Residential customers of Co-Mo Connect in Missouri will see a free upgrade this spring. In a December announcement, the cooperative stated it will also begin offering gigabit Internet service for $99.95 per month.

“There are no strings attached,” said Randy Klindt, Co-Mo Comm's general manager. “We’re doing this because we can, because the network has the capacity and we received a good deal on bandwidth. We’re passing those speeds and savings onto our subscribers.”

New residential service options:

• 5 megabits per second for $39.95 a month; 
• 35 mbps (currently 20 mbps) for $49.95 a month; 
• 100 mbps (currently 50 mbps) for $59.95 a month;
• 1 gbps (currently 100mbps) for $99.95 a month.

According to the announcement, small businesses will also receive speed increases with no increase in price. Klindt notes that Co-Mo prides itself on gimmick-free pricing:

“Nothing is going to decrease after six months or whatever the other companies do,” he said. “And subscribers don’t have to do anything to get the extra speed. If you’re on the 20, 50 or 100 megabit tier right now, we’re simply going to turn up your speed when this becomes available sometime this coming spring.”

We reported on Co-Mo in 2012, as the cooperative began expansion of services. At the time, Co-Mo had been passed over for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding. Coop members wanted to improve the broadband situation for better economic opportunity so Co-Mo pressed on without federal funding. The plan to bring FTTH to all 25,000 coop members has four phases with completion scheduled for 2016.

The City Council of Columbia is moving forward with efforts to improve connectivity in the town of 113,000. In November, elected officials hired a consultant to analyze the community's current infrastructure and develop a broadband plan.

According to a Tribune article, the initiative will be a collaborative effort between the City, Boone County, and the University of Missouri. Columbia hired Magellan Advisors who responded to a May Request for Proposals. A representative from Columbia Water and Light, Connie Kacprowicz, estimated a four month turn around on report. From the article:

Currently, Magellan Advisors is in the needs assessment stage of the process, Kacprowicz said, and that involves talking to different companies in town to gather information about their experiences with broadband services and suggestions for improvement.

"A lot of it is finding out what kind of resources we already have in town and what can be done with them," she said.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons License.

A year has passed since we covered SpringNet in Springfield, Missouri, and its remarkable impact on local businesses and economic development. We recently spoke with SpringNet Director, Todd Murren, and Network Architecture Manager, Todd Christell, to get an update on how the network is progressing.

Demand for SpringNet’s high-speed data services continues to grow steadily. Financial statements for City Utilities of Springfield show the network generated $16.4-million in operating revenue last year against costs of $13.2-million. Better yet, revenues have increased around 3% per year while cost increases are closer to 0.5%. The end result is close to $3 million in annual net income for SpringNet. And all of this comes from a network that only serves commercial and public sector clients because Missouri state law restricts municipal network provision to only “Internet service,” meaning SpringNet cannot offer triple-play packages to compete with incumbent providers.

One of the highlights of SpringNet’s economic development success has been the attraction and retention of travel giant Expedia. After a large national provider failed to deliver on negotiations with the company, SpringNet stepped in to make sure Expedia brought its call center to Springfield. That effort has paid off handsomely for SpringNet and the local community. Expedia now employs close to 900 in the area after announcing in July that it was hiring another 100 employees in Springfield.

Up next for SpringNet is an effort to leverage its fiber infrastructure to create even more jobs. Believing that future job growth will revolve around the advancements enabled by gigabit networks, SpringNet is working with the Mid-America Technology Alliance (MATA) to host a hackathon with partners in Kansas City to explore what is possible between gigabit cities.

Google Fiber is leasing fiber for transport from a small municipal FTTH network in North Kansas City. A recent Kansas City Business Journal article reports that Google finalized a deal with City Council for a 20-year agreement worth $3.2 million to lease fiber from liNKCity. This was more convenient for Google than laying (or attaching) its own fiber to get between areas it is building out.

Earlier this year, liNKCity made news by providing free gigabit service to North Kansas City Schools. The service was estimated to save the school district $500,000 over the next five years.

Located in the southwestern corner of Missouri, Nixa has joined the growing list of local communities fed up with slow Internet access. A recent Rance Birger News-Leader article, describes the frustration of local tech CEO, Jeremy Bartley. He is not the only business leader in Nixa who is not willing to accept the Internet status quo. Bartley is part of an organized effort to investigate the possibility of a municipal fiber network.

The group has the ear of the City Council and the Mayor, who have put city staff on the project. From the article:

“I personally would like for staff to contact a city that’s relatively our size, and talk to somebody that started from scratch to where they’re successful, and how much it really cost them to do what they did,” [Mayor Sam] Clifton said.

“They may also have some insight on to other issues that arose when they did that as far as legalities and such,” Councilman Aron Peterson said.

Nixa has its own electric utility, which can often facilitate development of a municipal network. The first step is a survey, which will be distributed in March utility bills and is already available online.

Depending on the survey results, which should be available in April, the next step would be a preliminary design. 

Like many other communities, Nixa has been left behind by the big national cable and telephone corporations. Community leaders understand why and want to proceed with caution. From the article:

City Administrator Brian Bingle acknowledged that private businesses haven’t shown interest in running fiber in Nixa.

“If the private sector could make money off it, they’d be doing it already, and we all know that,” Bingle said. “We’re looking into something that, one, there is a demand for it, two, that we can get ourselves reimbursed for it."

Nixans who are spearheading the project also see the current and future value of a community owned network:

“One of the goals of my company is to bring other tech companies to Nixa, because it’s the future of businesses, it’s the businesses that are going to create the most income for a city. Tech is the future of all jobs,” Bartley said.

Carl Junction, Missouri, is moving ahead with plans to build a fiber network.

Steve Lawver, City Administrator, tells us that funding for the $5.2 - $5.6 million project will most likely come through a lease program from the Missouri Public Utility Alliance (MPUA). Lawver tells us that funding will involve private placement non-taxable bonds, available to members of MPUA.

The network, which will be entirely fiber to the premises, will serve local government, schools, businesses, and residents. In an email, Lawver notes that:

We, as many rural communities, have found that the incumbent providers that are serving us have no plans for the improvement or expansion of their system here in our city.  With little else to do we decided to build it ourselves and find a service provider that is responsive and customer oriented.

The City began pursuing the network some time ago. Last September, TSI Global presented information at a City Council meeting after completing 75% of a feasibility study. In a Joplin Globe article, Andra Bryan Stefanoni described data they gathered on available service in the Carl Junction area:

Mediacom users can download data at 20 megabits per second and upload at 2 megabits per second for $30 a month. AT&T users can download at 6 megabits per second and upload at 1 megabit per second for $20 a month. Zing fixed wireless users can download 3 megabits per second and upload at 1.5 megabits per second for $99 a month.

At that same September meeting, Stefanoni noted that residents commented on the project. While not all of the comments favored pursuing broadband infrastructure investment, most of the speakers at that meeting commented on poor choices:

On September 11th, we interviewed Todd Murren, Director of SpringNet, for our Community Bradband Bits podcast. Todd told us the story of how travel giant Expedia, chose Springfield, Missouri, as the location for their call center and how SpringNet services them with its high capacity network.

Expedia originally planned on working with a large national carrier to provide connectivity. When it was time to seal the deal, however, promises were broken - the telecommunications company revealed it would not be able to provide the needed bandwidth after all. Expedia almost walked away from Springfield. Thanks to SpringNet, however, and its 350 fiber miles and first class business services, Expedia stayed. SpringNet saved 400 new local jobs.

Todd gave us more examples of how SpringNet has contributed to the local economy as it serves over 200 business clients. In addition to these examples of how SpringNet directly influences the local economy, keep in mind the positive ripple effect. Here a quick list from Todd:

The company, which currently employs about 900 locally, wants to fill customer service, finance, sales and other positions.