133 us cities now have their own broadband networks

8/6/2019 133 US Cities Now Have Their Own Broadband Networks

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By Nate Anderson | Last updated 4 days ago

If you want 100Mbps symmetrical broadband—which offers the same upload and download speeds—and you live in

the state of North Carolina, you have only one choice: a city-owned broadband provider. The city of Wilson's

"Greenlight" ISP recently bragged about signing up "North Carolina's first homeowners" with the service, which costs

$150 a month if packaged with other services.

Such publicly owned networks can offer services that incumbents don't, such as the 1Gbps fiber network in

Chattanooga, Tennessee, run by the government-owned electric power board. And they sometimes have more incentive

to reach every resident, even in surrounding rural areas, in ways that might not make sense for a profit-focused

company.

More than 130 US cities now operate such publicly owned broadband networks, according a comprehensive new map

developed by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The group compiled what it calls the first-ever such list of 54

city-wide fiber networks and 79 city-wide cable networks "whose objective is to maximize value to the community in

which they are located rather than to distant stockholders and corporate executives."

The ILSR broadband map

ILSR, as its name suggests, believes that local communities must be able to build the networks so important to their own

futures, rather than leave something as vital as Internet connectivity to huge corporations, often based far away.

This is especially important now that "the Federal Communications Commission has all but abdicated its role in

protecting open and competitive access to the Internet."

The map shows that most community-owned networks exist in the eastern half of the US—and this isn't just because of

population density. The northwest quadrant of Iowa, for instance, has eight such networks, most in small communities.

California has only a few in the entire state.

US cities now have their own broadband networks http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/133-us-cities-no

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Some of the distribution may be the result of state restrictions on community-owned networks. As ILSR's Chris Mitchell

noted last year here at Ars, many states have legal barriers in place to such networks. Nebraska, for instance, has an

"outright ban" on the practice, while Iowa has no barriers—and Iowa has many community networks while Nebraska has

none. (Still, this doesn't explain, say, Kansas, which has no barriers and no community networks.)

State restrictions on community-owned networks

Private companies have long objected that government-owned networks represent unfair competition.

CliverR | 4 days ago | permalink

Mention of 'community' broadband always has the company shills crawling out from under their rocks to warn us that

it's taxpayer money, and how they can't make it really work. Try a visit to Chattanooga.

I say we need more local control. I'd gladly have added taxes to avoid the looming At&t guillotine.

dagamer34 | 4 days ago | permalink

"unfair" because they can do it better for cheaper. It's sad my state Texas has banned it.

Seraphiel | 4 days ago | permalink

Socialism ftw.

Michael Scrip | 4 days ago | permalink

I have a Mooresville, NC street address.... but I live out in the county.

The people living inside the city limits of Mooresville have to suffer with their community-owned cable and internet.

But I have Time Warner Cable from Charlotte.... 30 megs down... 5 megs up.

ClownRazer | 4 days ago | permalink

The smart grid upgrade needs a kick in the ass. We need a smart grid, and the smart grid needs data at every residence.

Makes sense for the internet to be a utility tied to electric/water/sewer

E. Zachary Knight | 4 days ago | permalink

It will be interesting to note, North Carolina is currently pushing a bill through their legislature that would outlaw

community owned networks.


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http://www2.nbc17.com/news/2011/mar/22/ ... F882960%2F

It is quite scary to hear.

ClownRazer | 4 days ago | permalink

Michael Scrip wrote:




They have to? TW isn't an option?

Was there any internet provider there before the community installed one? If not, I'm sure it's an upgrade from dial-up

and TW probably wasn't serving the area because it wouldn't be profitable to build it out for the # of residents.

Last edited by ClownRazer on Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:12 pm

cdclndc | 4 days ago | permalink

Live in Chattanooga here. Best thing that ever happened. Seriously loving our Electric Power Board EPB. Comcast

(suck it!) fought us for years about this saying how consumers would suffer. What a crock. It's amazing how fast

Comcast backed off their pricing and upgraded their network.

Case in point as to how muni. owned fiber is outstanding: I had payed for a 20/20 symmetrical as soon as the service

went hot (and priced below Comcast's 6/1). A couple months later I get a letter in the mail saying something to the

effect of "Oh by the way, seems we've got more bandwidth here than we thought. We just upgraded you to a 50/50 at no

cost. Have a nice day!". Seriously, like to fell out of my chair reading that. If anyone wonders why I insert the

"Obligitory: Suck it Comcast" in some of my posts it is for this very reason. These Telco corporations would never

dream giving up extra speedy bits for free.

neodorian | 4 days ago | permalink

There are lots of things that are vastly cheaper to do as a large group rather than individually. When you do something

publicly and not for profit, the typical argument is that it is inefficient since there is no real motivation to excel withoutcompetition. Likewise, people who don't think they will use it will argue that it's not fair to make everyone kick in a

little so that the ones who use it don't have to kick in a lot.

I guess it's going to come down to personal opinions on how best to run certain infrastructures, what is useful to enough

people that it makes sense to manage it as a public utility, and how best to manage it so that people get the best bang for

their buck.

I guess I'm a filthy socialist because I tend to fall on the side of public funding for stuff like this. The nature of the

business means it is incredibly difficult and usually prohibitively expensive for anyone to compete with existing cable

or telco offerings. I also believe that the cost of deploying and maintaining infrastructure is not only a worthy use of the

citizens' money but pitching in to improve the nation's ability to operate and innovate is my own personal definition of

patriotism. I am perfectly happy to sacrifice some of my money in order to make it easier for people to communicateand take advantage of improved data infrastructure. I feel the same way about a lot of infrastructure spending but that's

just me.

I can see how some folks still feel that broadband is more of a luxury than it is a necessity that people should be forced

to pay for through taxes. I personally disagree but it's a valid complaint. As far as cost to performance ratio, I can't

really imagine they can do worse than the current offerings in the US and if I am wrong and it fails miserably, they can

always sell off the fiber to Comcast or whoever. Not like we haven't already given enough money to the existing telcos

to upgrade infrastructure.

Major General Thanatos | 4 days ago | permalink

cdclndc wrote:


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Live in Chattanooga here. Best thing that ever happened. Seriously loving our Electric Power Board EPB. Comcast

(suck it!) fought us for years about this saying how consumers would suffer. What a crock. It's amazing how fast

Comcast backed off their pricing and upgraded their network.

Case in point as to how muni. owned fiber is outstanding: I had payed for a 20/20 symmetrical as soon as the service

went hot (and priced below Comcast's 6/1). A couple months later I get a letter in the mail saying something to the

effect of "Oh by the way, seems we've got more bandwidth here than we thought. We just upgraded you to a 50/50 at no

cost. Have a nice day!". Seriously, like to fell out of my chair reading that. If anyone wonders why I insert the

"Obligitory: Suck it Comcast" in some of my posts it is for this very reason. These Telco corporations would never

dream giving up extra speedy bits for free.

PLEASE, upload a pic of that letter.

Cherlindrea | 4 days ago | permalink

I cannot for the life of me understand how states can have outright bans on such things and still claim to have a free

market participation on ISP companies. I live in Missouri, where it's outright banned, and I'm limited to AT&T DSL

(excessively crappy service and insanely evil company) or Charter cable (crappy service and in dire financial straits).

I'd LOVE a FiOS or even tax-funded community broadband option. I'll gladly pay for that increase in taxes!

I love how people claim capitalism is taking place in the ISP market, but when another competitor tries to buy-in to join

the race, they try to lock it out saying it's uncompetitive. Seems a bit hypocritical and backward to me.durindana | 4 days ago | permalink

Holla holla Lafayette, Louisiana!

I pay $45 for 30Mbps up and down - standalone, not bundled with phone or TV (and often, my bandwidth is closer to

50Mbps).

Cox Communications can kiss the ass of my publicly-owned municipal fiber network.

Last edited by durindana on Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:22 pm

NicoleC | 4 days ago | permalink

cdclndc wrote:These Telco corporations would never dream giving up extra speedy bits for free.

Actually Knology quietly upgraded me from 12/2 to 25/5 a year ago and didn't even *tell* me. Nor do they throttle

content by type. Knology just might qualify as not evil.

newrulesmitchell | 4 days ago | permalink

ClownRazer wrote:

Michael Scrip wrote:







The MI-Connect network referenced here was a failed and run-down Adelphia network that the community bought and


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started to rehab. The community got screwed on the deal, no surprise when dealing with these incumbent cable

companies, and have had a tougher road than expected. If TWC had taken over MI-Connect, it would almost certainly

be in worse shape because TWC would not have put as much money into rehabbing it... not enough profit to make it

worthwhile. So the community probably took the better of two bad roads.

nbs2 | 4 days ago | permalink

Just sent an email to the current provider in my state, looking for advice on how to push my community in that direction.

We're one of the larger cities in the state, so the any change would be slow and difficult, but also immensely positive in

spreading out infrastructure costs.

olsonpm | 4 days ago | permalink

NicoleC wrote:

cdclndc wrote:

These Telco corporations would never dream giving up extra speedy bits for free.



Charter upgrades gradually, but they also up the price gradually - just not in unison. Still, I hate charter with a passion.

Ever since AT&T had horrible dsl subscription numbers, they started becoming relatively cheap (25$ 6/1) - in

comparison to other local options. The only thing that makes my day with AT&T is the non-blocking of port 80. I lovehosting my own website. Do these public networks block port 80?

Hap | 4 days ago | permalink

NicoleC wrote:

cdclndc wrote:




Knology is very prevalent in the county I live (unfortunately no where near me though) and everyone I know that hasaccess to Knology takes it over the other companies in town (Comcast and Mediacom). They have a reputation for fair

(for a cable company) prices and very good reliability.

DarthArcon | 4 days ago | permalink

"Private companies have long objected that government-owned networks represent unfair competition."

Isnt the current lack of competition entirely due to the cable company's for such in the government? It was they who said

that infrastructure prevented direct competition, just like the wireless market. This really irritates me when they say

these things hamper competition when if such systems didnt exist, there would literally be no competition.

The only competition is DLS vs cable. Such a comparison is a joke which gets even more hysterical when they bring in

dial-up to compare to, saying that dial-up competes with cable. What a load...

pyrodood | 4 days ago | permalink I know its a pipe dream but how awesome it would be for a free to access mesh network to be created by independent

entities read:people.

max4677 | 4 days ago | permalink

Wait a second, Kutztown, PA has muni fiber??? WTF??? It has to be something related to the university because

otherwise that place is about as trapped in yesteryear as you are going to find.

I wonder how far out that stretches. My father in law lives in a nearby town...

Then again... their pricing/speed tiers leave a bit to be desired.

http://www.hometownutilicom.org/Services/internet.html


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Last edited by max4677 on Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:35 pm

Lusidd | 4 days ago | permalink

How would someone go about convincing their city/town to start a city run ISP?


NicoleC wrote:

cdclndc wrote:




I'll concede that. I know these providers occasionally upgrade their networks so my prior statement was painted with too

broad a stroke. What burns me is that when I called Comcast to quit their service for a vastly faster and lower priced

service they let slip that they had been upgrading their service while our city was in court and could now offer a similar

service. The top tier at the time was 100/100 (it's now 1Gbs) and Comcast could match that if I would stay on. On

principle alone I told them Comcast could f@#K off and I wasn't giving them my business again.

Note: I told the person on the phone that the company could take a flying leap and explained I wasn't pointing this at theindividual I was talking to. Everyone got to earn a buck.

macphisto | 4 days ago | permalink

cdclndc wrote:

Live in Chattanooga here. Best thing that ever happened.

The Internet service is mostly good (I have it at home, and it's our primary WAN connection at work). EPB bumped our

office connection from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps without raising the price. On the other hand, EPB business accounts (unlike

residential accounts) are capped, which is disappointing when you consider that our backup Comcast Workplace

connection is uncapped and costs less than half as much.

And when it comes to TV, I've actually found EPB to be inferior to Comcast, both in HD picture quality and selection.(As an example, HD programming is only available on the most expensive package, which is just silly.) I canceled EPB

TV last night. The customer service representative didn't even ask why. Maybe they are used to it.

While more competition is always good, I don't think EPB is completely living up to its potential. They have all the

resources they need (read: the network) to blow Comcast out of the water, but in some categories EPB seems to be the

one treading water.


olsonpm wrote:

NicoleC wrote:

cdclndc wrote:




Charter upgrades gradually, but they also up the price gradually - just not in unison. Still, I hate charter with a passion.

Ever since AT&T had horrible dsl subscription numbers, they started becoming relatively cheap (25$ 6/1) - in

comparison to other local options. The only thing that makes my day with AT&T is the non-blocking of port 80. I love

hosting my own website. Do these public networks block port 80?


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Not in Chattanooga at least. I have a Synology NAS box hosting a family web page and blog. IP's are dynamic if you're

not a business. I just registered my domain name and used a dynamic DNS service and was good to go.

English_C6H^ | 4 days ago | permalink

macphisto wrote:

cdclndc wrote:

Live in Chattanooga here. Best thing that ever happened.

And when it comes to TV, I've actually found EPB to be inferior to Comcast, both in HD picture quality and selection.

(As an example, HD programming is only available on the most expensive package, which is just silly.) I canceled EPB

TV last night.

Hmmm... That brings up another point. Now that Comcast owns NBC/Universal, can they use that position to kneecap

the TV offerings of local-control providers? Legally, no, but in practice? Could be....

heman8400 | 4 days ago | permalink

Always just lurked and read the comments and articles, this one got me to sign up. Congratulations on that.

Kansas doesn't have any because outside of the Lawrence area (KU basketball anyone?) this state is full of crazedconservative government haters. Obviously I'm conjecturing here, there are plenty of people like me, we even had a

liberal woman as governor for a while. The point is, a majority of the population thinks that the government is out to get

them, or trying to control everything they do. Fluoride in the water? Nope, we like have one of the nations highest rates

of cavities. Recycling programs? Nope, send it to the landfill/incinerator, can't tell me what to do with my trash/it's too

much work. Watering restrictions? Nope, "some people take a lot of pride in their lawns." I heard that one today

actually, a potential city council person suggesting that there can never be water usage restrictions in order to conserve

the water supply.

We demand government subsidies for farmers, and especially the aircraft industry. Yet they still send hundreds of jobs

to mexico/india every quarter.

If anyone even suggested that a city pay for and build a high speed network using existing taxes or new ones, peoplewould throw a fit. The screaming over recycling last year was terrible, I imagine this would only be worse. People go

nuts when they suggest raising taxes, even for things like school repairs. That didn't stop us for raising taxes to build a

casino or a new arena that won't ever hold something other than country concerts.

People here are crazy, I tell you what...


Lusidd wrote:


Organize a lot of people who want a local alternative. Local businesses and economic development type folks are good

places to start. If you look at the sidebar at MuniNetworks.org, we link to a number of groups trying to do this.natethomas | 4 days ago | permalink

Heh. Heman8400, fellow Wichitan? I'm convinced that a smart group of people could pretty easily convince Topeka

and/or Wichita (but more likely Topeka) to create a Muni-fiber network. I'm from Colwich myself. I think I've got an

idea...

Shinzakura | 4 days ago | permalink

I wish Virginia didn't have a de facto ban (what exactly do they mean by de facto ban? That all have been shot down or

that none have been tried?) on these things. Out in Winchester, where I live, Comcast is seen as God because you have

them, a crappy local DSL in the city, several subpar wireless providers and Verizon...which has most of the county still

on dialup.



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max4677 wrote:

Wait a second, Kutztown, PA has muni fiber??? WTF??? It has to be something related to the university because

otherwise that place is about as trapped in yesteryear as you are going to find.

I wonder how far out that stretches. My father in law lives in a nearby town...

Then again... their pricing/speed tiers leave a bit to be desired.

http://www.hometownutilicom.org/Services/internet.html

They were the first citywide FTTH I believe... the first generation networks are not currently competitive with say,

Chattanooga, but are often being upgraded to be able to offer those faster speeds. In the report (http://www.newrules.org

/information/pub ... d-monopoly) that goes with the map, we talk about PA's Governor signing the bill to effectively

outlaw these networks shortly after giving Kutztown an award for theirs.

densetsu1 | 4 days ago | permalink

GoMoorhead.com was a community wireless network run by Moorhead MN that was plagued by technical issues, slow

speeds, and lawsuits. The community owned utility company sold the system to a local ISP in 2009 after posting a

$100,000 operating loss. [https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=1&article_id=249562&

a1=d85724dc1647309d7cce6e8481f66db3&b1=aa1c9581d3505d56972fc1cc0ef61386&CFID=270495392&

CFTOKEN=62125559]

Kudos to the communities that have done it right, but it's been my experience that this sort of mess is the more likely

outcome.

nilp | 4 days ago | permalink

I live in San Bruno, a few miles south of San Francisco, which has municipal owned cable, and only municipal cable (at

least where I live). When it started in the 70s, it (by all accounts ... I wasn't living here then) provided great and faster

service than any of the surrounding cities.

I heard great things about it even when I moved here ten years ago, but it's fallen behind badly since then. No one who

uses its internet service has anything good to say, with peak hours congestion and continual outages. It's too small to be

able to upgrade its service to or maintain it at a level provided by Comcast or U-Verse.

I have the only other option here is AT&T DSL at 6Mb/s, but at least I get 5Mb/s download consistently, compared to300kb/s on the San Bruno cable at peak times.

I wish I could support a local service rather than a faceless corporation, but the level of service provided makes it

impossible.


Shinzakura wrote:

I wish Virginia didn't have a de facto ban (what exactly do they mean by de facto ban? That all have been shot down or

that none have been tried?) on these things. Out in Winchester, where I live, Comcast is seen as God because you have

them, a crappy local DSL in the city, several subpar wireless providers and Verizon...which has most of the county still

on dialup.

If you check out the preemption map itself - http://www.muninetworks.org/content/com ... mption-map - we try to do a

better job explaining it. De facto basically means that the law says you can do it... but there are so many hoops and

difficulties to jump through, it is pretty much impossible. In Virginia, BVU was created before the ban and has been

expanding to meet needs around it in part because it is so hard for those communities to start their own. But there are

other projects as well in Virginia - nDanville and the Wired Road come to mind though they are limited locally.

gorehound | 4 days ago | permalink

Lusidd wrote:



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i live in portland, maine and would love to know that one too.

we could say goodbye to slime warner and that would be good

Michael Scrip | 4 days ago | permalink

ClownRazer wrote:




Yes... everybody had Adelphia broadband before... then it all became Time Warner.

But the city had other plans... and wanted to make their own cable company. Time Warner released the customers

inside the city limits.. but they kept all of us out in the county. (there are far more customers in the county than in the

city)

So yes.. if you live in the city limits... you have to get MI Connection.

newrulesmitchell has some additional information above.

dedmiso | 4 days ago | permalink

We have fiber to the home in Brookings, SD (Yes, I said SOUTH DAKOTA) provided by Swiftel, our city ownedphone company and it is awesome, 20M down and 1.5 up. We're required to keep our landline but even then the price is

cheaper than what Mediacom offers for voice and data. This month they're rolling out video service so I'll be able to get

rid of dish, too. The customer service provided by the local guys is far superior to anything you get elsewhere. We've

had fiber for 3 years now and we've had one price increase: $0.50.

rpgspree | 4 days ago | permalink

CliverR wrote:

Mention of 'community' broadband always has the company shills crawling out from under their rocks to warn us that

it's taxpayer money, and how they can't make it really work. Try a visit to Chattanooga.

I say we need more local control. I'd gladly have added taxes to avoid the looming At&t guillotine.

Actually, you'd just have to mention the billions in taxpayer money we'd already paid to private telcos for upgrades totheir for-profit networks, which we didn't really get btw.


densetsu1 wrote:





CFTOKEN=62125559]


outcome.

There have been messes - Burlington Telecom is the most recent high profile example. But GoMoorhead is interesting in

that they wanted to do it properly with FTTH but MN law made it too difficult. The business case for fiber is so much

better than wireless, I have no doubt they would have had a much stronger shot at succeeding.

The comment from nilp is similar regarding San Bruno - they have apparently not felt the pressure to stay as

competitive. Being too small does make it more difficult, but I have found the more important factor is determination

and leadership.

masterbinky | 4 days ago | permalink

densetsu1 wrote:


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CFTOKEN=62125559]


outcome.

The thing is, just any community broadband isn't going to be good. Your investment into what technology does matter so

you want a logical reason besides the salesman said it'd be easy. ex:

Capacity/Data Scalability = Fiber > copper > wireless.

Line degredation with age = Wireless > fiber > copper.

So, if the town never wanted to increase speeds or capacity, wireless would be great since you never have to replace the

air. But upgrading in the future gets messy due to frequency limitations/restrictions. So the air you never have to

replace, limits you to what your maximum speed will be. Same is true with fiber, but it's a lot larger limit, and the

medium can be push alot easier when it comes time to upgrade due to less regulations than airwaves, on the frequency

you send your signals.

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133 us cities now have their own broadband networks

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