Category Archives: Cheers

Good news.

Editorial: HR 5252 Would Increase Competition, Lower Prices for Cable

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An editorial from Tuscon chimes in to support HR 5252 without the badly-written poison pill to banish Net Neutrality. According to the editorial, our southern neighbors in Arizona overpay for cable by over $178M per year due to lack of competition. Let's speed up UTOPIA adoption so we don't end up in the same boat!

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Fed Up Colorado Cities Solicit Competitors

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Fed up with poor service and high prices, dozens of cities in Colorado are actively pursuing either municipal broadband or bringing in more service providers. Unsurprisingly, Qwest tried to protect its monopoly by passing a bill that bans such competition. Thankfully, the bill was watered down so that Qwests dreams of bleeding consumers dry can't come to fruition. Hooray for Coloradans for having vision. Boo on Qwest for having none.

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Cities That Get It: Loma Linda, CA

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The city of Loma Linda, a sleepy suburb of Los Angeles, has finished up a brand-new fiber optic network providing broadband services that the telecoms and cable companies just wouldn't go for. Now that they have this network in place, the city is finding all kinds of creative uses for it including distance learning classes at and from the local university, better monitoring of traffic lights, and staying connected to city employees in the field. It's more than Internet access: it's the new railroad.

All Eyes on Corpus Christi

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Corpus Christi is about to finish the rollout of a municipal WiFi system that may fully demonstrate the benefits of municipal broadband. It's going to be used for everything from meter reading to communicating with traffic signals to, yes, Internet access. Since this is the first fully-functioning muni WiFi system and it has concrete governmental uses, it will be interesting to see how the city benefits.

Support HR 5252!

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HR 5252 includes provisions to encourage development of municipal broadband, ensure Net Neutrality, and update telecommunications laws to work with VoIP. This summary provides a breakdown of the bill and the great things it will accomplish. Let's write our legislators to encourage support of this bill so that companies like Qwest and SBC can no longer sue municipal broadband away.

High-Speed Internet Brings Benefits to Rural Canadians

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A private company in the far reaches of Nunavut, Canada is providing high-speed satellite Internet access to remote villages. The service has been bringing increased access to goods and services and the information is helping local businesses improve the way they operate. Of course, this comes at a price: $60 a month for the service, a large premium over fiber-based services like UTOPIA provides. There's also no competition for services. If UTOPIA expands to smaller communities like Vernal, Logan, and Moab, you could see the same benefits taking shape and a true expansion of broadband to rural areas.

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