community broadband networks

We finally see television news outlets asking the tough questions of bill pushed by powerful cable and telephone companies to prevent giving residents a real choice in cable and Internet service providers. We been covering this Georgia bill closely, and were glad to see this segment:

CBS Atlanta 46

The segment makes an error in suggesting that tax dollars are commonly used by local governments in building networks. They are not. Most municipal networks are built using revenue bonds, where the community does not pledge its full faith and credit. Instead, they sell bonds to private investors who are then repaid by the revenues generated by the network.

But this mistake is more than outweighed with the reveal at end of the video, that the municipal network in Thomasville allowed the city to drop its local property entirely. Yet another community benefiting tremendously from owning its own network.

New Hamsphire FastRoads is making significant strides in connecting residents, businesses, and community anchor institutions in the southwestern section of the state. FastRoads is funded by a combination of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants, private donations, and funds from local communities.

While the network is certainly making progress and scheduled for completion this summer, it has been constrained by state laws that limit the use of bonding. As a result, many local communities that would like to benefit from connections with Fast Roads will not able to take advantage of its presence in this largely rural area of the state.

We recently spoke with Carole Monroe, Executive Director of New Hampshire Fast Roads, in a Broadband Bits podcast interview. She told us about a bill in the New Hampshire General Court this year that would remove restrictions that limit how local governments can finance network investments.

In past years, New Hampshire legislators took up several bills that would remove the restriction preventing local communities from using bonds to finance broadband infrastructure. Every year, lobbyists from large ISPs manage to push those bills into oblivion. This year, HB 286 seeks to strike the restrictive language.

The bill is getting attention from local media, the New Hampshire SentinelSource. An editorial, published soon after the bill was introduced summarizes the problem:

In areas where companies determine that investing in expansion isn’t worthwhile, municipalities often find their hands tied because state law does not allow communities to take out municipal bonds for broadband access if there’s a private company operating in the community. That means if a town has even a small pocket of coverage by a telecommunication company, it can’t get funding to pay for expansion to the rest of its residents and businesses.

The good people at the Sentinel Source know that their communities want the opportunity to make their own decisions about connectivity:

Changing the law would give communities one more option to achieve that crucial link. Then it would be up to voters in each town to determine if they want to invest in the state’s technology infrastructure. Lawmakers should pass the bill and put those decisions in the hands of voters.

Whether or not to invest in broadband infrastructure is a decision best made by those who will live with the results. With little or no chance at obtaining this critical infrastructure from the private sector, local populations should have every tool available to achieve the connectivity they want and need.

We continue tracking the progress of Georgia's HB 282, a bill to limit investment in Internet networks. The bill basically says that if some people in a community have access to 3 Mbps (moderately slow DSL) connections, the community cannot invest in its own advanced networks - even to connect just local businesses that would spur job growth. This bill could be discussed on the Georgia House Floor any day. If it passes there, the Senate will take it up.

However, even if we can kill it this year, we can expect to see the big companies raise it again next year. It got us to wondering how anyone could consider this a good idea ...

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Read all of our coverage of this bill using this tag: HB 282 2013

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We previously created a comic about the Comcast astroturf campaign in Longmont, Colorado.

Feel free to share this video below with those who may not be aware why some communities have decided to build their own networks.

Video: 

Chattanooga has made the national TV news, with CBS doing a segment about America's best Internet network - owned and operated by the city of Chattanooga.

They make a few minor mistakes - Chattanooga is one of several cities that have made gigabit available to everyone (including Bristol VA and TN; Morristown, TN; Lafayette, LA; and Burlington, VT. We track community-owned networks have have made some level.

It is important to note that these networks do not offer a gig as the basic tier. However, their starting tiers are incredibly competitive, often much faster than the higher tiers of competing networks.

The New Hampshire Fast Roads Initiative is bringing great Internet access to rural New Hampshire. Project CEO Carole Monroe joined us for this week's Community Broadband Bits podcast.

Fast Roads is the culmination of years of local organizing and several efforts to improve access to the Internet in the region. The project is already benefiting the community and is not fully built out yet.

We discuss the project and the challenges they face -- from pole attachments to a host of hostile lobbyists in the state capital.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!

Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

Thanks to D. Charles Speer & the Helix for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

The Seattle Times has published an opinion piece I wrote about the need to move from Internet access business models based on scarcity to those based on abundance.

Many of us have grown accustomed to the speeds offered by modern cable networks. They aren't particularly speedy, but we are used to them. When we find ourselves stuck ong a slow DSL connection, perhaps at a friend or relative's house, we notice how long page loads take and we have to change the way we use the Internet as a result.

Some have said that the slowest network connection you will put up with is the fastest one you have become accustomed to. We can do better and we should. By embracing self-reliance and ceasing to rely on the national cable and telephone companies, we can build better, more affordable networks. Such networks will lead to more innovation, grow the economy, and improve quality of life.

CONSIDER your last electrical appliance purchase. Did you pause to think if your home could handle the increased electrical demand? No, because our electrical networks are built around the principle of abundance, not scarcity.

If the massive cable companies ran our electrical grid like they do their broadband networks, we would have to do without air conditioning, which puts a heavy strain on the grid during peak demand. In contrast, the cable networks get congested during periods of peak activity, failing to deliver the “up to” speed promised in their advertising.

Some new network builders are embracing a different approach, one that has major implications for the future of innovation: adopting a business model of abundance rather than scarcity.

Read the rest here.

Freedom to Connect starts on Monday morning, March 4, at 9 AM EST and should not be missed. If you cannot make the live event in Silver Spring, Maryland, you can join from afar.

That's right, there will be a livestream and for a $25 fee, you can join the backchannel discussion.

This conference has some incredible presenters ... and also me - Christopher Mitchell - giving a keynote in the opening session. I'll also be joining the Democracy Now show at 8 AM EST to talk about community owned networks. They also have a livestream at their site.

Community leaders from several Georgia cities made the trek to Atlanta to oppose HB 282 on Thursday, February 28th. Opposition to this bill to limit investment in Internet networks includes community leaders, high tech companies, and citizens all over the state. Nevertheless, legislators on the House Energy, Utilities, and Telecom Committee chose to ignore the needs of communities, prefering to tell them from afar how to run their towns. Winners? Incumbents Windstream, AT&T, CenturyLink, and Comcast.

A substitute bill [PDF] was introduced that exempts communities with municipal electric utilities from the prohibtion to provide telecommunications. Additionally, the bill's definition of "broadband service" is now defined as service equal to or greater than 3.0 Mbps. "in the faster direction." While these look like compromises at first blush, they do very little to change the real world application of the bill.

Our earlier analysis of the bill addressed the fact that the expense and time required  to prove locations of unserved areas as defined by the bill, would foreclose the possibility of communities making investments in this essential infrastructure. Likewise, communities that already have networks would be similarly burdened.

While the muni electric exemption is clearly aimed at cities that might oppose the bill, community leaders from some of those target cities strongly spoke out against the revised HB 282. Elberton, Thomasville, and LaGrange, are a few of the communities who sent representatives and all know the power of their community owned networks. Concerned citizens who see the negative impact of this bill also showed up to speak their minds.

Mayors from Elberton and Thomasville testified along with the Elberton and LaGrange City Managers. The Georgia Municipal Association, spearheading the effort against the bill, covered the meeting for their blog.

City leaders expressed dismay over the bill and described how it would affect their own communities and rural Georgia. Here are some highlights:

"Let’s talk about economic development,” said Elberton Mayor Larry Guest. “Georgia should be promoting a pro-business, inclusive approach to broadband deployment, especially in rural areas of the state,” he said. “Competition ensures market-based pricing and faster delivery of state-of-the-art services. We have to do everything we can to attract jobs. If we don’t do that, business will not select rural Georgia. High speed access is essential to us."

When the bills author pressed the fact that the original bill had been amended to exempt cities that provide electric service, Mayor Guest responded:

"Other Georgia cities deserve the right to do what Elberton did, and their residents deserve the services Cumming has,” said Guest. “We are not second class citizens because we decided to live in rural Georgia.”

(The bill's chief author, Republican Rep. Mark Hamilton, represents a district that encompasses Cumming.)

Economic development was a big concern for community leaders:

“The concern that I have is the underserved areas around us,” said Thomasville Mayor Max Beverly. He noted that the bill prohibits cities from investing in, or expanding current broadband services, if any commercial carrier offers 3.0 Mbps where the city wants to offer that service.

“Three megabits is not adequate to do functions in a modern telecommunications world,” Beverly said. Beverly explained that Thomasville is preparing for its customers to use 20 megabits of bandwidth per second. “We are expecting the demand on bandwidth to double in the next five years and this bill does not address that,” he said. “There is going to be bandwidth inflation. Please consider the rest of rural Georgia.”

Residents also showed up to testify, driving home that fact that this issue is not only about business customers. A citizen from Dawsonville also spoke at the meeting:

"I am fighting to get the service I am paying for,” he said, adding that the company took federal stimulus money—$181.3 million according to the company’s 10K filed with the FCC—to invest in their infrastructure but he has not benefitted from any so-called investment.

“I want competition,” he said. “If my city wants to give [the private sector] some competition, I am worried that this bill would prevent my city from doing that.”

Tom Hall, City Manager from LaGrange, summed up the potential power of HB 282:

LaGrange City Manager Tom Hall said the bill has the effect of picking winners and losers, “not only communities but whether businesses will have choices. You are throwing up barriers to communities to not be able to make choices in the best interest of their community and that is not necessarily wise public policy.”

A word about the process: The House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications subcommittee met on Wednesday to discuss the bill and to listen to this testimony but did not take any action. The next day, Thursday, the subcommittee met again without testifiers and passed the bill. Later that same day, the full committee also met and passed the bill, again without the benefit of testifiers. The bill is now in the House Rules Committee, which will determine whether or not it will be voted on by the House. If the entire House votes on the bill on or before the 30th day of session (a day which has not yet been designated), and it passes, it will be sent to the Senate for consideration.

We continue to monitor this bill and to urge you to contact the Rules Committee (Committe Roster here). Tell them this bill is a bad idea and should not move to the House Floor. Policies like this, designed to take away rights from local communities to provide for their local residents, businesses, and government, are bad for Georgians and bad for the rest of us.

Several high tech companies and trade associations have sent a joint letter to Georgia legislators to oppose HB 282, a bill designed to limit investment in Internet Networks.

The letter has already been signed by Alcatel-Lucent, Google, Atlantic Engineering, Gigabit Squared, OnTrac, FTTH Council, American Public Power Association, NATOA, SEATOA, Utilities Telecom Council, and the Telecommunications Industry Association. The full letter is available here [pdf]:

Dear Chairman Parsons:

We, the private-sector companies and trade associations listed below, urge you to oppose HB 282 because this bill will harm both the public and private sectors, stifle economic growth, prevent the creation or retention of thousands of jobs, hamper work force development, and diminish the quality of life in Georgia. In particular, HB 282 will hurt the private sector in several ways: by curtailing public-private partnerships; by stifling the ability of private companies to sell equipment and services to public broadband providers; and by impairing economic and educational opportunities that contribute to a skilled workforce from which businesses across the state will benefit.

The United States must compete in a global economy in which affordable access to advanced communications networks is playing an increasingly significant role. As Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski recently noted in calling for broadband providers and state and municipal community leaders to come together to develop at least one gigabit community in all 50 states by 2015, “The U.S. needs a critical mass of gigabit communities nationwide so that innovators can develop next-generation applications and services that will drive economic growth and global competitiveness.”The private sector alone cannot enable the United States to take full advantage of the opportunities that advanced communications networks can create in virtually every area of life.

As a result, federal and state efforts are taking place across the Nation, including Georgia, to deploy both private and public broadband infrastructure to stimulate and support economic development and job creation, especially in economically distressed areas. HB 282 would prevent public broadband providers from building the sorely needed advanced broadband infrastructure that will stimulate local businesses development, foster work force retraining, and boost employment in economically underachieving areas.

Consistent with these expressions of national unity, public entities in Georgia and across America are ready, willing, and able to do their share to bring affordable high-capacity broadband connectivity to all Americans. Enactment of direct or effective barriers to public broadband initiatives, including HB 282, would be counterproductive to the achievement of these goals. HB 282 is also inconsistent with America’s National Broadband Plan, which calls on States to remove existing barriers to community broadband initiatives and to refrain from enacting new ones.

We support strong, fair and open competition to ensure that users can enjoy the widest range of choices and opportunities. HB 282 is a step in the wrong direction. It is bad for Georgia’s communities, bad for Georgia’s private sector, particularly high-technology companies, and bad for America’s global competitiveness. Please oppose HB 282 and any amendment or other measure that could significantly impair community broadband deployments or public-private partnerships in Georgia.

We recently learned that Tapes Again, a company that specializes in media reproduction and packaging, is moving to Lafayette, Louisiana, from Boulder, Colorado. The company is leaving its 20 year home to take advantage of LUSFiber's incredible network. According to a Business Brief from TheAdvertiser.com:

Tapes Again, a company started in Boulder, Colo., more than 20 years ago is moving to Lafayette next month. The decision to move is attributed to the bandwidth capacity available in Lafayette through LUS Fiber, according to a news release.

The company's clients include musicians and others that have a need for media reproduction and packaging. Much of the company's interactions are through the internet, so the time that it takes to upload and download large files has a direct impact on daily production schedules.

While the presence of a high-speed network is often citied as one contributing factor enitcing businesses to move, less often do we see connectivity as the sole reason. Tapes Again is also changing its name to Lafayette Media Services.

Special thanks to the Lafayette Pro Fiber Blog for sharing this story.