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… Continue reading
A project in Minnesota to build a municipal fiber system has been based upon the model used by UTOPIA. This brings only good news about our state and shows how well thought-out the UTOPIA project is. (See full article.)
Silicon Valley, the heart of the US technology industry, is still unsure as to what it's going to do to provide municipal broadband. There's going to be a roundtable to figure out if it will be a true municipal broadband system or just another monopoly contract. Let's hope for the… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
Thanks to efforts from a few senators, the overhaul of the 1934 and 1996 telecommunications acts is dead in the water. While this would have been beneficial for municipal broadband, the potential negative effects on Net Neutrality would have been much worse. Let's hope the Net Neutrality sections get fixed… Continue reading
Big surprise: cable companies leverage their monopoly status in local markets to increase prices at double-digit rates and keep competition from even getting started. Prescribing a solution to remove control from local communities, however, is very misguided. If Michigan took some cues from Utah, prices could be driven down by… Continue reading
It's not exactly in our neck of the woods, but worth mentioning. Santa Clara University is holding a conference on municipal broadband and is specifically inviting the underserved from Silicon Valley to help formulate public policy on broadband. This sounds like just the kind of thing we need in our… Continue reading
This op-ed piece goes very in-depth on the negative consequences of not having a communications network that's up to snuff. Chicago has lost lots of jobs to more-wired cities like Charlotte, N.C., and Utah's tech-heavy economy could see similar results if we don't pony up for better broadband.
There's a great editorial from the Salt Lake City Weekly slamming Salt Lake City's decision to pull out of UTOPIA while ponying up a mountain of cash for a soccer stadium. Them's some seriously messed-up priorities.