Quietly, virtually unreported on, a new player has emerged in the United States telecommunications sector: publicly owned networks. Today over 54 cities, big and small, own citywide fiber networks while another 79 own citywide cable networks. Over 3 million people have access to telecommunications networks whose objective is to maximize value to the community in which they are located rather than to distant stockholders and corporate executives.

For several years ILSR has been tracking telecommunications developments at the local and state level. We have worked with businesses and communities protecting their right to self-determination via the fundamental infrastructure for the information-based economy. This report offers some of our findings.

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North Carolina aims to be a hotbed for innovation and technology, but the General Assembly has recently considered bills that would preempt local authority to build broadband infrastructure.  Such preemption would cripple the most advanced broadband networks in the state.  This new analysis shows that community owned networks are faster and cheaper than incumbent cable and telephone networks in North Carolina. 

Past broadband discussions in the General Assembly focused on a bill to prevent communities from building their own networks — but communities are the only ones building citywide next-generation fiber-to-the-home networks in North Carolina.  The best connections in the state are in the towns of Salisbury and Wilson because both built community fiber networks that offer much faster connections to residents and businesses at more affordable prices.

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If you live in the Twin Cities, your internet connection is slower and more expensive than small town Monticello due to a reliance on big national phone and cable companies. Over the past several years, communities in the Twin Cities have considered building a community owned broadband network to increase competition, lower prices, and ensure everyone has access to the connections required for success in the digital economy. The failure to do so is costing consumers millions and communities untold amounts in lost business opportunity.… Read More

ILSR has released the most comprehensive and up-to-date report about publicly owned broadband networks: Breaking the Broadband Monopoly: How Communities Are Building the Networks They Need.

Across the country, hundreds of local governments, public power utilities, non-profits, and cooperatives have built successful and sometimes pioneering telecommunication networks that put community needs first.  This report details their successes, lessons learned, and barriers to copying the model.… Read More

This Fact sheet was originally published in 2008 but was updated in April 2010.

BT is a city department of Burlington, Vermont, which owns a fiber-to-the-home network and offers triple play services(phone, cable, internet).  BT’s services have produced millions in savings for the city and the community at large.  

ILSR issued a report in 2011 that updates this fact sheet: Learning from Burlington Telecom: Some Lessons for Community Networks 

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The United States, creator of the Internet, increasingly lags in access to it. In the absence of a national broadband strategy, many communities have invested in broadband infrastructure, especially wireless broadband, to offer broadband choices to their residents.

Newspaperheadlines trumpeting the death of municipal wireless networks ignore the increasing investments by cities in Wi-Fi systems. At the same time, the wireless focus by others diverts resources and action away from building the necessary long term foundation for high speed information: fiber optic networks.

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In the modern world, broadband information networks are essential infrastructure, a combination of the past’s canals, telegraph wires, interstate highways, and airports. Unfortunately, other developed countries offer faster networks at cheaper prices to their businesses and citizens. Few disagree that the United States must solve this broadband problem.

This case study shows how one city did it. No private company was willing to build the high-speed information network Burlington, Vermont, needed on the timeline it wanted. Rather than hope and wait, they’re building it themselves. After their original plan collapsed, they persevered and developed a different model, using a tax-exempt municipal capital lease arrangement with an outside investor. The City will have direct ownership within 15 years; they already have complete control.

ILSR issued a report in 2011 that updates this case study: Learning from Burlington Telecom: Some Lessons for Community Networks  

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A growing number of opinion leaders are rallying behind the argument that only federal leadership can stop the United States’ slide into broadband oblivion. In a widely circulated document, attorneys Jim Baller and Casey Lide set out their plan for developing a National Broadband Strategy, the crux of which is a blue ribbon task force that would establish national goals, and develop recommendations on how to get there. So far, the most substantial Congressional movement is West Virginia Senator John D. Rockefeller’s resolution advocating legislation toward this end.

It’s impossible to be against setting up a blue ribbon task force. Certainly, we need a national discussion about how to best use public assets, in particular the airwaves and rights of way, to rapidly expand broadband access. But we object to the way the discussion is being framed.

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