Nation’s Cities Weekly, May 7, 2012
Some of the fastest broadband networks are being built by local governments, according to a recent report titled “Broadband at the Speed of Light” from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Benton Foundation.
Providing service to less populated areas can prove to be unprofitable for the private sector, so a city-built network is really the only way to connect those regions with modern broadband access. “The big carriers have stopped investing in next-generation networks, leaving communities with few options but to consider their own investment,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Fortunately, we have seen these networks succeed, as demonstrated in our case studies of these globally competitive networks.”
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