Carl Junction, Missouri, is moving ahead with plans to build a fiber network. Steve Lawver, City Administrator, tells us that funding for the $5.2 – $5.6 million project will most likely come through a lease program from the Missouri Public Utility Alliance (MPUA). Lawver tells us that funding will involve private placement non-taxable bonds, available to … Read More
A presentation by ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell explores how decentralized biogas production could provide a key piece of the future, renewable electricity system. Given Oct. 29, 2012, in St. Louis to the Biocycle Annual Conference. The Missing Piece in Clean Local Energy from John Farrell
On September 11th, we interviewed Todd Murren, Director of SpringNet, for our Community Bradband Bits podcast. Todd told us the story of how travel giant Expedia, chose Springfield, Missouri, as the location for their call center and how SpringNet services them with its high capacity network. Expedia originally planned on working with a large national carrier … Read More
The 12th episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast features an interview with Todd Murren of SpringNet, in Springfield Missouri. SpringNet delivers blazing broadband over Ethernet to businesses in the community. We talk about Missouri’s strong restrictions on local authority around broadband and the history of SpringNet. We also discuss how SpringNet has led to hundreds … Read More
A Business Journal story yesterday reveals that Time Warner Cable is adding 81 jobs in Kansas City, an increase of 9% over its present area workforce: The company, which currently employs about 900 locally, wants to fill customer service, finance, sales and other positions. These are the jobs that result from competition – which does not … Read More
Google Fiber is unveiled. And it sucks to be Time Warner Cable right now. But they already knew that. Google is offering 3 packages in Kansas City – a gigabit Internet connection for $70/month, a TV + Gigabit Internet connection for $120/month, and a free Internet tier of 5/1Mbps (subject to a one time $300 connect … Read More
During 2011, nineteen million miles of fiber optic cable were installed in the United States, according to CRU Group, a global research firm. That means all the fiber that was laid in the U.S. last year could be wrapped around the equator 763 times. It was the largest installation since the boom year of 2000. And … Read More
Rural electric cooperatives were essential to expanding electricity throughout rural America after private sector business models overwhelmingly failed to electrify our farms over many decades. Electric coops embody the spirit of local community and local concerns. Cooperatives often have decades of experience with project planning and implementation. We have seen electric coops use their own existing … Read More
In Missouri, a coalition of independent businesses and union members are backing a bill that would reform the state’s tax increment financing (TIF) law and put an end to subsidies for suburban big box stores, shopping malls, and other sprawling developments. TIF allows a municipality to issue bonds to pay for part of the costs of a new development. Future tax revenue from the development is then diverted from the public coffers to pay off the bonds.… Read More
