Recently in Community Networks... Week of 5/22
Chuck Sherwood
May 22, 2012 01:02:58 PM, communitynetwor...@ilsr.org wrote:
If you are no longer interested in receiving weekly updates from MuniNetworks.org (a project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance), instructions for unsubscribing appear at bottom. Send feedback. Forward Widely.I write this from DC, where I am for Freedom to Connect and the SHLB Conference. Day 2 of Freedom to Connect is just starting. Our panel on Community Broadband starts at 3:30 EDT and you can still register for the video feed for $20 - http://f2c.eventbrite.com/Paragould Sets An Example for Another Arkansas Town
Tue, May 15, 2012 | Posted by lgonzalezRecently, we let you know about the situation in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, population 15,039. The town is now investigating the possibility of building their own fiber network. They have had several community meetings and a "vote of the people" is set for May 22, 2012.
Pamela Hill is investigating the twists and turrns in a series of articles about the vote. In one of her articles, Hill looked into another Arkansas community, Paragould, home of the annual "Loose Caboose" Festival. This community, located in the northeast corner of the state, has successfully operated their own cable network since 1991. Unlike Siloam Springs, the people of Paragould weren't focused first on generating new revenue for the local government, they just wanted to be able to watch tv for a reasonable price.
Back in 1986, Cablevision was the only provider in Paragould. Hill spoke with Rhonda Davis, CFO ofParagould Light, Water & Cable:
... Learn More About Paragould Here ..."The public wasn’t happy with Cablevision’s service or rates,” Davis said. “We took it to a public vote and did it.”
In Tennessee, Morristown Joins the Gigabit Club
Fri, May 18, 2012 | Posted by lgonzalezLocated in the northeast corner of the state of Tennessee, Morristown Utility Systems offers FiberNET to Morristown's 30,000 residents and businesses. MUSFiberNET is another community that decided to take control of its destiny and invest in a municipal broadband network.
And by offering 1 Gbps anywhere in the community, Morristown is in the ultra-elite category of broadband in America.
We featured Morristown in one of the Muni FTTH Snapshots way back in June of 2009. They were doing well at the time but this great news shows how Morristown has brought next-gen, affordable, and reliable capabilities to anyone who wants it.
MUS FiberNET was built in 2006 and maintains a list of reasons why their network is superior to competitors.
Senator Franken Calls on FCC to Actually Enforce Its Rules
Wed, May 16, 2012 | Posted by christopherOne of the reasons we so strongly support local, community owned broadband networks over European-like regulations on private companies is that large institutions regularly game the rules. We wrote about this last year, when Free Press called on the FCC to stop Verizon from ignoring the rules it agreed to for using certain spectrum.
Senator Franken, who has taken a strong interest in preserving the open Internet, has justreminded the FCC that creating rules does no one any good if it refuses to enforce them.
Not only has Comcast announced that its own Netflix-like service does not count against its bandwidth caps, some researchers found evidence that Comcast was prioritizing its own content to be higher quality than rivals could deliver. Comcast has denied this charge and proving it is difficult. Who do you believe? After all, Comcast spent years lying to its own subscribers about the very existence of its bandwidth caps.
Susan Crawford Keynote at The Next Web Conference
Tue, May 15, 2012 | Posted by christopherSusan Crawford on the importance of government policy. People who are concerned about the future of the Internet need to pay attention or the cable and telephone companies will take over the Internet (or at least access to it). Not because they are evil, but because what is best for them (or what they think is best for them in the short term) is not what is best for the rest of us or the vast majority of businesses that depend on access to the Internet.
... Watch her Keynote here ...
Gig.U Delivers its Gigabit to Maine
Thu, May 17, 2012 | Posted by christopherWe continue to watch the Gig.U project with interest as some universities are teaming up with providers to deliver gigabit services to selected areas, generally around high tech campuses.
One of the first project announcements has come from Orono, Maine. The University of Maine and a private company called GWI are teaming up to bring real broadband to Main Street.
The gigabit announcement came on the heels of a major announcement from Time Warner Cable - they are increasing residential speeds in Maine from 8-10 Mbps (or from 15 to 20 Mbps for those speed demons) and doubling their upstream speeds from .5 to 1 Mbps (or from 1 to 2 Mbps for those living in the fast lane).
So Orono, which is talking about speeds of 50-1000 times faster, should have quite the advantage.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Community Networks Weekly Updates e-mail list from MuniNetworks.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
communitynetworks-...@ilsr.org
You can also subscribe to our RSS feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/muninetworks/JEAM
If someone forwarded this to you and you wish to subscribe, visit http://bit.ly/icBHJp
