Who Has Citywide Gigabit Internet Access for $100 or Less?

Date: 10 Aug 2015 | posted in: MuniNetworks | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

As Westminster begins serving customers with its new FTTH network and partner Ting, we were curious how many communities are there where a residential subscriber can obtain affordable gigabit access? We estimate the number of networks, large or small, where a majority of residents in a community can obtain gigabit service for $100 or less to … Read More

Solar Potential on Public Buildings in Kansas City

Date: 22 Jun 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

How much solar is installed on municipal buildings? How much could be installed? As we discovered in writing ILSR’s Public Rooftop Revolution report—the latest in the Rooftop Revolution series—nobody had the answer, for almost every city we contacted. But in the course of the research, three cities answered our call to analyze their rooftop solar potential specifically … Read More

Kansas City’s Royal Effort to Solarize City Rooftops – Episode 25 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 3 Jun 2015 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Podcast | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Kansas City, MO, has neither the abundant sunshine nor high cost of electricity that have driven solar installations in other cities. Despite this, the city has close to 1.5 MW of solar in 59 separate installations on municipal properties. Thanks to utility rebates, two department leaders, and a unique opportunity that allowed it to access the … Read More

Press Release: Public Rooftop Revolution

Date: 1 Jun 2015 | posted in: Energy, Press Release | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2015 CONTACT: Rebecca Toews rebecca@ILSR.org (612) 808-0689 Public Rooftop Revolution In Public Rooftop Revolution, ILSR estimates that mid-sized cities could install as much as 5,000 megawatts of solar—as much as one-quarter of all solar installed in the U.S. to date—on municipal property, with little to no upfront cash.   Solar energy is in the news … Read More

Missouri Anti-Muni Bill Advances Out of Committee

Date: 19 Mar 2015 | posted in: MuniNetworks | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The Missouri Senate Jobs, Economic Development and Local Government Committee voted to pass anti-local choice SB 266 on March 18th. This bill, sponsored by Senator Kurt Schaefer, will increase barriers for municipal networks and damage the possibility of highly-effective partnerships with the private sector. Call your Missouri State Senator and let them know you consider this … Read More

Community Broadband Media Roundup – January 23

Date: 26 Jan 2015 | posted in: MuniNetworks | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

We continue to see reverberations from President Obama’s speaking out in favor of municipal networks. The presidential nod sparked state lawmakers to propose bills, news organizations to write editorials, and to give communities a better sense of how they can take action locally. As Claire Cain Miller with the New York Times wrote in her article … Read More

Ting Delivering FTTH Is Great News for Community Fiber – Community Broadband Bits Episode 134

Date: 20 Jan 2015 | posted in: MuniNetworks, Podcast | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In recent weeks, we have been excited to see announcements from Ting, a company long known for being a great wireless provider (both Lisa and I are customers), that is now getting into FTTH deployments. The first announcement was from Charlottesville where it acquired another company. Last week they announced a partnership with Westminster, Maryland. This … Read More

Next Century Cities Launch Webcast on October 20

Date: 8 Oct 2014 | posted in: MuniNetworks | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Municipalities are increasingly realizing they need to take steps to ensure fast, affordable, reliable Internet access for local citizens. Some are doing the work themselves with publicly owned projects while others seek public-private partnerships. In order to capitalize on collaboration, a group of city leaders are now forming Next Century Cities. On October 20, 2014, they … Read More

Chris Mitchell Shares Lessons Learned from Seattle and Gigabit Squared; The Challenge of Private Sector Cable Competition

Date: 15 Jan 2014 | posted in: information, MuniNetworks | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

This article originally ran on MuniNetworks.org, our site dedicated to broadband and community networks.  This the second in a series of posts exploring lessons learned from the Seattle Gigabit Squared project, which now appears unlikely to be built. The first post is available here and focuses on the benefits massive cable companies already have as well as … Read More

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