Muskogee, located in east central Oklahoma, is considering free Wi-Fi across the community to boost economic development. As a model, community leaders are looking at Ponca City. A recent Muskogee Phoenix article quoted the Interim City Manager:

“Our hope is that the public Wi-Fi initiative will distinguish us from other cities when it comes to attracting economic development, all the way from retail to industrial,” Interim City Manager Roy Tucker said. It “will most certainly increase the quality of life and educational opportunities of our citizens.”

Local citizens developed the Action in Muskogee (AIM) initiative to improve the community; the idea to provide free Wi-Fi grew out of the initiative. Muskogee hopes a Wi-Fi network will also improve public safety, government efficiency, and Internet access for citizens.

AIM participants hope to emulate Ponca City and its award-winning mesh network. City officials installed the wireless network in 2008. Residents of Ponca City save an estimated $3.9 million a year in avoided ISP costs. In other words, the network helps keep $3.9 million in the Ponca City economy.

Ponca City began its network in 1997 with a few miles of fiber to improve communications between municipal facilities. Each year the network grew and Ponca City now has over 350 miles of fiber. Municipal facilities, schools, hospitals, healthcare clinics, businesses, and even casinos use the fiber network. According to the article, Ponca City sells Internet access via the fiber to local business customers to fund the mesh network and free Wi-Fi for the community.

Muskogee has no plans to install a publicly owned fiber network like Ponca City's. Another Phoenix article suggested Muskogee leaders may pursue a public-private arrangement:

"In Mexico we have a saying: 'don't ask to be breastfed!'" laughs local radio presenter, Keyla Ramirez. "We have the satisfaction of no longer having to ask them: 'Please, come and install a service for which we're going to pay you'."

One Mexican community is exercising its self-reliance muscle to create its own cell phone network. A recent BBC article introduced us to Talea de Castro, a small coffee-producing village in Oaxaca. Community members repeatedly appealed to Mexico's main cellular networks to install an antenna in their village. 

America Movil and other large telecoms would only bring the service to the village if they installed electrical lines and new roads. Without those improvements, the trip was not worth the investment to the telco giants. Without the means to make the improvements, the small mountain community was without cell service.

Citizens decided cell phone service was a necessity so held a village meeting. Keyla Ramirez from the local radio station told the BBC:

"Communication. From the very start, that was our principle objective as a collective," she explains.

"Sometimes there might be an accident in the fields and, before, people couldn't let anyone know.

"They'd be cut off if the river was high or if they'd been bitten by a snake and couldn't make it back to the village. Now they can call their families and they'll come and help them."

Local radio personnel brought information to the meeting about cellular equipment the community could install themselves. With help from non-profit Rhizomatica and a US-based company, villagers installed the equipment and began the Talea Cellular Network. People of the village perform maintenance and keep the network live.

Calls and texts in the the village are free and calls outside the area cost significantly less than rates from the big telcos. Entrepreneurs use the network to boost business and families are no longer cut off from each other.

Word is spreading. From a San Diego Union-Tribune article on the network:

Okanogan County, located along the extreme north central border of Washington State, is expanding its wholesale fiber optic network to more small local communities. The Okanogan Public Utility District (PUD) received a $5.5 million grant and a $3.7 million loan through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and will extend service to about 80% of the PUD service area. The county is home to about 41,000 people.

According to a recent Methow Valley News article, the construction began in February and the project is schedule for completion by the end of 2013. The network will be about 200 miles long and will also include 143 wireless access points along the power line route. Construction will also include new poles, tall enough to host both power and fiber optic lines. According to the PUD's director of power:

Some people who will now have the option of faster Internet connections were previously served only by dial-up or satellite services, said [Ron] Gadeberg. Even with the expanded “last-mile” network, “there are still tons of unmet needs, because it’s such a big county and some people are so remote that it is cost-prohibitive to serve them,” he said.

A local ISP, MethowNet.com, offers service to customers on the PUD's existing fiber network and will expand northward to serve additional communities north of its current service area.

The story has been updated to fix errors. The original story described the project as a partnership but we have since learned it is a project of the Kitsap Public Utility District that is encouraged by the City.

We reported on Poulsbo, Washington, last fall after the community began a wireless pilot project providing a free high-capacity wireless mesh network throughout downtown. Kitsap Public Utility District is running the project, with encouragement from the City. An interview with Poulsbo City Council member Ed Stern filled in more details on this local project.

A wireless mesh pilot project was not the original plan. The public utility district had been investing in a fiber optic network to reduce costs for local government and provide better broadband for schools and hospitals. Stern and other city leaders also recognized that encouraging telecommuting would keep local dollars in the community. Poulsbo is very close to Seattle and city leadership hoped to draw employees from Seattle offices and encourage economic development. They offered a high quality of life and knew better broadband would draw more employers to Poulsbo.

The partners installed a fiber backbone throughout the city and had planned to expand last mile connections in the near future. Poulsbo also codified changes in conduit policy with new ordinances to better manage public rights-of-way. The code requires private providers to first use existing city conduit and the city reserves the right to lease it to them. This policy prevents unnecessary wear and tear and traffic disruption on local streets.

However, the state legislature erected barriers that derailed the full project by revoking PUD authority to offer direct retail services. To this day, public utility districts are required to wholesale access, which rarely creates enough revenue to justify the initial cost of building networks. Community leaders knew that wholesale-only models carry more risk because they split an already tight revenue stream. With the change in state law, the community re-evaluated the fiber network plan. 

In the 1990s, the community of Shafter, California, began developing its strategic plan; the move would eventually lead them to build a municipal broadband network. The town of 17,000 still depended primarily on agriculture but manufacturers were relocating to the community, drawn by its proximity to the railroad and its open space. Potential employers increasingly focused on broadband access as a priority and Shafter realized broadband would be critical to continued growth.

Shafter’s Assistant City Manager Scott Hurlbert recently explained to us how the community built its own fiber network to serve commercial clients, local government, and schools. This incremental approach is not unique but Shafter has no municipal electric nor gas utility, which does puts it in the company of Santa Monica, Mount Vernon, and a few other communities that have built networks without having a municipal power company.

Shafter’s City Council examined its strengths and its weaknesses and found a way to build a network with no borrowing or bonding. The community continues to expand its fiber network, attracting businesses and improving quality of life in this central California town.

In the 1990s AT&T was the main business services provider and it would only improve business telecommunications on an order-by-order basis. Companies that wanted to build beyond the developed town had to pay for the installation themselves, often waiting months to get connected. Prices were "obscene" and the delays almost killed several commercial deals. Even today AT&T takes the same approach in Shafter.

When he joined the City in 2005 as the IT Director, Hurlbert and his staff researched wireless technologies but determined that fiber-optic deployment would be the best option. At that time, the bandwidth demand was already intense and a wireless network would need fiber for backhaul. Hurlbert and staff also investigated other communities, including Chelan, Washington, to look for workable models.

The war over keeping copper alive rages on in New York with more stealthy antics from Verizon. Stop the Cap! now reports that, rather than wait for a hurricane to take out the copper lines in the Catskills, it will quietly shift seasonal home owners to VoiceLink as they request reconnection. Stop the Cap! also published a letter [PDF] from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) who allege Verizon has also been installing VoiceLink in the City.

We recently visited this drama with Harold Feld from Public Knowledge on Broadband Bits podcast #52. He and Christopher discussed the issue as it applies to Fire Island in New York and Barrier Island in New Jersey. Verizon has permission from the New York Public Services Commission (NYPSC) to use the VoiceLink product in place of copper wires on a temporary basis as a way to get service to victims of Hurricane Sandy. Seven months is a long time to go without phone service.

Our readers know that VoiceLink short changes users, especially those that rely on phone connections for Life Alert, want to use phone cards, or want the security of reliable 911 service. Feld also noted in his Tales from the Sausage Factory blog, that Verizon was rumored to be making secret plans to expand VoiceLink well beyond the islands, regardless of the limitations of the NYPSC order.