For years, it’s been known as “America’s first Gig City,” thanks to its city-owned fiber network. 

That same infrastructure has positioned Chattanooga to potentially become the nation’s first “Quantum City,” according to a new economic impact analysis showing EPB Fiber and the utility's smart-grid systems has generated $5.3 billion in net community benefits for Hamilton County since 2011. 

The city is now poised to enter the Quantum realm.

The research builds on an earlier 10‑year return‑on‑investment analysis – published in August 2020 – that showed the city’s publicly-owned fiber network had delivered $2.69 billion in value over its first decade. 

The new follow-up study – From Gig City to Quantum City: The Value of Fiber Optic Infrastructure in Hamilton County, TN 2011-2035 – expands the time horizon and finds that over 15 years the total community benefit has grown to $5.3 billion, illuminating how the long‑term value of municipal broadband can really pay-off.

A Massive Economic Boost

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Conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the study finds that the municipal fiber network has dramatically reshaped the regional economy, supporting 10,420 jobs from 2011 to 2024 – about 31 percent of all net new jobs created locally over the past decade.

The return on investment has been extraordinary: the network has delivered 6.4 times the value of its original $396 million investment, the study indicates.

Two city utility managers, an economist, and a fiber technologist walk into a virtual webinar …

And what followed was a deep dive into why delaying investment in smart city infrastructure is increasingly costly.

The hour-long livestream event  – co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) – brought together municipal utility managers, an economist, and a leading fiber technologist to explore how cities can future-proof themselves with digital infrastructure.

Guests who appeared on “Building Smarter Cities and the Cost of Doing Nothing” today emphasized how “smart cities” are built on fiber networks and what city investments in the gold-standard of Internet connectivity can do to boost economic development while improving the quality of life for local residents and businesses.

They highlighted the real costs of inaction, pointing to slower economic growth and lost municipal revenue opportunities as something many cities or towns overlook when thinking about local infrastructure.

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The webinar featured Huntsville Utilities VP of Engineering Stacy Cantrell who provided key insights into the public-private partnership Huntsville Utilities struck with Google Fiber and what it has meant to “Rocket City.”

Another virtual case study was provided by Brieana Reed-Harmel, Broadband Manager for Pulse Fiber, discussing how the city’s fiber network is propelling economic revitalization efforts in Loveland and how the success of the network is now being extended into neighboring communities.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.

The Volunteer Energy Cooperative (VEC) in Birchwood Tennessee says it’s leveraging American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to expand affordable fiber access into long underserved parts of The Volunteer State.

Roughly 10 percent of residents in the unincorporated areas of Hamilton County, Tennessee lack access to broadband. A problem that’s probably worse given the notorious unreliability of FCC broadband mapping data. Tennessee is currently ranked 24th in the nation in terms of broadband availability, affordability, and speed.

Enter VEC, which has begun construction on a new fiber expansion plan that will bring affordable fiber access to nearly 300 homes in Birchwood thanks to a $615,617 ARPA grant.

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“Whether it’s educational, or if it’s business, even this community center that we’re in today, if you’re going to have opportunities for the youth, you have to connect to the internet,” VEC CEO Dion Cooper tells local CBS affiliate WDEF 12.

VEC’s fiber expansion will extend fiber-optic lines along Birchwood Pike from Highway 60 to David Hill Road, later expanding westward toward the Tennessee River and eastward along Grasshopper Road to Pierce Road. In addition to the fiber expansion, Hamilton County recently secured a state grant to develop a modern computer lab at the Birchwood Community Center.

As the federal government makes unprecedented investments to expand high-speed access to the Internet, unbeknownst to most outside the broadband industry is that nearly a third of the states in the U.S. have preemption laws in place that either prevent or restrict local municipalities from building and operating publicly-owned, locally-controlled networks.

Currently, there are 16 states across the U.S. (listed below) with these monopoly-protecting, anti-competition preemption laws in place.

These states maintain these laws, despite the fact that wherever municipal broadband networks or other forms of community-owned networks operate, the service they deliver residents and businesses almost always offers faster connection speeds, more reliable service, and lower prices.

In numerous cases, municipal broadband networks are able to provide low-cost or free service to low-income households even in the absence of the now expired federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). And for several years in a row now, municipal networks consistently rank higher in terms of consumer satisfaction and performance in comparison to the big monopoly Internet service providers, as PCMag and Consumer Reports have documented time and time again.

Nevertheless, these preemption laws remain in 16 states, enacted at the behest of Big Cable and Telecom lobbyists, many of whom have ghost written the statutes, in an effort to protect ISP monopolies from competition.

The Infrastructure Law Was Supposed to Move the Preemption Needle But …

Communities looking to leverage American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for broadband or other local infrastructure need to act soon or risk losing access to a once-in-a-generation funding resource.

Most ARPA recipients seem well aware of the deadline, but data suggests more than a few communities could drop the ball.

As part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), $25 billion was specifically earmarked for broadband expansion.

But the law also created the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program, which doled out $350 billion for states, municipalities, and tribal governments to offset pandemic losses or flexibly invest in local infrastructure.