This week in democratic energy, community solar projects are predicted to rule 2015 and net metering policies are opening the market for a brighter future. Jeff St. John started us off with why he thinks 2014 could be dubbed the year of the “smart grid.” From building on the prior wave of investment in AMI networks [advanced … Read More
Recently, we ran a story on the Columbus suburb of Dublin, which has a growing fiber optic network that has paid huge dividends in public savings, economic development, and facilitating technology research with the Ohio State University. Apparently others are taking notice of Dublin as well: Athens, a city 90 miles to the Southeast, has its … Read More
Our friends at the Blandin Foundation recently sponsored another Minnesota Border to Border Broadband conference. Video and materials are now available. In addition to the archived video of the November 19th event in Brainerd, Minnesota, Blandin on Broadband‘s Ann Treacy provides links to summaries of each session, some of which also have PowerPoint presentations or video … Read More
2014 marked the year that solar energy, energy storage and electric vehicles – hallmarks of a decentralized electricity grid – got big enough to threaten the electric utilities, exposing their 100-year-old business model as out-of-date. In nearly 20 states, utilities are fighting back, proposing new fees and rules to minimize the competition from customer generated power. … Read More
Exciting changes are on the horizon for our century-old utility structure as solar power, energy storage, and electric vehicles open new avenues for utility customers to produce their own power and control their energy use. Utilities are scrambling to remain relevant in this technological firestorm, and energy wonks are envisioning a new business model – Utility … Read More
On November 5th, we opened up the lines of communication for our first “Ask Us Anything: An Open Talk on Muni Networks” event. That event is now available on our YouTube Channel. We find many communities and their citizens are interested in exploring municipal networks as a possible method to improve connectivity but don’t know how … Read More
Chris was recently invited to present in Brussels on the experience of U.S. cities and fiber optic investment. The event was organized by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALAR) and Stokab (The City of Stockholm IT infrastructure company). Mitchell gave an overview of the situation in the US and described the difficulties of getting high-capacity broadband, even … Read More
“The FCC should be extremely wary of any arguments that claim paid prioritization or other discriminatory practices are necessary to increase investment in next-generation networks.” — ILSR, July 18, 2014 For months the FCC has considered comments from the public as it examines network neutrality. There have been more than 3 million submissions; a vast majority … Read More
The Boston Globe, November 2, 2014 BOSTON – Boston is teaming up with more than two dozen other cities across the country to tackle one of the most complex infrastructure questions of the century: how to ensure the next-generation Internet connectivity that will be crucial for civic success. “Where we stand today does not represent a network that … Read More
