Thanks to Jeff Hoel for providing the transcript for Episode 129 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast with Michael Liimatta of the nonprofit Connecting for Good in Kansas City, Missouri. Listen to this episode here. 

00:04: Michael Liimatta: It's a digital world that we live in. And so, if you're not online, you're not really a fully-functioning citizen.

00:11:

Lisa Gonzalez: Hello. You are listening to the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This is Lisa Gonzalez. This week, Chris and his guest, Michael Liimatta, discuss digital inclusion efforts in Kansas City. Michael is President of the nonprofit, Connecting for Good, an organization in the region, aiming to bring more lower-income households online. As our listeners know, Google Fiber is now deploying in the community. Chris and Michael discuss whether or not the deployment has increased rates of adoption. Michael and Chris ponder some proposed ideas for bringing lower-income households online: Charging a very low rate. Should access be free? How does home access affect adoption, as opposed to access in a library or other community space? We encourage you to visit connectingforgood.org to learn more about the organization, especially if you feel your community could benefit from a digital inclusion program. We bring you the Community Broadband Bits Podcast advertisement-free each week. Please consider contributing to help us continue to carry on this valuable service. It's easy. Visit ILSR.org and click on the orange "donate" button. Here are Chris and Michael.

01:26:

Chris Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell. And today, I'm speaking with Michael Liimatta, the President of a nonprofit organization, Connecting for Good. Welcome to the show.

01:40:

Michael Liimatta: Thank you very much.

01:42:

A consultant report recommends the City of Columbia tap into its existing fiber resources to develop an open access municipal telecommunications network. The City recently issued a request for proposals for a business plan to press forward with the recommendation, reports the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Last year the City, Boone County, and the University of Missouri jointly hired a firm to conduct a survey and analyze existing connectivity. An August Tribune article by Andrew Denney reported that the the community was found lacking in reliable connectivity. The survey indicated that 84% of businesses reported "moderate, severe, or total disruption of their business from Internet problems related to reliability or speed." The survey also revealed 84% of businesses contend with Internet speeds "insufficient for their business needs due to reliability and speed issues." The reasonable conclusion is that commercial Internet access in Columbia is too expensive, too slow, and too unreliable for local businesses.

The Columbia Water and Light Department (W & L) now leases its dark fiber to approximately 30 entities, reports the Tribune. The leases bring in approximately $876,000 per year. The consultant recommends expanding existing resources in order to entice more providers who want to serve last-mile customers.

The report also examined continuing the W & L dark fiber leasing program without significant changes and expanding the dark fiber leasing program by adding last-mile deployment. Maintaining the current dark fiber program will not require capital but won't stimulate the area's economic development possibilities either.

Expanding the dark fiber program would improve the broadband infrastructure situation because providers would be able to offer leases to customer premises rather than only within the middle-mile network. This type of change would not improve affordability because it would not increase competition.

The August Tribune article reported:

Last year we reported on a deal between Google Fiber and North Kansas City. The provider entered into a long-term lease to use LiNKCity dark fiber to incorporate into its area deployment. The City recently announced it will now enter into a public-private partnership with DataShack to bring fiber to local businesses and residents. Residents will receive free high-speed access. From the City's announcement:

The partnership between these two companies will enable residents to experience Gigabit speeds for FREE. On January 1st, 2015 all existing residential customers will be upgraded to free monthly 100 mb internet service. New customers after January 1st will have the opportunity to choose between three service options; free monthly gigabit internet service with a $300 installation fee, free monthly 100 mb internet service with a $100 installation fee, or free 50 mb internet service with a $50 installation fee.

A Kansas City Biz Journal article reports that North Kansas City will retain ownership of the infrastructure and DataShack will bring free gigabit Internet service to the public library, city churches, and all public schools. Profits and losses will be shared equally but the City's losses are capped at $150,000, including the capital investment. DataShack will operate and maintain the network.

"It's a win-win for the city," said Byron McDaniel, the city's communications utility director. "It's really giving back to the community what they've invested into the network."

According to the Kansas City Star, the network has a lot of business customers, which is the core of DataShack's strategy:

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: