News

Last year we noted that a bill to expand local authority to invest in publicly owned broadband networks would return in 2012. HB 1711 is in Committee and causing a bit of a stir.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is hosting an informational meeting on Thursday, January 12, at 1:00.

One of the reasons community broadband networks face so many unique hurdles (often created deliberately by states in response to cable/dsl lobbying) is because of the many ways in which campaign finance corrupts our national and state governments. Community broadband networks are focused on meeting community needs, not sending lobbyist armies into Washington, DC, and state capitals (though one of

Phillip Dampier at Stop the Cap! has once again followed the money trail to reveal AT&T p

Our focus tends to be at the most local -- how do people in local communities access the Internet? But we do worry about how the Internet itself is governed. Think it should be totally unregulated? That sounds nice until you type google.com into a browser and it takes you to search.microsoft.com. Or you type microsoft.com and you end up at apple.com. We need rules and standards.

Provo built a city owned FTTH network after its public power utility started connecting its substations with fiber-optic cables in the early 2000's. iProvo ultimately developed along similar open access lines as UTOPIA, but unlike UTOPIA, Provo did not actually want to operate on a purely wholesale model.

The following news report suggests that some in Knoxville, Tennessee, are starting to get a little jealous of the incredible FTTH network built by Chattanooga's publicly owned electric company.

It's a new year, but most of us are still stuck with the same old DSL and cable monopolies.

Smithsonian magazine provides some background on Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code and credited with inventing the telegraph.

We have been trying to keep close track of the recent group of communities building incremental, publicly owned, open access fiber networks -- which often starting with connections to businesses.

The muni FTTH network owned by the city of Salisbury, North Carolina, is finishing the calendar year with over 1600 subscribers. The network just began signing up customers 13 months ago.

I recently stumbled across some interesting pieces of information between Monticello and telephone-incumbent TDS when the Minnesota City decided to build a city-owned next-generation FTTH network after TDS refused to upgrade its services.

One of our kindred spirits across the pond reached out to me after I wrote about Vermont's self-funded community network.

The nDanville network of rural southern Virginia has long been a favorite of ours (previous coverage is available here).

Vermont's East Central Fiber-Optic Network (ECFiber) has finished its second round of financing.

The Young Elected Officials Network has announced a one year fellowship working on community broadband. Applications are due on January 4.

It is hard to avoid becoming cynical when watching the federal government interact with big corporations like AT&T. So when AT&T announced it would merge with T-Mobile, giving AT&T and Verizon a combined 3 out of 4 cellular subscribers, I thought two things: 1) What a terrible idea.

Louis CK, the comedian responsible for the FX show "Louie" and for making people laugh at his brutally candid assessment of how much his young daughter's opinion about anything matters, has bypassed the major studios, channels, and cable distribution systems to sell one of his concerts directly to his fans.

Exciting times in rural southwest Minnesota, as Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services has turned on its first customer. SMBS is a broadband stimulus-enabled partnership with eight rural communities and WindomNet, the muni FTTH network in Windom.

The Rev. Andrew Schensted and his wife, Lisa, were the first to be connected.