community networks

Muni FTTH pitch in Pacific Grove goes from no cost, no risk to pay us $1 million a year


Bawtree-Jobson in Pacific Grove yesterday.

A fiber to the home plan for the Monterey Peninsula city of Pacific Grove has transformed from a commercial business venture into an appeal for public money. SiFi Networks, a British company with a corporate heritage of real estate development, began last year by putting a simple proposition in front of several Californian cities: give us unlimited access to your streets, sidewalks and, yes, sewers and we’ll build fiber to every home and business in town.… More

Santa Cruz will be Silicon Valley's first fully fiber city

30 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Homes and businesses in Santa Cruz are one step closer to full fiber-to-the-premise broadband service. The Santa Cruz city council voted unanimously last week to move ahead with negotiating an FTTP/FTTH partnership with a local independent Internet service provider, Cruzio. As envisioned, the city would own – and finance – the network, Cruzio would operate it and the two would work together to build it.

Cruzio’s proposal to the city also leaves the door open for other ISPs to join the project – that’ll be one of many details that the forthcoming negotiations will address.… More

Berkeley launches a city-led broadband initiative


Click to get the full picture.

The Berkeley City Council took a big step last night toward supporting broadband development and, perhaps, to pursue a municipal fiber optic project or partnership with a private network operator. By a unanimous vote, the council told city staff to…

  • Survey the city’s inventory of broadband, traffic signal and other conduit to assess its suitability for supporting a fiber optic network, with the goal of leasing it to one or more fiber companies.
… More

Legality of FCC's muni broadband preemption will be decided in Cincinnati

23 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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The local team.

It’s no great surprise, but the two challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt state bans on municipal broadband have been consolidated into one proceeding. The nod goes to the first case to be submitted, by the State of Tennessee, in the federal appeals court district that’s headquartered in Cincinnati and includes Tennessee. The appeal from the state of North Carolina was filed nearly two months later in the federal court district that’s based in Richmond, Virginia.… More

FCC muni broadband preemption challenged by North Carolina

18 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Now, go home.

North Carolina is joining Tennessee, sorta, in challenging a decision by the Federal Communications Commission to negate laws in the two states that put tight restrictions on municipal broadband enterprises. Last week, North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia to throw out the preemption, saying the FCC was butting in where it had no authority to do so…

In the Order, the FCC preempts North Carolina’s statutory law…governing municipal provisioning and operation of broadband communications services.

… More

Cities side with FCC against state regulators in federal court

4 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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The battle lines are forming over the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to tell states that they can’t particularly restrict municipal broadband systems. They could ban them altogether, but once allowed, the FCC says that munis can’t be required to play by significantly different rules than private Internet service providers.

The State of Tennessee was the first to file an appeal, in the federal appellate court in Cincinnati, aka the Sixth Circuit. No one else filed elsewhere, and in fact the other primary party in the matter, the State of North Carolina, still seems to be weighing its options.… More

Public sector broadband customers are slow to change, even when it means fast broadband

22 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for a bigger version.

Schools and other big broadband users have been slow to sign up for service on Digital 395, a 500-plus mile fiber network that reaches from Reno, down the eastern Calfiornia side of the Sierra Nevada, along U.S. Highway 395, to Barstow. The slower than expected take up rate for anchor institutions is causing financial headaches for the system, according to Michael Ort, president of Praxis Associates, the lead company on the Digital 395 project.… More

Community-owned fiber networks take a big step forward in Santa Cruz County

7 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Santa Cruz County supervisors are moving ahead with a plan to build a fiber network through key economic development zones, and want to coordinate broadband development policy with the four cities in the county. They voted to put a proposal to form a fiber initiative team in front of representatives from Watsonville, Scotts Valley, Capitola and the City of Santa Cruz, and…

Work with the cities to 1) establish complimentary policies, such as the County’s model “dig once” ordinance, 2) propose changes in planning requirements for residential and business construction, 3) explore grant opportunities, and 4) coordinate sewer, water and road construction projects so that conduit for fiber can be incorporated where feasible in order to enhance broadband connectivity and expansion.

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LA refines its pitch for citywide FTTH

6 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Seen one of these?

“Are we creating a unicorn here?” asked Steve Reneker, general manager of information technology for the City of Los Angeles. He was relating his experience looking for companies interested in building a citywide fiber to the home system to participants in a local government broadband conference put on by the California Emerging Technology Fund in Riverside last week. The answer he got back from the industry was “yes”.

LA [floated a request for information last year](), looking for ideas and partners to aid its FTTH quest.… More

Muni broadband preemption lands in federal court

31 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Don’t be abusing your discretion in Tennessee.

Tennessee is taking the FCC to court over its ruling that preempted state-imposed restrictions on municipal broadband systems. It filed a petition asking the federal sixth circuit court of appeals to “hold unlawful, vacate, enjoin, and set aside the Order, and provide such additional relief as may be appropriate” because…

In the Order, the FCC preempts Tennessee law pertaining to the operation of municipal electric plants, including the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, an instrumentality of the City of Chattanooga, created and controlled by the State of Tennessee.

… More