In the News: Community Broadband Networks
April 20th, 2018
Media Outlet: EfficientGov Blog
Fairlawn, Ohio’s Fairlawn Gig is a great example of a municipal broadband project that is connecting it’s community to high-speed, affordable Internet access. Andrea Fox of the EfficientGov blog heard about our coverage of Fairlawn Gig and decided to write a story about their success.Her story includes a quotation from the Community Broadband Bits podcast episode where ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative director Christopher Mitchell interviewed deputy director Ernie Staten.
Fairlawn Municipal Broadband is 5x Faster
Fiber is provided to every household via a municipal broadband operation run out of the town’s data center in its Public Service Department building.
Deputy Service Director Ernie Staten told WOSU three upstream providers bring service in, and then Fairlawn Gig goes out to every home.
The municipal company offers speeds up to 1 gigabit per second for $75 per month. Homeowners are typically interested in the 150 megabit speed option for $55 per month.
Fairlawn officials planned for about 35 percent of the town to sign up for the service but they’ve achieved 50 percent so far. Fairlawn Gig’s customers are running at least five times faster than most commercial broadband, according to the story.
Staten said in a recent Community Broadband Networks podcast that everyone is doing a lot more streaming now with the network.
Municipal Broadband Outreach Strategy
Staten told Community Broadband Networks how citizen engagement outreach strategies have helped the town overcome any challenges to on-boarding new customers with completing the fiber build in late 2017.
Businesses were slower to sign-on, but the town held luncheons and connected with the business community to talk more about their needs and how the broadband utility could meet them.
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Read the full story here.
