Since it first broke ground in 2014, Longmont, Colorado’s city-owned NextLight fiber network has won numerous awards and inspired countless communities nationwide. But the network, which recently expanded access to more than 28,000 area residents, is also trailblazing in another area: ensuring that fiber is affordable to low income, marginalized populations.

NextLight unveiled its locally-funded Internet Assistance Program (IAP) last year. The program provides low-income residents with a $25 discount off of NextLight’s already affordable fiber pricing. As a result, locals can receive symmetrical 100 megabit per second (Mbps) service for as little as $14.95 a month, and symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) fiber for $45.

To apply, households must qualify for any of a number of existing federal programs, including the FCC’s Lifeline, Head Start, Medicaid-MSP or SLMP, Veterans or survivor’s pension, Section 8, WIC, food stamps, Federal Pell Grants, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), SVVSD Education Benefit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR).

IAP was created to offset the collapse of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided a $30 per month discount off of the broadband bills of low-income Americans. The program was summarily discontinued after Republicans in Congress refused to fund a program extension.

According to Longmont officials, not only is their IAP program available to a much broader qualification base, with more than 1000 subscribers now enrolled, the program is currently helping 14 percent more city subscribers than the FCC’s ACP did at its peak.

Construction crews have begun work on Fort Bragg’s long-awaited municipal fiber network, which will ultimately bring affordable fiber to the California city of 7,000.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $17 million. Of that, $10 million will be paid for by a Last Mile Federal Funding Account (FFA) grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), awarded in February to help fund the construction of a Middle Mile Broadband Network (MMBN) that will run directly through the heart of Ft. Bragg.

The remaining project costs will be paid for by a $7 million, 20-year loan at 4.85 percent from EverBank, recently approved by the Fort Bragg city council.

“This project is a cornerstone for the future of Fort Bragg,” City Manager Isaac Whippy said of the milestone. “Reliable, high-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity. With this investment, we’re closing the digital divide and making Fort Bragg a more connected, competitive, and inclusive community.”

According to a city announcement, Ft. Bragg’s citywide fiber network, 170 miles north of San Francisco, is being designed with a centralized data hub and 15 Distribution Areas (DAs). Using horizontal directional drilling, crews will install conduit and fiber underground – primarily beneath sidewalks and alleys – connecting to a fiber terminal located near the edge of the city’s right-of-way at each property.

When California announced in 2021 that it would open a last-mile broadband grant program seeded with $2 billion, it was something of a watershed moment.

The Last-Mile Federal Funding Account (FFA) broadband program,* as it was called, instantly became one of the largest state-administered broadband grant programs ever. Along with other broadband programs overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the FFA program sought to significantly close the digital divide by ensuring that at least 98 percent of households had broadband access.

Municipalities, cooperatives, Tribal entities and community-based nonprofit networks seized this opportunity to take charge of their digital futures, submitting nearly one hundred applications in more than 40 counties across the state.

As grant announcements began rolling out in June of 2024, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) began tracking where that money was going and, specifically, the kinds of applicants that were successful in the program. What emerged was indisputable: California’s Federal Funding Account broadband program was an unprecedented success for community networks.

At communitynetworks.org, we have published numerous stories highlighting innovative and successful applications, including projects by Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications, the City of Huntington Park, the City of Oakland, Cold Springs Rancheria, and the City of Indio.

Today we are releasing a new two-part dashboard based on the CPUC’s data that helps visualize the success of community-based projects in this transformative state program. (The CPUC also has a very helpful interactive dashboard with more detail on each project, but it does not share our focus on community networks). Hover on each visualization within this dashboard for additional detail.

Grays Harbor PUD, a wholesale telecom utility in Washington state, says it’s getting to work leveraging a $7 million grant from the Washington State Broadband Office to expand affordable fiber access in the South Elma, Porter, and Cedarville areas of the Evergreen State.

Grays Harbor PUD was one of 16 Washington utilities chosen by the Washington State Broadband Office to receive grant funding during awards first announced back in 2023.

The $6.9 million grant is helping the PUD run fiber along State Route 12, using existing utility poles to expand the service possibilities for customers in South Elma, Porter, Cedarville, and surrounding areas. Once complete, the PUD is expected to lease fiber access to roughly a dozen Internet service providers, serving more than 500 new locations.

Image

The construction is being built in partnership with Paramount Communications, and officials are warning locals to expect some construction delays as crews get to work across the impacted parts of Grays Harbor County on the western side of Washington state.

“The Grays Harbor PUD appreciates your patience and understanding as we complete this project,” Grays Harbor PUD Telecom Business Coordinator Sara Travers says in an announcement. “Our teams are committed to working safely and efficiently to bring improved broadband services to your area.”

Last year, Timnath, Colorado broke ground on a new $20 million fiber network with the goal of dramatically expanding affordable fiber access to the town of 7,100 residents.

Baltimore activists and leaders say the city is making steady progress in efforts to bridge the digital divide in the city of 565,000. The efforts have culminated in several grant-fueled initiatives to deliver fiber and wireless to city apartment complexes, a city middle-mile network, and a looming partnership with regional providers to further expand affordable access.

When we last checked in with Baltimore, the city had just doled out $2 million of its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to bring fiber to 12 new city apartment buildings. The deployment is in partnership with Waves, a nonprofit formerly known as Project Waves.

Waves was first launched in 2018 in direct response to the Trump FCC’s repeal of net neutrality and the general failures of federal telecom policy to address digital inequity. Project Waves (profiled by ILSR in 2023) initially used Point-to-Multipoint wireless connectivity to deliver free wireless broadband service to about 300 multi-dwelling unit (MDU) residents.

Image

Now Baltimore Director of Broadband and Digital Equity Kenya Asli tells Government Technology the city is putting the finishing touches on a Request for Proposal (RFP) to strike a new public-private-partnership with an as-yet-unselected broadband provider. The deal should further expand fiber access to unserved and underserved parts of the city.

“Folks want more options, and so we are bringing in more options,” Asli said.

Vermont’s Otter Creek Communications Utility District (CUD) says it has completed its ambitious fiber deployment, bringing affordable access to more than 6,000 homes and businesses in the Rutland County region of the Green Mountain State.

Otter Creek is another example of the way Vermont’s long under-served communities are bonding together via innovative new partnerships taking direct aim at the digital divide.

When last we had checked in on Otter Creek CUD, the CUD had just received a $9.9 million grant by the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB). Otter Creek CUD then leveraged that grant funding to form a public-private partnership with Consolidated Communications.

Image

Otter Creek CUD Chair Laura Black tells ILSR that the partnership involved 335 miles of new fiber passing *6,000 locations. Of the total target reach, 1290 locations had never had broadband access previously. Between the Otter Creek grant awards and contributions from private providers, more than $24 million has been invested in Rutland County to expand fiber access.  

“We partnered with the existing ILEC business in most of our area, Consolidated Communications, to build and operate the fiber network with both their own contribution and grant funding we were able to secure,” Black said. “As well, a portion of our area was peeled off to allow the ILEC in three of the towns in our District to be served by the existing small ILEC business – Shoreham Telephone – under their own grant funding program (EACAM).”

Superior, Wisconsin officials say they’re getting very close to lighting up the first subscribers of a city-owned fiber network that will finally bring affordable, next-generation fiber access to the city’s long under-served community of 26,000.

“We have phase 1 in the ground and are working with Nokia right now for final configuration and testing,” Stephanie Becken, broadband manager for ConnectSuperior, tells ILSR.

“It's our plan to have our sign-up website ready in the next two weeks, as our two ISPs finalize their connections and offerings pages,” she says. “I'm hopeful we'll have drops and initial service started by mid-May, but we may be looking at June—there's always something!”

Image

In 2020 the city passed a resolution declaring fiber essential infrastructure. In 2021, the city council voted overwhelmingly to move forward on a deployment master plan developed for the city by EntryPoint Networks.

In 2023 the Superior city council voted 8-1 to approve deployment in the project’s first pilot area: a swath of around 830 homes and businesses lodged between Tower Avenue, Belknap Street, and North 21st streets. But the phase 1 target area has expanded a little since as the city has moved forward on logistics and planning.

The Port of Whitman County in Washington state has received a new $2.9 million grant it says will help dramatically expand affordable fiber access to the heavily rural county of 48,000. The Port of Whitman’s broadband expansions have traditionally been open access, which allow multiple competitors to compete over shared, community owned infrastructure, driving down costs.

The latest funding, from the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) will support the construction of dark fiber to approximately 109 additional unserved and underserved locations in Whitman County.

According to the county announcement the project, supported by $622,441 in local matching funds, will construct last-mile fiber infrastructure along Sunshine Road east of Pullman, along Kitzmiller Road north of Pullman, and west of Tekoa. The build outside of Tekoa will bring fiber to the Port of Whitman County’s Tekoa industrial site, which the Port acquired in 2023.  

“The Port is excited to partner with CERB on this broadband project,” said Kara Riebold, Port of Whitman County Executive Director.

“This continues our efforts to bridge the digital divide in rural Whitman County. We know that reliable broadband is no longer a luxury but a necessity for economic growth and are grateful for CERB’s continued investment in broadband across Washington State.”

In Washington State, several Public Utility Districts – including the Port Of Whitman County, the Port Of Coupeville, and the Port of Skagit in Skagit County – have leveraged millions in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants to deploy community-owned open access fiber, choosing Ziply as their operational partner.

Comcast says it’s acquiring San Bruno, California’s CityNet, a municipally owned and operated broadband, video and voice network that currently serves over 5,400 residents and businesses.

San Bruno’s $8 million sale to Comcast was prompted by $21.5 million in debt and what the city says was surging operating costs. Unlike many municipal broadband providers, San Bruno also provided television services, which many smaller providers and communities are moving away from due to soaring programming costs and dwindling and unsustainable profit margins.

“Rates simply were not keeping pace with costs,” Bruno city manager Alex McIntyre wrote in a January report to the City Council. “CityNet has grown increasingly technologically obsolete over the past decade.”

Despite increasing service rates between 9 and 12 percent, the city says it saw operating losses of  $794,852 in 2023 and $859,995 in 2022.

Originally founded in 1972 as San Bruno Cable TV, the pioneering cable broadband operator (with some scattered fiber development) struggled with modernizing its coaxial network to fiber, something city leaders refused to fund.

“A significant City-funded capital investment would be required to bring CityNet’s technology and operations up to current industry standard, as well as rate adjustments,” McIntyre wrote. “The Council declined to authorize this capital request in April 2023.”