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Wi-Fi

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Palm Beach Post Editorial: Connectivity Is A Social Justice Issue

The small city of Lake Worth, Florida, may undertake a free Wi-Fi project in order to boost economic development and ensure Internet access for all residents. The local newspaper and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) support the project. They recognize the potential to connect low-income households throughout the city and the economic development opportunities that can benefit the entire community.

A recent editorial in the Palm Beach Post underscores how connectivity is a social justice issue: lack of access excludes folks from society. The editorial also makes the argument for adding fiber optic cable throughout the city, ensuring high-speed Internet access for all.

Social Justice

Many Palm Beach County residents are considered affluent, but Lake Worth has a poverty rate of 32 percent and poorly-ranked public schools. The editorial breaks down the statistics and points to the Pew Research Center’s figures on the digital divide, which acknowledge a class divide and an educational divide. Ninety-six percent of college graduates use the Internet compared to 61 percent of adults with a high school education or less. Likewise, 99 percent of adults with household incomes over $150,000 use the Internet vs. 78 percent of adult of households with less than $30,00.

“Modern society is so deeply networked that to live outside it is a very steep obstacle to ever getting ahead. It is, as [CRA Executive Director Joan Oliva] told the Post Editorial Board, a question of social justice.”

The Proposed Project 

Lake Worth’s CRA wants free public Wi-Fi citywide, especially in the lowest income areas. To blanket the entire 6.5 square mile city in Wi-Fi would cost approximately $860,000. The city government would pay $640,000 with the CRA providing the remaining $220,000.

FairlawnGig Milestone: Officially Connects First Business Customers

Since late 2015, the small city of Fairlawn, Ohio, has been planning and preparing for a network with next-generation connectivity. The city is building the network, FairlawnGig, which will offer speeds of a Gigabit (1,000 Megabits) per second to subscribers. All speed tiers will be symmetrical, so upload and download will be equally fast.

Lightwave reports that FairlawnGig has officially connected its first two business customers: RDA Hotel Management and the architectural firm David A.Levy & Associates.

Necessary Connectivity For Businesses

RDA Hotel Management officially signed up for the service and immediately experienced a 733 percent increase in Internet access speeds in its local hotel. The management company owns and operates the Hilton and Doubletree hotels throughout the nation. Two of the company's hotels have been connected to the network since early August as “beta customers” of the network. These “beta customers” (including hotels that hosted some Republican National Delegates) helped determine how well the network functioned, providing feedback on how to improve the experience for future subscribers. 

The local architectural firm David A. Levy & Associates is also pleased with the new connectivity. Neal Levy, business development director at David A. Levy & Associates described how the municipal fiber network has already improved productivity in the Lightwave article:

 "Prior to FairlawnGig, reliability was a serious issue and it took several minutes to save, transmit, and open a 50-MB file. Plus, our team couldn't work simultaneously in an AutoCAD [a design application used by many architect firms] file while it was auto saving or the file would freeze. Now it takes less than 10 seconds to open or save a file."

The FairlawnGig Story

City of Lincoln Conduit Spurs FTTH, School Network Innovation - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 228

When we last spoke to people from Lincoln, Nebraska, about their innovative conduit program to improve Internet access, we focused on how they had done it - Conduits Lead to Competition, podcast 182. For this week and episode 228 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, we focus more on the community benefits their approach has led to.

We are once again joined by David Young, Fiber Infrastructure and Right of Way Manager in the Public Works Department. We offer a shorter background about the history of the project before focusing on the franchise they developed with local ISP Allo. Allo is building citywide Fiber-to-the-Home and has agreed to provision 15 VLANs at every endpoint. We talk about what that means and implications for schools specifically.

We also touch on permitting issues for local governments and David explains his philosophy on how to speak to the community about potential projects in an engaging manner.

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to mojo monkeys for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Bodacious."

BT Brings Free Wi-Fi To New Burlington Transit Center

Burlington Telecom is teaming with Green Mountain Transit to provide free high-speed Wi-Fi to commuters and GMT employees at the new transit center, reports Vermont Business magazine. The bus transit center opened on Oct. 13.

The magazine noted:

“A reliable high speed Wi-Fi connection on the Downtown Transit Center platform will improve the customer experience, allowing passengers to use their wait time more effectively as they work, connect with friends, or download an e-book to enjoy on the ride.”  

Burlington Telecom general manager Stephen Barraclough told Vermont Business:

 “The opening of the new Downtown Transit Center is a much needed development for the many who commute to and from Burlington daily, and provides an exciting opportunity to highlight Burlington’s powerful gigabit infrastructure as an accelerator for economic, educational and community benefit.” 

Burlington Telecom joins a growing list of U.S. communities that are making free high-speed Internet connectivity available at public transit stations and airports. 

Free Wi-Fi At The City Gateway

In April 2015, we noted that LUS Fiber began sharing its municipal Gigabit network with travelers at the Lafayette Regional Airport in Louisiana. Free Wi-Fi is available at the airport supported by LUS Fiber, allowing guests to check email, post to social media, and browse the Internet.

Buses Bring Wi-Fi So Kids Can Work At Home

When Liberty County, Georgia’s school system, began a one-to-one iPad initiative, they were making a positive impact in technology readiness for local school kids. After a year of the program, however, district officials determined that lack of Internet access at home was so prevalent, students ran the risk of falling behind. To fix the problem and allow kids to work online away from school, the school district is installing buses with Wi-Fi equipment and parking them throughout the community, creating “Homework Zones.”

Taking Internet Access To The Streets

In Liberty County, approximately 60 percent of students don’t have Internet access at home, which renders school issued iPads useless at home. Access is available in libraries, when there are extended school hours, and sometimes in other public locations, but using public Wi-Fi takes kids away from home; some kids are just too young to be out at night.

Pat Millen, Co-Founder and President of Eliminate the Digital Divide, spoke with Christopher for episode #218 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. He described some of the burdens associated with finding Internet access away from home, just to complete your homework:

…[T]hink about the kid staying after school in the media center of the school until the very last second that the janitor needs to lock the door so that he can do his work. Then think about the same kid walking through all kinds of weather to get to the public library and hop on one of their computers.

Think about that same kid walking home in the dark through some of the toughest neighborhoods in the area...Then think about this very same kid going through the motions of walking through the rain and the dark or the heat and the sun to get to the library that's two miles from his house. Then think of him taking measure of his life's prospects. "I can't get this work done. I'm not going to be able to pass this class. My family is so poor, shouldn't I just go ahead and drop out and go try to find a job?" 

Dark Fiber, Free Wi-Fi, Startups in Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Missouri law has severely restricted municipal networks, but local entrepreneurs decided to create their own fast, affordable, reliable community connectivity. The City of Cape Girardeau has made new plans in its Marquette Tech District: free public Wi-Fi and a tech-hub for startups. Although the city is already home to more than 100 large employers, city officials want to also encourage small businesses and entrepreneurship. Underneath all the possibilities is publicly owned dark fiber.

The Marquette Tech District will utilize the City of Cape Girardeau’s dark fiber to connect the new tech-hub and provide free public Wi-Fi. The project hopes to bring new vitality to the Marquette Tower building, a center of the city's old economy, transforming it into a space for new technology-based companies. Local entrepreneurs have created a nonprofit to develop the project and the local Internet Service Provider (ISP) Big River Communications is on board. The city, meanwhile, owns the essential infrastructure - the fiber.

A Nonprofit Drives Development

The Southeast Missourian has followed the development of the project since its inception. From the planning process to obtaining grants, the newspaper has unraveled the complex collaborations across several institutions and levels of government.

The City of Cape Girardeau, population 40,000, has always been a regional commercial hub on the Mississippi River in southern Missouri. In the late 1920s, travelers could stay downtown at the upscale Marquette Tower hotel. More than 100 employers in the city each provide jobs to more than 100 people, including Southeast Missouri State University and several healthcare systems. Community leaders hope the new tech district will attract and retain young professionals; the university next door is an excellent resource for educating and keeping a talented tech workforce.

Saint Louis Park is Prepared for the Fiber Future - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 219

Saint Louis Park, a compact community along the west side of Minneapolis, has built an impressive fiber network, a conduit system, and several deals with developers to ensure new apartment buildings will allow their tenants to choose among high speed Internet access providers. Chief Information Office Clint Pires joins me for Community Broadband Bits podcast 219. In one of our longest episodes, we discuss how Saint Louis Park started by partnering with other key entities to start its own fiber network, connecting key anchor institutions. Years later, it partnered with a firm for citywide solar-powered Wi-Fi but that partner failed to perform, leaving the community a bit disheartened, but in no way cowed. They continued to place conduit in the ground wherever possible and began striking deals with ISPs and landlords that began using the fiber and conduit to improve access for local businesses and residents. And they so impressed our previous podcast guest Travis Carter of US Internet, that he suggested we interview them for this show. Clint Pires has learned many lessons over the years and now we hope other communities will take his wisdom to heart. Well-managed communities can make smart investments that will save taxpayer dollars and drive investment in better networks.

This show is 40 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Roller Genoa for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Safe and Warm in Hunter's Arms."

Garrett County, Maryland: Access For Anchors In The Appalachians

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

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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.

Lakeland Considering Its Next Step In Florida

In August 2013, we reported on Lakeland, Florida’s dark fiber network that serves local schools, government facilities, and local businesses. Over the past year or so, community leaders have discussed whether or not to expand the use of Lakeland’s fiber resources.

A 2015 feasibility study suggested several other ways to use Lakeland’s existing 330 miles of fiber infrastructure to enhance connectivity for economic development and residential access. As the city examines its finances and its future in the coming months, city leaders are considering six avenues to meet the community’s needs. The options, some recommended by consultants, vary in type and investment and the City Commission will begin discussing the possibilities as they meet in the upcoming months.

Leaders Consider The Next Move

Lakeland is examining public policies that will encourage better connectivity, such as dig-once, permitting changes, and right-of-way regulations. With smart policies in place, Lakeland can lay the groundwork so they can build off progress made today.

In 2013, Polk Vision, a group of organizations, businesses, government, and individuals, along with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council developed the Polk County Broadband Plan. Another option is using the Plan as a guidepost and aligning Lakeland’s plan to support the goals set in the Polk County Plan. Connecting the schools to a larger network would be part of that plan.

Lakeland, like many other communities wants to give providers operating in the community today the opportunity to work with them to improve services. Another option the city will pursue is reaching out to providers in Lakeland and engaging in discussions to upgrade or expand services to better meet the needs of the community. (We haven't seen much success when communities pursue large incumbents, but smaller local providers are sometimes more willing to work with communities.)

Emmett, Idaho Sees Opportunity in New Fiber Network

“Business in the 21st century is driven by broadband.”

Those are the words of Gordon Petrie, the Mayor of the small west central City of Emmett, Idaho that is in the process of constructing its own fiber network. The Mayor and other city leaders have high hopes that the network will create economic opportunities in their city within this sparsely populated part of the country:

“Idaho is one of the least connected states in the union." Petrie said. “We intend to change that by making Emmett one of the most connected communities in Idaho. We’ll have the infrastructure to support high-tech business.”

The Buildout and Beyond

When completed, the new network will encircle the city and connect Emmett’s City Hall, its Public Safety Building, Emmett City Park (which is already providing free Wi-Fi), Public works facilities, the fire department, and the library. The city’s systems administrator said the city is timing construction of the fiber to coincide with other scheduled utility digs. Beyond these immediate plans, the city also has a five year strategy for the network that includes a goal of connecting all of the city’s businesses and its 6,500 residents to the fiber network. 

Emmett’s buildout process is similar to the strategy used in nearby Ammon, another small Idaho city that several years ago began constructing a fiber network starting with its municipal facilities. As with Emmett's proposed plan, Ammon constructed its network incrementally over a period of several years, eventually reaching the city’s business community and just now starting to connect to residents as well. 

Ammon’s example shows that when a city like Emmett takes the initiative to bring locally owned fiber infrastructure to the community, good things are likely to follow. In the coming years, Emmett can expect to see public savings, economic development, and opportunities that may enable them to connect the entire community with fast, affordable, reliable Internet infrastructure.