Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
DePriest tells me that EPB's fiber network is "a great profit center." In the four years the service has been active, the utility company has increased its mid-tier speeds three times — from 15 Mbps to 30 Mbps, from 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps and now from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps. About 2,500 elite users will enjoy 1-gig speeds by the beginning of October.Phil Dampier has more coverage at StoptheCap.com, including an analysis of AT&T and Comcast competition.
AT&T charges $65 a month for 24/3Mbps service — its fastest — with a 250GB monthly usage cap, currently not enforced. For $5 more, EPB customers get 1,000/1,000Mbps with no usage limits or overlimit fees.A recent article in the Chattanoogan noted that Chattanooga had surpassed 50,000 subscribers and was on path to surpass Comcast in subscriber base locally.
Mr. DePriest said Comcast had some 122,000 customers on the EPB grid when EPB launched its rival program. He said Comcast is down to around 75,000 and will likely drop to around 60,000 next year.
Residents of Vernon, California, will soon have the option to connect to the City's fiber optic network. Vernon offers dark and lit fiber to local businesses via 35 miles of fiber but residents are stuck with slow DSL connections. An EGPNews.com article reports:
City officials say they hope to bridge the digital gap for its residents by becoming an Internet Service Provider, creating, and operating a small-scale broadband residential service program. The Internet will be provided to residents through direct fiber optic connections or via a wireless service connection.
The program will be available to all existing and future residences in the city.
Vernon Light & Power Department Fiber Optic Division serves this town's 5.2 square miles located south of downtown Los Angeles. The population is only 112 in 31 existing households. The network will also connect a future residential project, Meta Housing, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013. The City is the smallest incorporated city in the state, describing itself as "exclusively industrial." Vernon is home to over 1,800 businesses that employ 50,000 people from surrounding communities.
The new initiative will connect residents for a one-time connection fee of $100. Monthly service will cost $40.65, which is $10 less than DSL. The fiber connections will be 10 times faster than current DSL speeds. Residents should be able to access the network by November 1.
This summer, Broadband Communities Magazine published its list of 135 municipalities that have invested in their own FTTH networks. In the May/June issue, Masha Zager finds that a growing number of communities are building fiber to the home networks. Subscriptions to the magazine are available here.
In her accompanying article [PDF], Zager describes her precise criteria for inclusion on the list:
All the network deployers on this list
• Are public entities, consortia of public entities, consortia of public and private entities or, in a few cases, private entities that benefited from significant investment or participation by local governments.
• Own all-fiber networks that connect local homes or businesses to the Internet (or are actively developing such networks).
• Make available – directly or through retailers – such services as voice, Internet access or video (or are planning such services).
Zager left out commuities with Institutional Networks (I-Nets) that only serve government or schools. The list also omits communities that only lease dark fiber and those that provide services over cable or wireless.
The article discusses commonalities between municipal network communities, including the fact that many communities first run their own electric utility. Often I-Nets come first, serving municipal facilities, schools, and libraries. Next the network will serve commercial and industrial clients. Expansion to single and multi-dwelling households is usually the last step in community connectivity. As our readers know, the deployment and funding approaches can be as unique as the communities they serve.
Zager notes that a growing trend shows larger cities entering the telecommunications business. In the past, networks graced primarily small to mid-sized communities. Those communities were large enough to have necessary resources, but small enough to be ignored by major telecommunications providers.
We have followed developments in Leverett since we first learned about the small town's decision to build its own next generation infrastructure. The community has faced some challenges but is determined to get its residents connected.
After an overwhelming vote to support a bond measure and minor tax increase to fund the network, Leverett encountered delay when the State attorney general ordered a new bid in April. According to a GazetteNet article, a technical glitch on the bid form allowed bidders to exclude themselves from parts of the project, affecting the overall bid. Leverett awarded the first bid to G4S, but two other firms submitted complaints prompting the review.
After reviewing revised bids in May, Select Board awarded the $2.27 million contract to Millennium Communications Group. The GazetteNet reports that Millennium met with town officials in June to answer questions and examine the bid in detail.
The GazetteNet spoke with Select Board Member Peter d'Errico:
“When this is up and running, Leverett’s going to have state-of-the-art, worldwide telecommunications capability,” d’Errico said. “It’s comparable service to what Google is providing in Kansas City, and it means that Leverett will also become a desirable place for all kinds of people who work in the mediums that require that level of technology. I see it as having economic benefits for the town, cultural benefits for the town and when you add in things like telemedicine, it means that it’s more than lifestyle, it’s quality of life.”
Scheduled completion date is December 2014.
The Longmont community will soon have the chance to decide how quickly they want ubiquitous FTTH. On July 23rd, the City Council unanimously approved a proposal to ask voters in a referendum if they want to bond for funds to speed up construction of the LPC fiber network. Absent bond financing, the network will expand much more slowly over many years.
Readers will remember the 2011 referendum to allow the electric utility to offer broadband services to the people and businesses of Longmont. At the time, Comcast spent over $300,000 via the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association to fund an unsuccessful Vote No astroturf campaign. The community approved the measure with 60% of the vote. There was an earlier referendum in 2009 that ended in a victory for Comcast following a successful astroturf campaign. Records showed a similar infusion of cash to sway the vote.
In the recent meeting, some Council Members expressed concern over the city bonding to invest in the telecom business. The Longmont Times Call reported on the meeting:
"We're again a government playing in the private world of capitalism," [Councilman Brian] Bagley said. "What if we don't know what we're doing?"
City Manager Harold Dominguez noted that even if voters approved a bond, the city could still take on a partner. If it passes, he said, the city would have a pretty good idea of how big a piece of the market it could get. And implementation wasn't a huge risk, he said, because the city already knew it could provide the service; it had been doing so for itself, the school district and a few other large users for years.
"Based on the information we've received, yes, we can do it," Dominguez said.
We introduced you to Olds, Alberta and their community network O-Net in 2012. Now this community of 8,500 will be the first Canadian "gig town" where residents will have access to a gig at incredibly low prices.
CBC News reports that the Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development, the nonprofit organization building the network, recently approved the upgrade. Residents with 100 Mbps will have access to a gigabit with no increase in price. Depending on how they bundle, the price for Internet will range between $57-90 per month.
CBC's Emily Chung noted how much of rural Canada offers only dial-up or satellite. Olds used to have the same problem; businesses were considering leaving town:
"We had engineering companies here who were sending memory chips by courier because there wasn't enough bandwidth to deal with their stuff," recalls Joe Gustafson, who spearheaded the project to bring a fibre network to Olds.
...
"Now there's no talk about people leaving because of bandwidth challenges."
The $13-14 million project, which also included a video conference center and 15 public use terminals for residents, launched in July 2012. The organization acquired a $2.5 million grant from the province of Alberta and a $6 million loan from the town of Olds. When incumbents were not interested in providing service over the network, O-Net adapted:
"We said, 'Well I guess if we're going to do this, we have to do our own services,'" Gustafson recalled.
The Olds Institute spent $3.5 million to buy the necessary electronic equipment to run internet and other services on the network and to build a central office to house it all. Last July, it launched O-Net.
The community-owned service offers not just internet, but also phone and IPTV services — TV signals carried on the network that includes dozens of SD and HD channels, and movies on demand that can be paused and later resumed.
