another $24.6 million in deployments for the northern-central part of the state.

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Oklahoma Bolt Fiber boring tractor

The fiber upgrade projects were made possible via $158 million in Capital Projects Fund grants made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The grants are expected to help fund more than 50 projects in 28 counties.

In the Southern part of the state, $43.2 million in federal grants – plus $22.8 million in matching funds – will connect over 2,000 unserved homes and businesses in partnership with Medicine Park Telephone, Oklahoma Fiber Network, Oklahoma Western Telephone, Phoenix Long Distance, Southern Plains Cable, Southwest Oklahoma Telephone, and Texhoma Fiber.

New York Awards $13.1 Million In New Low Income Housing Broadband Grants

New York State officials have unveiled the first round of broadband deployment grants made possible by the state’s $100 million Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP), which aims to drive affordable fiber and Wi-Fi to low-income state residents trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.

As part of the program, the state recently announced it will be spending $13.1 million to connect 14,167 lower income residents across Buffalo, Rochester, upper Manhattan and the Bronx with both affordable gigabit-capable fiber – and low cost Wi-Fi.

Flume, the partner ISP chosen by the state, will offer residents the choice of three broadband tiers: 100/20 megabit per second (Mbps) fiber for $10 per month, symmetrical 200 Mbps fiber for $15 per month, and symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) fiber for $30 per month. All three subsidized fiber options will be locked at that price point until 2034, according to the state.

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Fox Hall affordable and senior living housing complex in Manhattan

“In today's digital age, access to reliable, affordable high-speed Internet isn't just about convenience – it's about ensuring every New Yorker can participate fully in our modern economy and society,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said of the new grants. “Through these strategic investments, we're not only installing fiber and infrastructure, we're opening doors to education, healthcare and economic opportunity.”

Faster, Better, Cheaper

North Dakota Nearing 100 Percent Fiber Connectivity

With the incoming Trump administration and the ascendance of GOP leaders taking aim at key aspects of broadband expansion initiatives embedded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, industry insiders expect the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to likely get a major facelift in the coming months.

GOP Senate leaders have signaled they will push for BEAD to be scaled back or reconfigured.

One way they may do that is to remove the law’s preference for funding fiber network deployments and create a path for subsidizing Musk’s satellite Internet company, arguing that Starlink would be a more cost-effective solution to bring broadband to rural America.

Late last week, in fact, NTIA released its “Final Guidance for BEAD Funding of Alternative Broadband Technology.” And while the updated guidelines still considers fiber deployments as “priority broadband projects,” the agency administering the BEAD program now explicitly says that states can award “LEO Capacity Subgrants.”

Waves in Baltimore Gets $2 Million To Deploy Fiber To More Apartment Complexes

The City of Baltimore is using $2 million of its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to bring fiber to 12 new city apartment buildings. It’s the latest effort in the city’s attempt to bridge the digital divide and bring affordable Internet access to long-marginalized communities.

According to the formal announcement from the Baltimore Mayor’s Office, Mayor Brandon Scott and the Baltimore Office of Broadband and Digital Equity (OBDE) have awarded the $2 million grant to Waves, a nonprofit formerly known as Project Waves.

“This grant program is more than just wires and signals – it’s about unlocking opportunity,” Scott said of the announcement. “By partnering with Waves, we’re ensuring residents with the greatest need have a chance to learn, connect, and build a better future for themselves and their families.”

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Project Waves ribbon cutting

Waves was first launched in 2018 in direct response to the Trump FCC’s repeal of net neutrality and the general failures of federal telecom policy to address digital inequity. Project Waves (profiled by ILSR last year) initially used Point-to-Multipoint wireless connectivity to deliver free wireless broadband service to about 300 multi-dwelling unit (MDU) residents.

In the last few years, the organization has shifted to Hybrid Fiber Coaxial connectivity to provide more reliable connectivity by running fiber to the buildings and leveraging the existing wiring in the multi-dwelling units it serves, providing access to more than 1,000 local Baltimore residents, at no cost to residents.