Category: muni

In Indiana, Auburn Built Fiber Network Incrementally – Community Broadband Bits Episode 77

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When a major employer in Auburn, a town of 13,000 in northeast Indiana, told the local government that it would have to move jobs to a different location unless it had improved Internet access, the local government first encouraged it to work with the telephone company. But when that telephone company, headquartered far from Auburn, refused to meet local needs, the town formed Auburn Essential Utilities and extended city fiber to the business.

Chris Schweitzer, Director of Auburn Essential Services, joins us for episode 77 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. We discuss how Auburn was prepared for that moment and how it expanded the network in future years to now offer services on a citywide basis.

Listen to the show to learn more about Auburn, including how they have structured the project financially. See all of our coverage of AES here.

Read the transcript from this show here.

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 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Haggard Beat for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Cedar Falls Shows Long Term Muni Network Success: Community Broadband Bits Episode #75

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Cedar Falls Utilities operates one of the oldest community owned networks in the nation. It started as a cable network in the 90's, upgraded to FTTH recently, and this year began offering the first citywide gigabit service in Iowa. CFU Communication Sales Manager Kent Halder and Network Services Manager Rob Houlihan join me for Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast 75.

We discuss why Cedar Falls Utilities decided to add cable to their lineup originally and how it has achieved the incrediblely high take rates it maintains.

We also discuss the importance of reliability for municipal network and why they decided to transition directly to a FTTH plant rather than just upgraded to DOCSIS 3 on their cable system. Finally, we discuss its expansion into the rural areas just outside of town.

Read all of our coverage of Cedar Falls on MuniNetworks.org.

Read the transcript of our discussion here.

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 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Haggard Beat for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Billy Ray on the Origins of the First Muni Broadband Network: Community Broadband Bits Episode #74

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Last month, we unveiled a video teaser of our interviews in Glasgow, Kentucky over the summer regarding its municipal broadband network. This week our podcast features a few clips from those interviews with Billy Ray, the Superintendent of Glasgow's Electric Plant Board.

He offers more context on the history of their network, including how they became “savvy marketers” when faced with stiff competition from Telescripts – a cable company that cared nothing for Glasgow until they dared to build a rival system operated for community benefit.

He details how they began producing local content and the surprisingly most popular show they developed – what would eventually come to be known as “reality TV.”

We thank Media Working Group, our partners in this documentary for the high quality interviews.

Read the transcript from this episode here.

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 10 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Haggard Beat for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Education SuperHighway Wants Better Broadband for Schools – Community Broadband Bits Episode #71

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This week's podcast features an interview with Education SuperHighway CEO Evan Marwell to discuss how we can make sure all schools have the Internet access they need to succeed. Education SuperHighway has a plan for connecting all schools with a fiber connection while also decreasing the need for long term federal funding of school connectivity.

We talk about how this can be achieved, as well as the role local ownership can play in ensuring schools get the connectivity they need today and tomorrow without exploding their telecommunications budgets.

This is an important discussion as the FCC is taking comments on how the E-Rate program should be reformed. This is a handy PDF explaining how to submit comments to the FCC on this matter. Education SuperHighway has made a convincing case for its approach and we would encourage any comments that reinforce a preference for local, publicly owned networks as a smart solution.

Read the transcript for our discussion here.

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 17 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Mudhoney for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Wilson's Greenlight Leads North Carolina in Connectivity: Community Broadband Bits Episode #70

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Greenlight, a muni FTTH network in eastern North Carolina's city of Wilson, is proving to be a powerful tool in attracting new residents and businesses. We spoke with General Manager Will Aycock about the network and how it has benefited the community.

Our interview covers a number of subjects, including how the network is attracting new residents to the area and helping businesses to be more competitive in part by providing an incredibly reliable product – more than five years without an outage to its major commercial subscribers.

The schools in the entire County are connected, allowing them to take advantage of all major technological innovations. First responders, especially fire fighters, are better able to train and respond to incidents because of benefits from the fiber network. All this and more in the audio below.

We previously published a case study of Wilson's Greenlight and also wrote about how Time Warner Cable responded to the network by lobbying for a law to make sure no other community could copy Wilson. And last year, we interviewed Catharine Rice about that law in episode 5 of this series.

Read the transcript of this show here.

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 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Mudhoney for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Longmont Prepares to Vote on Fiber Bonds – Community Broadband Bits Episode #68

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As Longmont prepares to vote on November 5, we are paying special attention to question 2B, which will authorize the city utility to issue revenue bonds to finance the FTTH network already being built. The successful referendum from 2011 gave the City authority to build the network and this referendum, if successful, will finance a rapid expansion rather than the present incremental approach that will take decades.

We have a double interview today, with Vince Jordan rejoining the show from Longmont Power and Communications. He previously spoke with us on episode 10 but today he just gives us the facts about the network and scenarios of what will happen depending on how the city votes.

The second interview is with George Oliver, co-founder of the grassroots group Friends of Fiber that is advocating for people to vote yes on question 2B. George explains the benefits of passing this debt, namely that area residents and businesses will gain access to a world class networks without increasing any taxes.

Friends of Fiber is on Twitter and Facebook. Read our other stories on Longmont here.

Read the transcript from this show here.

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 via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

In Western Mass, Holyoke Gas and Electric Brings Broadband – Community Broadband Bits Episode #65

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Holyoke Gas & Electric has been connecting community anchor institutions and local businesses in Western Massachusetts with fiber networks for years. Rather than using exception access to the Internet as a competitive advantage over more poorly connected neighbors, the Municipal Light Plant (in the parlance of Massachusetts law) is helping nearby towns to establish their own networks.

I met Senior Network Engineer Tim Haas in a lunch with people building community owned networks in Leverett and Princeton in late August. He joins me for episode #65 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast.

We discuss the Holyoke approach, its network, and enthusiasm for assisting others in the region to improve access to the Internet.

Read the transcript of our discussion here.

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 17 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

WindomNet Creates Jobs, Benefits for SW Minnesota – Community Broadband Bits Episode #64

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The small town of Windom in southwest Minnesota has long been one of the smallest FTTH networks in the nation. I have long wanted to bring WindomNet General Manager Dan Olsen on our show because it has some of the best anecdotes in the world of community owned networks. We finally got him!

To understand WindomNet, you should know that it has fewer households than what many of us consider to be the minimum threshold for a viable triple-play FTTH network. Not only have they made it work, they have attracted numerous employers to town, as our interview discusses. It also kept a local employer located just outside of town in the area after a massive telelphone company operating in Minnesota found itself unable to provide the service that business requested. Tiny Windom ran a fiber out to the business and kept them in the region.

The network has expanded to nearby farm towns with the help of a broadband stimulus award. Even now, after bringing connections to a rural region that the big providers have largely ignored, the big cable and CenturyLink lobbyists that live in the capital in Saint Paul have relentlessly lied about Windom, calling it a failure and presenting skewed figures to suggest the investment had not succeeded.

In our discussion, Dan and I explore the reality of WindomNet and how it is benefiting a much larger region beyond its own borders. Read all of our coverage about Windom here.

Read the transcript for this show here.

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 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Jim Baller on the History of Municipal Networks, Part II on Community Broadband Bits Podcast

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Jim Baller is back again for the second show in our series on the history of municipal broadband networks. He is the President of the Baller Herbst Law Group in Washington, DC, and a long time advocate for both community owned networks specifically and better access to the Internet for all more generally.

We kicked this history series off on Episode 57 where we talked about some of the early community cable networks and how federal law came to allow states to preempt local authority.

In this episode, we talk about the early FTTH networks in Chelan, Washingon; Bristol, Virginia; Kutztown, Pennsylvania; and Dalton, Georgia. We also talk about how the states began restricting local investments, particularly in Pennsylvania under pressure from Verizon.

We will continue the series in subsequent episodes. 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.

Read the transcript of this episode here.

This show is 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Spanish Fork Discusses Stunning Success – Community Broadband Bits Podcast #60

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The Spanish Fork Community Fiber Network (SFCN) is an incredibly successful HFC cable network in Utah. It delivers television, telephone, and Internet access at incredibly low rates to most of the community despite competition from Comcast. Located south of Provo, Spanish Fork has a population of 35,000.

Director of Information Systems and SFCN Director John Bowcut joins us for episode 60 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. We discuss why they built the network in 2000. Funded with 15 year bonds, the network mortgage is nearly retired.

In the meantime, the network generates an extra million in revenue for the local government and keeps over $2 million in the community each year with its low rates that force competitors to keep rates lower than they otherwise would.

Read the transcript of this show here.

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 27 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.