Clarksville is the fifth largest city in the state but was among the first networks in nation to offer symmetrical fast connections with a 10 Mbps basic offering when it launched. Christy Batts, Broadband Division Manager of Clarksville Department of Electricity, joins us to share some of the lessons learned and successes from Clarksville, which is now offering a gigabit everywhere in the community.
Clarksville has a significant population attached to a military base, which results in significant churn – meaning frequent connect and disconnect requests. High churn is costly to utilities. But having its own fiber network helps to keep costs lower for other utility services as well as benefiting the community.
However, Clarksville also had some difficulties that led to a large change in management. Though the network has not been subsidized in any way, it is only now on track to be where the utility wants it to be financially.
And finally, Christy Batts offers some thoughts on how to engage a local Chamber of Commerce.
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Thanks to Eat at Joe’s for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.