A recent press release from the Merit educational and research network in Michigan announces a new connection to its Ohio sister, OARnet. Member entities and local communities now enjoy better redundancy, expanded reach, and better services. Local communities continue to benefit from the presence of the middle mile infrastructure.

The network helps local Hillsdale College to cut connectivity costs; the Merit announcement quotes Hillsdale College leadership:

"Hillsdale College has been a Merit member since 1992," stated David Zenz, executive director of information technology services for Hillsdale College, "and it was always a dream to figure out some way to eliminate expensive data circuit costs to free up funds to purchase more bandwidth. In 2008 The City of Hillsdale, the Hillsdale Intermediate School District, Hillsdale College, and Merit figured out how to do just that."

Through a long term collaborative effort, Merit, the City of Hillsdale, Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities (BPU), Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale County Intermediate School District (ISD) came together to establish the Hillsdale Community Network. Each entity now benefits from lowered connectivity costs, better infrastructure, and improved opportunities. 

A 2009 story from Merit, describes the situation at ISD:

Marshall County Council recently approved a motion to join several other entities to bring Indiana's dark fiber Metronet to the area. WNDU reports St. Joseph County and the city of Plymouth are also contributing to the project (video available at WNDU link). The St. Joseph Regional Medical Center and a local company, Hoosier Racing Tire, will also provide funding. 

Marshall County, located in the north central part of Indiana, will contribute $500,000 to the project. Plymouth anticipates significant public savings and economic growth and will contribute $1.3 million. Hoosier Racing Tire needs higher bandwidth than is now available in Marshall County.

We previously reported on Metronet Zing, the dark fiber network in the South Bend, Mishawaka, and St. Joseph County region. The dark fiber network is open access and multiple carriers provide services via the fiber. The network was funded by public and private entities. St. Joe Valley Metronet (SJVM) is a for-profit entity that serves only business clients and pays income and property taxes. Non-profit Metronet serves only government entities and educational institutions.

From the article:

Communities are coming together to gather the funds for the more than $3 million project.

“It opens up our world,” said county commissioner Kevin Overmyer.

“Dark fiber today is what electricity was back in the 40s and 50s. We are the trend-setter. Set the standard. We have a plan in place. We have accomplished it locally not with help from anybody else.”

Austin, Texas, with a little over 820,000 people, is home to several centers of higher ed, the Southwest Music Festival, and a next generation network known as the Greater Austin Area Telecommunications Network (GAATN).

It was also the second metro area selected by Google for the Google Fiber deployment. But before they got Google Fiber, a local partnership had already connected key community anchor institutions with limitless bandwidth over fiber networks. The network measures its success in terms of cost avoidance, and averages out to a savings of about $18 million per year combined for its 7 member entities.

In 2011, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) named GAATN the Community Broadband Organization of the Year. Today, GAATN also serves the  City of Austin, the Austin Indepedent School District (AISD), Travis County, local State of Texas facilities, Austin Community College (ACC), the University of Texas at Austin (UT), and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA).

GAATN's bylaws prevent it from providing service to businesses or individual consumers. Texas, like 18 other states, maintains significant barriers that limit local public authority to build networks beyond simply connecting themselves. As a result, local entities must tread lightly even if they simply want to provide service for basic government functions.

Indiana's Metronet Zing winds its way through South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County providing dark fiber service to businesses, government and education. The project started as an economic development initiative when community leaders in the area realized that the high cost and lack of high-speed connectivity in the area kept businesses away.

Project Future, the economic development organization serving South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County until 2012, studied the potential benefits that might flow from better telecommunications in the region. The nonprofit inspired the county Chamber of Commerce, local government, nearby universities, healthcare, and businesses to develop a new nonprofit network model. The 100 mile network offers a dark fiber open access model that encourages competition, keeping prices in check. Nineteen carriers deliver services over the network. Average price for 1 gig service is $1,000 per month.

In the early 2000s, South Bend leaders wanted to take advantage of the regional long-haul fiber that runs directly under South Bend. There was very limited access to fiber connections in the area from providers and rates were high. St. Joseph's County, city government, and the University of Notre Dame needed better, faster, more reliable telecommunications.

A study commissioned by nonprofit Project Future confirmed what community leaders suspected. Education, economic development, healthcare, research and a better quality of life in South Bend depended on the community's access to a dark fiber network. Project Future developed a plan that would involve public investment in an open access dark fiber network. Community leaders joined together to form nonprofit St. Joe Valley Metronet, Inc. in 2004. Metronet's purpose was to build the infrastructure the region so desperately needed. Revenue would be passed back to the community through reasonable rates. 

Waukesha, Wisconsin now offers an ultra-fast connection for educational and government members. WiscNetWire reports that the region's Community Area Network (CAN) obtained 1 gigabit Internet capability in August.

We have reported on Wisconsin's efforts to expand connectivity using the CAN model of collaboration. The people of Wisconsin are hard at working connecting to each other with a combination of stimulus funding and matching local contributions.

WECAN (the Wakesha Community Area Network) now connects Carroll University, Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC), Waukesha Public Schools and the City of Waukesha. The 1Gbps connection to the Internet is now available to the entities on the network. According to the WiscNetWire article:

On August 30th, WECAN finished work on a new fiber-optic connection giving each organization a 1 Gigabit connection to the Internet. Steve Schlomann, Chief Information Officer for the School District of Waukesha, compares this upgrade to “opening a 10 lane freeway where we once had a single lane road.”

WECAN started as an idea advanced by WCTC and Carroll University. The two entities established relationships within the private and public sectors. The initial fiber network was built in 2011. From the article:

More recently, the School District of Waukesha and the City of Waukesha also joined WECAN. The school district and city worked with CableCom LLC, Cisco, Heartland Business Systems, Multimedia Communications and Engineering of Green Bay and WiscNet to build and leverage their connection. With the addition of these members, the network, which was intentionally designed to allow other local institutions to easily join and share in the benefits, is currently being shared by four organizations with intentions to continue growing.

The ease with which other groups will be able to connect to WECAN should encourage other entities to participate. Current members of the network report cost savings and increased efficiency as a benefit of the collaborative nature of the project.

Wise people say that collaboration often leads to a better result than individual efforts. Recently, I was reminded of the benefits of different levels of collaboration, as they relate to community networks, in two separate articles about fiber-optic expansion in Wisconsin.

First, is a recent Randy Happel article in Trenchless Technology, about how UW-Extension is working with a private telecommunications network design, engineering, and construction firm to expand the fiber-optic landscape in their state.  Over thirty-seven million dollars in stimulus funding for UW-Extension through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is allocted as part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The result will be a 630-mile fiber-optic network to help improve connectivity in Wisconsin.

CCI Systems, the private partner, has been around since 1955 and has a history in CATV networks. From the Happel article:

“Public-private partnerships are our expertise,” says Dave Mattia, director of operations for CCI Systems. “We are also quite adept at working within the parameters for the federal funding programs. Our experience and expertise in designing and building broadband, fiber-optic communications networks are great assets to our partners.”

“Our approach is extremely disciplined and methodical,” says Cory Heigl, director of business development for CCI Systems. “Collaboration, listening and cooperation are critical to maximize project efficiencies. Other firms may start by choosing a technology. We begin by listening and identifying the desired end result. Our approach streamlines the process and has proven most effective in securing funding, especially grants and stimulus money.”

After fiber installation is complete, scheduled for June 2013, CCI Systems will shift from installation and design to maintenance and support. After the long battle with AT&T, working with a cooperative partner like CCI Systems must be a welcome relief for UW-Extension.