Whip City Fiber has big plans to serve more residents in its hometown of Westfield, Massachusetts, and is already helping some of its neighbors as they seek better connectivity.

Expanding At Home

In February, Westfield City Council unanimously approved the municipal utility’s request for a $15 million bond to fund expansion to more areas of the city. Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity is currently available to approximately 15 percent of the city. The additional funds will allow Westfield Gas + Electric (WG+E) to expand the network to about 70 percent of the community, or about 10,000 additional households. WG+E is planning the expansion on a two-year timeline.

As in the past, WG+E will use the “fiberhood” approach, giving priority to neighborhoods with the highest interest. They will also consider seasonal practicalities and the locations of existing infrastructure. According to their announcement, they will be installing overhead services this month and will begin underground installation when the ground thaws.

As Westfield’s FTTH has grown piece by piece, they’ve had opportunities to work out the rough patches and determine what challenges communities in western Massachusetts may face when they build out Internet networks. Now, WG+E is reaching out to other communities who are looking for guidance.

State Finally Releases Funding

A change in recent policy from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) has enabled Westfield and it's neighbors to have a little more control over their telecommunications future.

Since 2014, MBI has grappled with how it intends to distribute $50 million worth of state funding designated for communities in need of better connectivity. After several changes in policy, the agency required rural towns to get approval from MBI for business plans and to work with the organization before they could receive funding. The agency and the state have been widely criticized for its heavy-handed, yet slow-footed approach.

Mayor Gary Fuller won’t tolerate lies about his city. In a recent Opelika City News release titled, Setting the Record Straight - Response to Yellowhammer article, Mayor Fuller corrected the numerous misleading errors in a piece written by Jordan LaPorta. The Yellowhammer article covered a Taxpayer's Protection Alliance Foundation (TPA) report, filled with errors and misrepresentation about municipal Internet networks. TPA is one of the many front groups that describe themselves as "nonpartisan think tanks" but are actually funded by industry leaders with an agenda to advance policies that limit competition.

Mayor Fuller has seen untruths written about Opelika before, but this time he felt it was time to fight the flying monkeys.

Get Your Facts Right

Mayor Fuller corrected a number of brazen untruths LaPorta tossed out in his article, including:

• OPS ONE is not taxpayer-funded - No, LaPorta, there are no tax subsidies. Additionally, there have not been any federal or state grants used for the network.
• Expenditures grossly overstated - LaPorta incorrectly attributes the cost of an electric grid modernization ($20 million) to the cost of the FTTH network ($23 million). The two are not one and the same. Do your homework.
• Number of Gig subscribers - LaPorta reports that OPS has one Gigabit subscriber, but they actually have five residential customers who take the service. The city council has recently reduced the price to $94.99 for Gigabit service in some bundles.

This Is Why Opelika Is A Success

OPS ONE is generating annual gross revenues of around $5.5M after three years serving the community. There are more than 3,200 subscribers and testimonials of customers who appreciate obtaining service from a hometown Internet access provider. Even though OPS ONE is still young, states Mayor Fuller, it’s on track:

Last April, the small town of Waverly in central Iowa connected its first customers to test the new, citywide, Fiber-to-the Home (FTTH) network. After years of sub-par service from incumbent providers, the residents wanted something better. After securing funding, the municipal Waverly Utilities set to work on the Connect Waverly network. Services officially became available for everyone in July 2016.

Today, Connect Waverly stretches to all 10,000 homes and businesses in the town and provides high-speed Internet service of up to 1 Gigabit per second (1,000 Mbps) symmetrical to more than 1,200 residential and commercial customers. The Courier's Cedar Valley Business Monthly reports that Waverly's high take rate is double their six-month goal.

Jennifer Bloker, Waverly Utilities’ Director of Marketing and Public Information, told the Courier’s Cedar Valley Business Monthly, “We’re investing back into our community. We care about Waverly as a whole.”

Collaboration with Cedar Falls

Waverly Utilities had support from another utility, the long-running municipal network in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The two towns are collaborating and will share ownership of new equipment, such as an IPTV head-end system, to serve the customers on both networks. 

Waverly Utilities’ Director of Telecom Service, Jeff Magsamen, appreciates the support. Magsamen told the Courier:

“We have a good partnership with them. They’re always there to answer questions, they’ve helped us out a lot. Drawing on CFU’s [Cedar Falls Utilities] decades of experience has benefited us greatly.” 

Learn More About Waverly And Beyond

After consideration and debate, city leaders in Gainesville, Florida, have decided to move ahead with a feasibility study to explore possible municipal Internet network models. Residents are plagued by high incumbent Internet access rates and want the city’s telecommunications utility to dig into solutions.

At a recent meeting, the city commission heard from Gainesville Regional Utility’s (GRUCom) chief business service officer, Lewis Walton, about potential models, costs, and GRUCom’s current functions. Walton also offered some rough cost estimates. The commission unanimously approved the motion to design a study, but several commissioners remain skeptical.

GATORNET For Apartments And Businesses

Even though single-family dwellings don’t have access to Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) from the city, some apartments and businesses have been connected to publicly owned fiber for years. 

GATORNET offers Internet access to apartment complexes, many where University of Florida students live. The university is part of the Gig.U initiative, a collaboration between more than 30 research universities and the communities where they are from to develop high-quality connectivity in and around campuses.

Even before the collaboration with Gig.U, GRUCom had been offering services to government facilities and local businesses as early as 1996. The utility now has more than 500 miles of fiber throughout Alachua County, along with a data center; they also offer wireless services.

Residents Flexing Muscles

According to Connected Gainesville, a grassroots group advocating for city involvement in improving local connectivity, Gainesville households pay the highest Internet access rates in the state. They want GRUCom to offer competition to the incumbent. Bryan Eastman, one of the co-founders, recently told the Gainesville Sun:

In Wisconsin, Sun Prairie Utilities (SPU) and TDS Telecommunications Corp. have signed a letter of intent (LOI) for the sale of the city’s municipal network to the Chicago-based telecommunications company. The parties plan on having a final deal hashed out and concluded by the end of March.

 TDS Plans For Growth

According to Sun Prairie Mayor Paul Esser, approximately 700 homes are connected to the SPU network, leaving 12,000 households left to be hooked up. TDS has expressed a desire to accelerate the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) expansion, in keeping with its recent growth strategy.

 “We plan to expand the network to launch 1 Gigabit broadband speeds, as well as phone service, and our industry leading IPTV solution, TDS TV, to residents,” [Drew Petersen, vice president of external affairs and communications at TDS] said. “For businesses, we would look at providing dedicated fiber connections and our hosted VoIP phone solution, TDS managed IP Hosted.”

TDS has also recently acquired Interlinx Communications and its subsidiary Tonaquint Networks in southern Utah.

Sun Prairie Residents, Businesses Not Happy With Incumbents

About a year ago, we learned that an FTTH pilot project had experienced incredibly high demand: 54 percent of households in the pilot area requested the service. It was a good problem to have, but perhaps the community's leaders got cold feet. The demand for high-quality Internet access is strong in Sun Prairie where residents are fed up with poor service from Charter and Frontier. Enter TDS.

What The Future Holds

Will TDS be able to do a better job? Will TDS maintain the assets or sell out to some other behemoth like Comcast? Time will tell. Whether or not TDS will encourage the current providers to improve services or just offer another poor option to the people of Sun Prairie remains to be seen.

Morristown Utilities Commission (MUC) and Newport Utilities (NU) in Tennessee have taken the first monumental step in partnering to bring high-quality connectivity to NU customers. Both entities passed resolutions for an interlocal government agreement that will bring MUC’s FiberNET to Newport.

A Win-Win

“This is hopefully going to be a win-win for both Newport and MUC, that we would provide services for them to put a three-way package into at least part of their service area,” MUC Chairman George McGuffin said. ‘‘This is essentially the first step, as far as agreements.”

The plan will allow MUC to expand its “light services,” which includes FiberNET, to NU’s service area in several phases. The first phase will allow more than 8,000 potential subscribers, or 47 percent of Cocke County households, to obtain FiberNET services. Phase One is scheduled to be completed in 2017; the partners also expect to begin Phase Two construction during the second quarter.

FiberNET

Morristown and its gigabit network FiberNET have been on our radar for a long time. We’ve written about how this community, a relatively early adopter of the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network, has saved the community in several ways. By lowering electric costs with a smart meter program and by generally lower Internet access costs for government, businesses, and residents, FiberNET is saving Morristown in the tens of millions. The network is also attracting new jobs and contributing to city coffers through payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT).

Listen to General Manager and CEO Jody Wigington talk to Christopher about Morristown’s decision to invest in Internet infrastructure. He visited us for episode 35 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast in 2013.

Friends For Light

Not everyone’s American dream involves owning a single-family home but most of us DO want high-quality Internet access in our household. In major metropolitan areas, apartment renters are more likely to have cable and some are lucky enough to have Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH). It’s only been recently, however, that owners of multiple dwelling unit buildings (MDUs) have really started to appreciate how fiber-optic connectivity, especially the gigabit kind, can add value to their investment. Now, a pair of MDU developers in Vermont will be the first to offer gigabit connectivity in the state to their renters and they’re choosing Burlington Telecom (BT) to provide the service.

The Gold Standard

“Fiber optic networks are fast becoming the gold standard both at work and at home, so it was important for us to have Burlington Telecom for this project.” says Jacqueline Dagesse [one of the developers], “Including Gig internet as an amenity offers our tenants instant access to the fastest, most reliable connectivity available without the hassles of signing up for service, waiting for an installer or committing to long-term contracts.”

The 27-apartment building is located in downtown Winooski, a town that borders the city of Burlington. The exercise facility in the building will also be a Wi-Fi hotspot. In addition to offering gigabit connectivity, the developers wanted to include various energy efficient amenities that would promote sustainability. The building will open this summer.

It Adds Up

MDUs with FTTH bring higher rents and a higher purchase prices for condos or units that are owned by residents. According to research by RVA, LLC, and reproduced in a neat graphic by the FTTH Council, almost 30 percent of people in the U.S. live in MDUs and FTTH connectivity can increase renters net income by 11 percent. This may be the first gigabit access apartment building in Vermont, but it won't be the last.

About a year ago, Internet service provider Countrywide Broadband (CWB) and equity firm Seaport Capital announced that they would collectively acquire the assets of Illinois based ISP, iTV-3. The partners would form the subsidiary Internet service provider i3 to take over operations that belonged to iTV-3. Not an unusual course of events when one hears about large companies gobbling up smaller ventures on a regular basis. This situation was different because iTV-3 had been working with the communities of Champaign and Urbana to bring high-quality connectivity to residents and businesses via its publicly owned fiber. Just yesterday, CWB announced that the deal has been completed.

Partners 1 and 2

When the UC2B nonprofit organization chose iTV-3, the partnership was lauded as one that held local concerns a top priority. iTV-3 is an Illinois based company and their interest in participating as a community member, rather than just a distant ISP, made them a desirable choice.

An important component of the partnership was iTV-3’s commitment to invest by expanding the existing network and they did build out in some areas. Expansion did not happen quickly, however, and elected officials hope that i3 can accelerate private investment so more neighborhoods can access the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network. From the Countrywide press release:

The community of Rock Falls, Illinois, is well on its way to developing a gigabit municipal network to offer better connectivity to residents, businesses, and public facilities. Last week, the City Council adopted an ordinance that allows the city to issue general obligation bonds to fund citywide fiber-optic Internet infrastructure.

Following Demand

The city’s plan will expand first in business corridors and then use the fiberhood approach in residential areas, building only after a certain percentage of households preregister. The plan divides the city into 14 fiberhoods with each area’s build out cost estimated to be approximately $250,000. Residential fiberhoods will require 45 percent participation prior to construction. Consultants estimate citywide buildout costs will be $13 million; the City Council authorized bonding for that amount. The first bond issue will be $4.1 million likely to happen in early May if approval proceeds as planned.

The City Council authorized the first phase of the project to begin - network design and project administration - which will cost approximately $207,000. The process to issue GO bonds will start in March and city leaders hope to have the backbone completed by the end of June.

Most publicly owned Internet infrastructure is funded by revenue bonds, avoided costs, or interdepartmental loans rather than GO bonds. When funded by general obligation bonds, a project is backed by the credit and taxing power of the issuing jurisdiction and the resource is always publicly owned. Clearly, the community of Rock Falls recognizes how critical the investment is to the community's future.

From The Mayor

In his recent State of the City address, Mayor Bill Wescott focused on three factors that drove the initiative: growth, the city’s strong finances, and local control.

While it’s common knowledge that economic development needs better connectivity than what is now available in Rock Falls, Wescott noted that residents stuck with 10 - 20 Megabits per second (Mbps) download Internet access need and deserve higher capacity connectivity to participate in the modern economy. He defined “growth” broadly, encompassing jobs, education, innovation, public safety, and government.