In this episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, Christopher is joined by Jamie Letzring, Deputy City Manager for West Des Moines, Iowa, and Dave Lyons, a consultant with the city, to explain how the city decided to build a citywide conduit system, which has convinced Google Fiber to offer service in West Des Moines.… Read More
Marin County and the city of San Rafael, California, have built a Wi-Fi mesh network in the city’s Canal neighborhood to connect over 2,000 students and their families in anticipation of the upcoming school year.… Read More
In the Des Moines Register, ILSR’s Christopher Mitchell discusses Iowa’s leadership in broadband and West Des Moines’ innovative partnership with Google Fiber which will provide high-quality Internet service at an affordable price for all residents.… Read More
A new study shows that states which enact barriers to entry for municipal and cooperative broadband networks reduce broadband availability.… Read More
To help local governments that want to improve connectivity during the pandemic, we at the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance have teamed up with the Local Solutions Support Center to produce a number of helpful resources, including a guide for local governments and an interactive state broadband preemption map.… Read More
A new pilot project is bringing telehealth services to barbershops and salons. The aim is to leverage all of the unique characteristics of these businesses to pioneer early detection and eventually ongoing treatment of high blood pressure and the constellation of associated complications, which disproportionately affect African Americans.… Read More
Less than two years after Mississippi lifted its ban on electric cooperative broadband networks, at least 15 of the 25 co-ops in the state have announced plans to provide Internet access to members, with more on the way.… Read More
A new initiative in San Antonio, Texas, called Connected Beyond the Classroom, which will begin launching over the next weeks, will leverage city-owned fiber infrastructure and $27 million in CARES Act funds to connect 20,000 students across the city’s 50 most-vulnerable neighborhoods in a bid to close the digital divide and ensure teachers, students, and their parents can continue to learn this fall and beyond.… Read More
Late last month, voters in Block Island, Rhode Island’s sole town of New Shoreham gathered (at safe distances) in the local school building and on its grounds to approve $8 million in borrowing to build an island-wide, municipal fiber network. Residents were overwhelmingly in favor of funding the broadband network, which would be the first of its kind in the state.… Read More
