All the latest on the topic.
Main Street Connect is a new apartment complex in Montgomery County, Maryland, that offers symmetrical 50 Mbps internet services and digital training for low-income and special-needs residents via a partnership with the county government’s Department of Technology Services. Broadband Communities thanks Joseph Webster, the department’s chief broadband officer in the Office of Broadband Programs; Marjorie Williams, the department’s broadband, cable and franchise division manager; and Pierre Trudeau, CTO of Positron, for helping compile this profile.
The first virtual edition of the Fiber Broadband Association’s annual conference, Fiber Connect, held in December, showcased many fiber community success stories and a variety of innovations that promise to expand fiber deployment. The show highlighted how communities are banding together and working with state and federal agencies to build out broadband in underserved communities. It also brought to light the need to increase bandwidth and provide flexible service during the pandemic, along with the problem of permitting obstacles and other challenges.
The Reef at Winkler, a new luxury multifamily community owned by MJ Development Southeast and managed by Greystar in Fort Myers, Florida, leverages Boingo Wireless managed Wi-Fi services to deliver consumer broadband and smart-community applications. Our thanks to Matt Valentine, a partner at MJ Development Southeast; Ben Vander Velden, senior channel manager at Boingo Wireless; and Layne Spencer, vice president of sales and marketing for IOTAS, for helping assemble this profile.
The emerging model presents a scalable option for communities that lack the expertise or interest to operate networks or act as ISPs themselves but want to own and control the core communications assets in their communities as a means of securing the benefits of broadband internet. Here’s a look at the model’s business case, technical elements and risks.
The Incompas 2020 Policy Summit, held in Washington, D.C., in March, covered key issues for competitive broadband providers. Topics included the homework gap, the modernization of UNE rules, the need for workforce training, and new partnerships between service providers and electric utilities.
~ This article will appear in the March/April issue. ~
The Rural Utilities Service made good on its promise of world-class service. The first ReConnect grants and loans offer convincing proof that private investment could work in unserved and underserved areas, even though Wall Street shuns them.
At Broadband Communities’ 2019 economic development conference, held in October in Alexandria, Virginia, participants shared stories about how communities are improving broadband access to facilitate economic development, digital literacy and consumer choices. Following are some of the highlights of the conference sessions.
At the Broadband Communities economic development conference in October, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks delivered a powerful call to make internet inequality across the United States a thing of the past. A data-driven review of what has and hasn’t worked over the past 10 years will help determine the path forward, he says.
Century Village, a 55-plus condominium community in West Palm Beach, Florida, has employed Atlantic Broadband as its primary provider of voice, video and data services. Our thanks to Regan Anderson, vice president of select communities for Atlantic Broadband, and David Israel, president of the United Civic Organization, Century Village’s governing board, for helping gather information for this profile.
The technology challenge for a rural community is closing the gap between the digital infrastructure that is profitable for commercial providers but serves only part of the community and the infrastructure necessary to serve all community members. Local leaders, driven by a clear, aspirational vision of their community’s future, can proactively address this gap.
Until recently, most municipal fiber networks were built by existing municipal utilities. Experience with outside plant, billing and customer service gave them a head start toward providing broadband. But today, cities without utility departments are forging new paths to build and operate broadband networks.
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