Fresno’s loss will be Provo’s gain. Why? Because Provo built its own network and can meet the modern telecommunications needs of businesses. A company is moving from Clovis, in Fresno County (California), to Provo, Utah. The Business Journal covered the story: Clovis-based Secure Customer Relations, Inc., plans to move its entire operation to Provo, Utah this … Read More
Vidalia, a Louisiana town with 4,300 residents, is a small town with a big idea. Vidalia one of the poorest regions in the country with an unemployment rate hovering around 9.4% so area leaders seek new ways to improve opportunity. The Vidalia Broadband Initiative aims to connect every home with a gig and provide 10 gig … 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
We have brought you news about DC-Net before and have even highlighted the community network in our report, Breaking the Broadband Monopoly. Now we want to draw your attention to some videos they have produced. Free WiFi hotspots all over town, secure indoor WiFi for government staff, and hundreds of miles of fiber throughout town are … Read More
Wise people say that collaboration often leads to a better result than individual efforts. Recently, I was reminded of the benefits of different levels of collaboration, as they relate to community networks, in two separate articles about fiber-optic expansion in Wisconsin. First, is a recent Randy Happel article in Trenchless Technology, about how UW-Extension is working … Read More
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula is one step closer to being laced in a new fiber-optic network. The first link in the new Peninsula-wide broadband project is between Blyn and Sequim and will serve the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe from its new Blyn library to a local medical clinic located in Jamestown. Also benefiting from the new expansion will … Read More
Good news for folks in Jackson, Wilder, and Bingham Lake in Southwest Minnesota! Your local broadband options are about to get much better. Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services (SMBS) just announced that construction is advancing on the new network. The 125-mile fiber ring is expected to be completed by September, 2012. If you live in their service … Read More
MPR News recently ran two stories on the trials and tribulations of new and prospective broadband networks. Conrad Wilson’s story about the continuing Monticello drama and Jennifer Vogel’s account of factors affecting the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) projects give us a good idea of the many hurdles in the way of building new fiber-optic … Read More
Throughout human history societies have been informed and instructed by the superstitions of their age. For thousands of years we believed a single person–a king, a pharaoh, a high priest– should have life and death power over us. Any other social structure was unthinkable. We believed the gods that brought drought could be appeased only by animal and, sometimes, human sacrifice. Today these superstitions seem ridiculous. How could thinking people ever have believed such preposterous notions?… Read More
