Here at ILSR we’re no stranger to telecom monopoly-backed efforts to mislead the public about the significant benefits of community owned broadband access.

That’s why a new “study” by the industry-backed Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) maligning municipal broadband doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

The study professes to take a look at a very small number of municipal broadband networks, then makes sweeping and patently false claims about the entire sector.

“In most cases, local governments have neither the competence nor the economies of scale to deliver broadband as well as private ISPs,” the study concludes. “So, favoring government-owned networks wastes societal resources, creates unfair competition, and is frequently unsustainable in the long run.”

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There’s numerous problems here. One being that the survey only looked at 20 municipal broadband networks in a country where more than 450 community broadband networks – serving close to 800 different communities – now pepper the American landscape.

The study author acknowledges the study’s sample size was “too small for the data to represent all U.S. [government-owned broadband networks] reliably,” then proceeds to make broad sweeping assumptions unsupported by any actual evidence.

New York’s Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) continues to provide grant funds to build municipal broadband networks across the state, as state broadband officials recently announced the program’s largest round of funding to date.

As we reported in June, the MIP program – specifically designed to fund municipally-owned networks as part of the Empire State’s $1 billion ConnectALL initiative – awarded $70 million to a half dozen projects earlier this summer.

Then, earlier this month, another $140 million in grant awards were announced for an additional six projects, promising to deliver “more than 1,200 miles of publicly-owned fiber optic infrastructure and wireless hubs, connecting (passing) over 60,000 homes and businesses with affordable, symmetric service – offering equal download and upload speeds at rates below regional averages.”

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The funding will be used to expand broadband infrastructure (and seed competition) in the Central New York, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Mid-Hudson and Western New York regions.

In a prepared press statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul characterized the grants as “a transformative step forward in our mission to connect every New Yorker to affordable, high-speed Internet.”

Erie County, New York’s ErieNet broadband initiative is poised to begin construction in Buffalo, NY, after the Buffalo Common Council recently passed a resolution approving the Telecommunications License Agreement with ErieNet LDC. The approval is a major step toward bringing affordable next-gen broadband access to long-neglected parts of Western New York.

ErieNet is a nonprofit, local development corporation (LDC), launched in September 2022, designed to construct and manage a municipal-based open-access fiber optic backbone. ECC Technologies has been chosen to handle sales, marketing, and tech support operations for the network.

“Construction has already begun for ErieNet with underground conduit installations, and utility work necessary to make utility poles ready for ErieNet fiber optic cable attachments,” ECC Technologies’ VP Matthew Crider tells ISLR. “We expect segments of our network to come online beginning in March of 2025; and have the ErieNet 400+ mile open access network substantially built by the end of 2025.”

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“Bringing high-quality broadband to Erie County begins in the City of Buffalo, and the Common Council’s approval opens up the way to make that happen,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a prepared statement.

Crider told ILSR that the current construction budget for the network is approximately $34 million, funded through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) broadband grants.

Canada’s biggest telecom giant has acquired Ziply Fiber – and a sizable swath of municipal operation agreements for open access fiber scattered across the Pacific Northwest. Bell Canada and Ziply’s joint announcement indicates that the full deal will be around $5 billion Canadian, plus an additional $2 billion in acquired debt.

The acquisition could help accelerate Ziply’s planned expansion across the Pacific Northwest, where the company’s fiber network currently passes 1.3 million locations across Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington State.

At the same time, Bell Canada’s history of anti-competitive behavior could herald a culture shift at the ascending provider. Ziply and Bell Canada’s rapid-fire acquisition of smaller providers across the Pacific Northwest could also risk undermining the pro-competitive benefits of the kind of open access policies Ziply previously embraced.

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Ziply was formed when WaveDivision Capital purchased Frontier Communications’ Pacific Northwest operations in 2020. It has quickly become a major player across the four states thanks in part to numerous public private partnerships with municipalities, and a 2022 announcement of $450 million in new private sector funding.

There’s signs of life for a municipal fiber project long considered in Fort Dodge, Iowa, after the Fort Dodge City Council moved forward with plans to use a surplus in the city’s sewer maintenance budget to pay for the higher than expected cost of the city’s fiber network.

In 2019, a broadband utility was a top-rated need in the city’s strategic plan, and residents voted that November to grant the city the authority to start building a municipal telecommunications network. The network has since steadily expanded in the city of 24,591 residents.

“We currently are just short of 2,400 customers, with a goal of having 2,500 customers by January 1, 2025,” Fort Dodge Fiber Director Jeremy Pearson tells ILSR. “If everything works out, we should exceed that goal. If you’ve got any pull with Mother Nature, we would appreciate any help to keep the temperatures warm and the snow away!”

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In 2021, the city borrowed $33.3 million to pay for building the fiber optic utility with a loan to be paid off with revenue generated by Fort Dodge Fiber as the project expanded. The city promised locals the planned network wouldn’t result in an increase in local resident property taxes.

But thanks to inflation and increasing labor and material costs, that $33.3 million isn’t going to be enough to finish the project. So last September the city council voted to provide a $3.1 million loan from the city’s sewer fund to Fort Dodge Fiber.

The loan has a 5.25 percent interest rate and is expected to be paid back sometime in 2026 or 2027, according to local news outlets.

In September we released our updated map pinpointing the location of the 400 municipally owned Internet service providers now serving almost 800 communities across the United States.

Today, we unveil our predictive map which was created by our Senior GIS Analyst Christine Parker.

The map provides a multi-layered look into the near future of community broadband networks.

It not only shows where existing community-owned fiber networks are located but also highlights how those networks will expand in the coming years based on formally announced plans and secured funding to complete network builds.

A few things to note about the map (below at bottom):

• The map only shows community-owned fiber networks.

   

• The darkest shaded layers show the footprint that is already built representing data from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection.

   

• Lighter shaded layers show the footprint that has not been built yet but where federal funding has been secured to expand, based on the FCC’s Broadband Funding Map.

   

• The lightest shaded layers indicate the “predicted” areas – everywhere electric and telephone cooperatives could build, if they wanted. This layer is based on FCC Study Area Boundaries & HIFLD Retail Service Areas. (It should also be noted that this predictive layer does not include municipal networks or tribally-owned networks.)

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[GIF caption: Electric and telephone cooperatives are both shown in orange; municipalities are shown in teal].

Though Northampton, Massachusetts residents still broadly support the construction of a city-owned municipal fiber broadband network, city officials are celebrating the arrival of Gateway Fiber, which will soon be delivering a more affordable fiber option, and more broadband competition, to the traditionally underserved city.

Gateway Fiber recently unveiled plans to deliver multi-gigabit speeds to large swaths of the city. The company, which will finance the entirety of the build, says it’s already invested $3 million in the project so far.

It’s a welcome arrival for a city that’s been frustrated by substandard service provided by regional telecom monopolies, and flirting with the idea of its own municipal broadband network for the better part of the last decade. Some of the city’s efforts on this front have made it easier for providers like Gateway to serve the city of 29,000.

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“While we don’t have a final cost estimate for the project, it will be a multi-million-dollar investment that will benefit both residents and small businesses in the Northampton area,” Gateway Fiber representative David Workman tells ILSR. “The project is 100 percent funded by Gateway Fiber, and we are also exploring grant opportunities that can be used to address digital equity.”

A ceremonial ribbon cutting ceremony for the project was held in late September. The multi-phase construction (4,000 locations passed in phase one, 5,000 locations passed in phase two) is expected to extend well into 2025.

Lafayette Utilities System’s LUS Fiber subsidiary is taking the show on the road. Louisiana’s only publicly-owned broadband provider says it’s expanding access into nearby Church Point, bringing affordable fiber access to the town of nearly 4,200 residents.

LUS Fiber was awarded a $21 million grant to expand fiber outside of Lafayette as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP).

“This expansion not only improves the lives of our residents but also enhances opportunities for businesses, education, and healthcare in our town,” Church Point Mayor Ryan ‘Spanky’ Meche said in a prepared statement. “LUS Fiber’s work here is a tremendous step forward for our community.”

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The expansion is part of a series of new broadband deployments that should bring more than one million feet of new fiber options to numerous new Louisiana communities, including Ville Platte, Venice, Mamou, and Basile. Church Point residents are currently able to start scheduling installations via the LUS Fiber website.

The deployments technically began earlier this year, starting with Ville Platte, which data indicates, currently has the fifth-slowest average broadband speeds in the continental U.S.

Like most of America, much of Louisiana is dominated by a handful of regional telecom monopolies that see little competitive incentive to compete on speeds, coverage, prices, or quality customer service.

California’s $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program (FFA) has announced another $207 million in new broadband grants across Amador, Los Angeles, and Solano Counties.

The FFA program, part of a broader $6 billion California “Broadband For All” initiative, is aimed at boosting broadband competition and driving down costs statewide.

According to the state’s announcement, $61 million in new grants were awarded by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for five Last Mile FFA broadband infrastructure grant projects in Amador and Solano Counties, bringing affordable fiber Internet access to approximately 10,000 Californians.

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The CPUC award details indicate that the grants will be awarded to the Golden State Connect Authority (GSCA) and the City of Vallejo to help bring fiber access to 2,278 unserved locations in Amador and Solano counties.

The City of Vallejo will leverage $3.8 million in state grants to complete four different projects laying predominantly underground fiber, with the city retaining ownership of the finished network and Smart Fiber Networks providing last mile consumer-facing service.