On November 15th, the City of New York announced that it was looking for ideas to bring high-quality connectivity to every resident and business. Their goal is to get every one connected by 2025; they’re starting with a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit ideas for potential strategies and partnerships. Responses are due January 19th.

The Big Apple’s effort comes on the heels of San Francisco’s decision to invest in municipal broadband to connect the entire city. New York’s RFI states that they will use all their assets — from rooftop to, to poles, to organizational resources — to move their efforts along so New Yorkers can enjoy fast, affordable, reliable connectivity. City leaders want to exhaust all avenues and are encouraging both public and private sectors to become involved in the initiative.

The Vision

In their vision, New York City leaders have identified five goals they wish to achieve through better broadband infrastructure:

Promote competition in the residential and commercial broadband markets.

Provide high-speed residential Internet service for low-income communities currently without service.

Increase investment in broadband corridors to reach high-growth business districts, with a focus on outer-borough neighborhoods.

Promote seamless user experience across public networks to create high speed access across the boroughs.

Explore innovative ways to provide high-speed Internet to homes, businesses, and the public.

At this point, they’re open to any technology or business model that can achieve these goals and is future proof.

Resources

For the past year, six municipalities along with local colleges and universities have collaborated to lay the groundwork for fiber optic infrastructure in the greater Asheville area. The group, West Next Generation Network (WestNGN), is now ready to find a partner to begin hammering out details in order to realize the concept. They’ve released the WestNGN Broadband Request for Negation (RFN) and responses are due September 21st.

The plan closely resembles the North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN) in the Research Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. WestNGN will include the communities of Asheville, Biltmore Forest, Fletcher, Hendersonville, Laurel Park, and Waynesville - all of which belong to the Land of Sky Regional Council. The Council has helped with administration and in drafting the RFN aimed at improving local connectivity and boosting regional economic development.

Strategic Alliance Partnership

WestNGN’s RFN states that they want to establish a Strategic Alliance Partnership with a single ISP or a group of ISPs that possess an interest in both providing service and in deployment. WestNGN puts negotiation of ownership of assets and use of those assets at the top of the list for discussion points, signaling that rhey aren't set on a fixed approach. Similarly, they hope to negotiate matters such as management, operation, and maintenance of local networks; ways to speed up deployment and reduce costs; and ways to better serve low-income residents.

Goals For The Network

WestNGN plans to bring gigabit connectivity to residents, businesses, and community anchor institutions in the region. They specifically state their priority for this level of capacity, but note that their future partner will have time to gradually implement it, if necessary. They also stress the need for symmetrical service speeds. Several employers in the region have determined that upload speeds - from their offices and for their employees at home - are increasingly desirable. The consortium has recognized that home-based businesses in the region are also multiplying every year.

Talbot County, Maryland, has issued a Request for Information for Partnership for Deployment of High-Speed Broadband (RFI). Submissions are due no later than September 1st.

Looking For Ideas From Potential Partners

The RFI describes the county’s desire to work with a private sector partner who can bring gigabit capacity (1,000 Megabits per second) to the community. While county leaders prefer Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) they note that the rural character and geography of the region may require a hybrid fiber/wireless solution.

The county plans on offering assistance in obtaining grant funding, providing access to rights-of-way and existing public assets, and easing any partner through the permitting process. The county encourages all types of entities to submit responses, including incumbents, cooperatives, and nonprofit organizations.

This Is Talbot County

Approximately 38,000 people live in Talbot County, which is located on the state’s eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Both Baltimore and Washington D.C. are 90 minutes away; Easton (pop. approx. 16,000) is the county seat.

Agriculture has been an important part of the county’s economy since European settlers landed there in 1630 and it continues today with corn, soybeans, and poultry. Healthcare is also an economic driver in part due to the high number of retirees in Talbot County. Tourism that centers on the community’s proximity to the ocean also employs many residents.

The Connectivity Situation

Fiber-coaxial networks exist in Talbot County, including a municipal network in Easton and areas in the county where private provider Atlantic Broadband offers Internet access. Many of Atlantic Broadband subscribers are in the bay communities in the western areas.

The RFI states that incumbent Verizon supplies DSL via its copper infrastructure to more populated areas. There is also fixed wireless available in some areas.

The City and Parish of Baton Rouge recently released a Request for Information (RFI) as a way to seek out partners interested in helping them improve local connectivity. Responses are due August 4.

Vulnerable Residents A Priority

According to the RFI, reliable connectivity is not consistent or affordable in many areas of the community where populations need it most. Unemployment is higher than the national average and the community has approximately 26 percent of city residents and 18 percent of parish residents living in poverty. Community leaders want to use the network infrastructure to bring more opportunity to people living in the most poverty-stricken areas of the City-Parish. Economic development, better educational opportunities, and better connectivity at home are only a few of the goals Baton Rouge intends to meet.

As part of the vision described in the RFI, City-Parish officials point out that they want a tool that will enable citizens to be participants in an updated economy, not just consumers of a new data product. Some of the factors they prioritize for their network is that it be community-wide, open access, financially sustainable, and offer an affordable base-level service.  The network must offer gigabit capacity.

Baton Rouge intends to ensure lower income residents participate in the benefits that will flow from the investment; they are not interested in working with partner who doesn’t share that vision. From the RFI:

The City-Parish intends to offset service costs for its most vulnerable residents through a subsidy program that will allow certain portions of the population to purchase service at a discounted rate. We expect respondents to this RFI to be prepared to build to and support those customers—many of who may never previously have had a broadband connection. This initiative may also entail the Partner(s) sharing cost and risk associated with providing low-cost or no-charge service to some customers.

Baton Rouge

Highlands, North Carolina, deployed a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) infrastructure and fixed wireless complement to serve the community. The small rural community has been operating the municipal network in the Appalachians since late 2015, but is now considering passing the mantle to a private partner. They recently released a Request for Information (RFI) and responses are due June 9th.

High In The Appalachians

Tourism is one of the town’s staple economies, as it’s known for its natural surroundings atop the Nantahala National Forest in the mountains. While less than 1,000 people live in the town all year, summer tourists swell the population to around 20,000. There are several country clubs nearby that cater to the affluent second-home owners in Highlands and there are at least 500 homes that are valued at $1 million or more.

The FTTH network does not serve the entire community. Local leaders want the network available to the entire community, in part to keep second home owners in Highlands for extended periods of time. With better connectivity, many could work from home. The community also operates a municipal electric utility that owns 2,600 utility poles and 110 miles of line, most of it aerial. Interestingly, the Highlands Electric Utility serves over 3,000 accounts, some in the suburban Atlanta areas.

Highlands issued the RFI to search out  provider that would be interested in expanding the FTTH network and acquiring more customers for the network as a whole. They still want to own the infrastructure, but hope to attract a provider willing to lease the existing network and add to it.

Read the rest of the RFI.

Responses are due Friday, June 30th.

Stafford County, Virginia, has issued a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEI) as they search for potential partners interested in working with them to improve local connectivity. Responses are due April 25.

In addition to searching for ideas to bring high-quality Internet access to unserved and underserved households in the county, the community wants to connect 26 of its own facilities to an existing publicly owned I-Net. The I-Net currently serves county and school buildings but the unconnected facilities are served by separate cable connections.

The county's RFEI states that they are interested specifically in bringing speeds to the county that meet or exceed the FCC definition of broadband, which is 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.

Stafford County

The county has grown considerably in recent years and local leaders want to support economic development with fast, affordable, reliable connectivity in both rural and urban areas of Stafford County’s 277 square miles. Located in the northeast part of the state between the Washington DC area and Richmond, many residents work in the beltway. Unemployment is only four percent in the county where the population is approximately 135,000. During the past ten years, more jobs have popped up in Stafford County, a trend community leaders hope to continue.

Several federal employers have facilities in Stafford County, including the FBI, the Marine Corps Base Quantico, and the DEA. Some of the other employers are Geico Insurance, Intuit, and Northrup Grumman. The high tech industry is growing in the area, especially the number of new entrepreneurial businesses.

Stafford County is open to ideas and encourages respondents to consider all types of technologies including Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), fixed wireless, satellite, or a combination of different types of technologies.

Important dates:

Deadline for Questions: April 13, 2017

Responses Due by 3:00 p.m.: April 25, 2017

Review of responses completed by County: May 19, 2017

Read the RFEI at the city's website.

The town of Palm Beach, Florida, has decided to clear its skies. Starting this summer, the city is engaging in an undergrounding project to move electric, telephone, and cable Internet infrastructure. City leaders have decided to take advantage of the opportunity and seek out ideas for Internet infrastructure, either publicly owned, or a partnership arrangement. Palm Beach issued a Request for Information (RFI) in February for Broadband and Communications Services; responses are due March 15, 2017.

According to the online information about the RFI:

The undergrounding project will continue in phases until every resident, enterprise and anchor institution is connected by and through underground services. This once in a lifetime event presents a unique opportunity for Service Providers to participate in potentially reducing their cost of providing infrastructure and enable Services to expand in to a new market.

Private providers have already approached the city for permission to install fiber-optic cable in Palm Beach rights-of-way (ROW) and the city hopes the additional revenue will ease the cost of the undergrounding project.

Palm Beach’s year-round population is around 11,000 but the coastal community swells to 30,000 during the tourist season. The community is actually located on a 16-mile long barrier island separated from its neighbor West Palm Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway. The community is affluent, with a median household income of approximately $125,000. 

We’ve written about nearby communities in Palm Beach County, including Lake Worth, Florida, where the community chose to pursue a free public Wi-Fi project as a matter of social justice.

Check out the details on the RFI at the city’s website.     

On January 1, Wayne County, North Carolina, issued a Request for Information (RFI) for high-speed Internet service expansion or delivery.  The due date is February 28, 2017.

Survey First

Prior to releasing the RFI, the county conducted a survey that they made available online and in paper form; they sent home copies with students in the public school system. They received 628 responses of which 13.8 percent of respondents said they don't have Internet service at all. Of those that do not have the service, 58.1 percent say there is no company that will provide it to them and 23.7 percent say they can’t afford it. Fifty-nine percent of respondents were dissatisfied with their Internet access; the reason were speed, cost, and reliability, in that order.

Looking For Ideas Next

The county’s RFI expresses their desire to work with private sector providers to bring connectivity to all areas of the county, especially the areas that are currently unserved. Their goal is to get residents and businesses connected with speeds that reach the FCC’s defined broadband speeds of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.

In order to facilitate the efforts of the private sector, Wayne County has asked potential respondents to address how issues such as pole attachments, conduit, and dark fiber would fit into their proposals. They also want respondents to let them know how federal, state, or local regulations may hamper ideas for improving connectivity in Wayne County:

Regulatory environment: Description of any rules or regulations at the federal, state or local level that could impact the feasibility or underlying economics associated with the proposed solutions. Responses should also include an explanation of any forms of proposed regulatory relief, including streamlined permitting, which could improve the economic case for the business models or network solutions proposed or for other network solutions that respondents considered but dismissed due to existing regulations and their effect on economic viability of such proposal. 

Summit County in central Colorado is exploring how to bring Gigabit connectivity (1,000 Megabits per second) to homes and businesses in its region. 

The County recently issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to participate in a public-private partnership to bring a Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to local businesses and residents. The County is also looking for a private partner to help deploy wireless broadband service. The deadline for submitting RFI responses is Jan. 9, 2017.

In its RFI, the County said it:

“[R]ecognizes that it may be economically challenging to deploy fiber-to-the premises infrastructure throughout the County and thus understands that early investments may focus on population centers in the County. The County’s hope, however, is that world-class networks will eventually expand to the less populous areas of the County.”  

The county indicated it is seeking proposals from a potential private sector partner who would be interested in establishing a long-term relationship. 

Summit County’s RFI comes a year after citizens voted in a referendum to opt out of Colorado SB 152, the state law that prevents local governments from providing service or partnering with private sector partners. More than two dozen local communities opted out of SB 152 this past fall, bringing the total to 95 Colorado communities, which have chosen to reclaim local telecommunications authority. 

Summit County Overview