This week in Democratic Energy: Hawaii’s solar ranking drops Florida solar initiative faces pushback Battles over fixed charges proliferate across Midwest in wake of Wisconsin cases Featured Stories The U.S. solar industry is shifting toward consumers by Katie Fehrenbacher, Fortune The opening of the urban commons by Greg Kats, GreenBiz The opening of the urban commons is … Read More
On June 5th, the Main House of Representatives voted 143 – 0 in favor of LD 1185, the Maine bill to provide state planning and implementation grants for local municipal networks. Representative Norm Higgins, the sponsor of the bill, contacted us to let us know about the incredible support for the bill. LD 1185 proposes to … Read More
For the past several months, Maine communities have been a hotbed of broadband activity. Bar Harbor, located midway along the state’s Atlantic coast, is another community looking at fiber as a necessary investment. According to a February article in the Mount Desert Islander, the town of 5,200 has decided to move forward with a feasibility study. … Read More
This week in Democratic Energy: Why homeowners may want to think twice before leasing solar panels How Germany’s solar success shines — even through solar eclipse New Solar ownership program could be key to distributed local energy surge Find out which Texas city is set to completely embrace clean power! Featured Stories Leased solar panels can complicate … Read More
FCC Outlines Plan To Crush Awful State Protectionist Broadband Laws: from the it’s-about-time dept by Karl Bode, Tech Dirt While net neutrality rules are designed to protect consumers from a lack of last-mile competition, the agency’s moves on municipal broadband are intended to actually strike at the issue of limited competition at the root. As we’ve noted … Read More
Isleboro, the Maine island community of 566, will decide in May whether or not they want to bond to build a municipal fiber network, reports The Working Waterfront. The network will be owned by the town who plans to partner with GWI to operate and manage it. Currently, about 2/3 of residents on the island use … Read More
The Ellsworth City Council voted on February 9th to proceed with the first steps to developing yet another municipal fiber network in Maine. Community leaders plan to develop open access fiber infrastructure. Five ISPs have already expressed an interest in working with the city to provide services via the network. Ellsworth is home to approximately 7,500 … Read More
Next week the FCC will make a landmark decision that will affect the future of community networks. Here’s a roundup of stories. Hate Your Internet Service Provider? You Should Have Feb. 26 Circled on Your Calendar by Daniel B. Kline, Motley Fool The state of city-run Internet by Allan Holmes, Center for Public Integrity The Center and … Read More
A group of municipal leaders and their private sector small ISP partners submitted an ex parte filing with the FCC today stating that they see no reason to fear Title II reclassification of Internet access. The statement, signed by a variety of towns and providers from different areas of the country is reproduced in full: Dear … Read More
