Local officials in Columbia County, Georgia, wanted better public safety communications, synchronized traffic signals, and better connectivity for government facilities. They decided the best strategy was a publicly owned network and their decision is creating opportunities they hadn't anticipated.

When he considers how the county expanded its fiber network to improve economic development, education, and public savings, Columbia County Broadband Utility (C3BU) Broadband Manager Lewis Foster still sounds a little surprised. After all, Columbia County planned on using the network for a limited purpose, but then they realized the diversity of the asset. "It was almost an afterthought," he says.

Poor Options Created A Positive Path

Before the idea of a publicly owned network saw the light of day in Columbia County, local leaders contacted the incumbent providers to set up a dark fiber lease. To their dismay, incumbents AT&T, Comcast, and WOW, would not lease the county dark fiber.

County officials approached incumbents in 2007 and 2008 hoping to secure a dark fiber lease. The large providers, however, said they either didn’t have any dark fiber to lease, they could offer lit services, or they would build a dark fiber network for the county to use. Incumbents demanded a model where the county would pay the construction costs but the infrastructure would be owned and operated by the incumbents – who would then charge the County for access to the network the county had paid for. Foster recalls that incumbents we’re most interested in charging premium rates for lit services. Columbia County officials wanted a better option and found a more fiscally responsible approach in simply owning the network.

Nelson County, Virginia, recently released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a vendor to operate its open access fiber network. Proposals are due February 3, 2017.

BTOP And Be More

The Nelson County Broadband Authority (NCBA) obtained grant funds under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP - one of two federal broadband stimulus programs), which allowed it to deploy 31 miles of backbone and laterals. In 2015, the county used a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and a Local Innovation Grant (LIG) to expand the network further to a total of 39 miles. The NCBA also uses several towers to complement wireline service.

The network now has approximately 350 customers. In keeping with the terms of the BTOP criteria, the network is open access and the NCBA describes itself as a wholesale Ethernet transport provider. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer Internet access and other types of services via the infrastructure.

According to the RFP, the NCBA requires:

The primary roles are to operate, monitor, and manage the network meaning to configure to order using the management systems of Calix, capture and report network outages and anomalies including traffic throughput issues, and manage projects for the continued enhancement of the network as required by the NCBA. Other roles include monthly billing of SPs and generating monthly billing and other financial reports to be provided to NCBA. 

Quiet And Connected

Nelson County is an extremely rural area in the north central part of the state; only about 15,000 people live in the entire county. The county seat of Lovingston has a population of 520. Tourism and a variety of home-based businesses are important to the Nelson County economy. Thanks to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the George Washington National Forest, the county is filled with hilly terrain, hiking trails, fishing, and vineyards. 

Access the full RFP online; the due date for proposals is February 3, 2017.

For more than a century, electric cooperatives have ensured rural communities’ electricity needs are met. Now, many electric co-ops have made strides to ensure their communities have access to today’s newest necessity, Internet service.

In northeastern Missouri, Ralls County Electric Cooperative is bringing high-speed Internet service to the small city of New London. Nearby, the city of Perry hopes the electric cooperative will extend the project to its residents and they've let the co-op know that they will welcome the service with open arms.

Ralls County Electric Cooperative

Ralls County Electric Cooperative is working on a pilot project in New London that will bring incredibly fast and reliable Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to the community's 1,000 residents. The project will offer triple-play services of Internet access, phone service, and high-definition TV.

The New London project won't be the first FTTH project for Ralls County Electric Cooperative. Between 2010 and 2015, the cooperative built a $19 million fiber network in the area. Funding came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in the form of half as a loan and half as a grant. The electric cooperative formed a subsidiary, known as Ralls Technologies, for its telecommunications projects.

Perry Petitions

The Herald-Whig of Quincy, Illinois (about 45 minutes from the Missouri towns), recently reported that officials in Perry are encouraging Ralls County Electric Cooperative to come to their town. They have started a petition to show support for bringing the project to their community. 

Ralls County Electric Cooperative has not committed to extending the project to Perry, but the city’s Mayor Dustin Wasson has signed a letter of support on behalf of the City Council to the electric cooperative. Explaining the need, Mayor Wasson told the Herald-Whig:

This is the transcript for episode 230 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Harold DePriest of Chattanooga, Tennessee, describes his role in building the fiber network in the city. This is an in-depth interview of over an hour in length. Listen to this episode here.

Harold DePriest: This fiber system will help our community have the kind of jobs that will let our children and grand children stay here and work if they want to. That is the biggest thing that has happened.

Lisa Gonzalez: This is episode 230 of the community broadband bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. Chattanooga, Tennessee has been profiled in dozens of media outlets. It's a community reborn from one of the dirtiest cities in America, to what is now an economic development powerhouse. The city's publicly owned fiber optic network provides high quality connectivity that attracts businesses and entrepreneurs, but getting to where they are today did not happen overnight. In this episode, Chris has an in depth conversation with Harold DePriest, one of the men behind bringing fiber optics to Chattanooga. He's retired now, but as president and CEO of the electric power board, he was involved from the beginning. Harold describes how the electric power board made changes both inside and out, and went from being just another electric utility, to one that's considered one of the best in customer service in the country. The interview is longer than our typical podcast, but we think it's worth is. Now here are Chris and Harold DePriest, former CEO and president of the electric power board in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to a community broadband bits discussion. A long form discussion, a little bit different from what we normally do, with someone that I have a tremendous amount of respect for, Harold DePriest. Welcome to the show.

Harold DePriest: Thank you. It's good to be with you Chris.

Alford, Massachusetts, located along the western border of Massachusetts, recently released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for fiber optic network design and contractors; the community wants to deploy a Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network. Deadline for proposals is December 21, 2016.

A Long Journey To Now

Alford is home to approximately 500 residents and has pursued better connectivity since the early 2000s, when it first approached the incumbents. As is often the case, national providers continued to pass by Alford over the years leaving them with old, unreliable technology. During 2012 and 2013, the community took the necessary steps and voted to create a Municipal Light Plant (MLP), the entity that manages publicly owned networks in Massachusetts. Since then, they have formed a broadband committee, conducted surveys of local interest and requirements, and examined financial models. 

In 2015, the town approved a measure to borrow $1.6 million to cover the expenses to deploy a FTTP network. The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), the state agency tasked with administering more than $71 million in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and state funds, informed the MLP Board that the town will receive approximately $290,000 in grants funds.

The Alford MLP’s November update reports that the community has made significant progress on make-ready work to prepare utility poles:

The MLP has now come to an agreement with Verizon and National Grid about the extent of “make-ready” work required to prepare the poles to accept fiber. In the next few weeks the MLP will make payments to the utilities, clearing the way for the work to begin. The MLP has no control over the timing of the work, which will probably begin around year- end and which can take up to six months to complete. 

The Project

Garrett County is the westernmost county in Maryland. High in the Allegheny Mountains of the Appalachian Mountain Range; winters are harsh and forest covers 90 percent of the county. Before the county deployed a fiber-optic network, high-quality connectivity was hard to come by for schools, libraries, and other community anchor institutions. By making the most of every opportunity, Garrett County has improved efficiencies for the many small communities in the region and set the stage to improve connectivity for businesses and residents.

Rural, Remote, Ready For Better Connectivity

The county is more than 650 square miles but there are no large urban centers and over time a number of sparsely populated areas have developed as home to the county's 30,000 people; since 2000, population growth has stagnated. Many of the tiny communities where businesses and residents have clustered are remote and do not have public sewer or water. These places tend to have a high number of low-income people. 

Unemployment rates are volatile in Garrett County, fluctuating with natural resources extraction industries. As the coal and lumber industries have waned, many jobs in Garrett County have disappeared. Garrett County Memorial Hospital and Beitzel industrial construction employ over 300 people and are the county’s largest employers. 

All of these characteristics make Garrett County unattractive to the large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that want to maximize investment and focus only on densely populated urban areas. Verizon offers DSL and Comcast offers cable in limited areas but many people rely on mobile Internet access and expensive satellite Internet access.

It Started With BTOP Fiber

In 2010, the State of Maryland received over $115 million in grant funding through the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP). With a matching $43 million from state and in-kind contributions, Maryland deployed the One Maryland Broadband Network (OMBN). In August 2013, the middle mile fiber-optic network was complete, stretching 1,324 miles across the state connecting 1,068 CAIs.