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Jim Baller Interview by Glenn Fleishman, WiFi Networking News

“We talked today about a bit of history, starting with electrification 100 years ago, through the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia saga of 2004, finishing up with the Net Neutrality’s current drafts of laws in Congress that include provisions to level the playing fields for municipal broadband. Baller notes that the versions before Congress don’t tip the balance to towns and cities; rather, they require municipal entities to go through a reasonable process before building network.”

Freedom For Our Future responds to alleged municipal failures

The opposition has cited cities (out of over 620) where they say a municipal broadband utility has failed… They ALSO SAY that there aren’t any other communities out there who are providing Fiber To The Home (FTTH). That’s news to the 217 communities who belong to the FTTH Council.

Legal Solutions for Successful Municipal Communications Projects – Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, April 19-20, 2006

ITIF: U.S. Continues to Tread Water in Global Broadband Adoption

According to new statistics from the OECD1, the United States remains in the middle of the pack among OECD nations in broadband telecommunications adoption. In their semi-annual survey of broadband subscribership, the OECD found that from June 2005 to December 2005, broadband subscribership in the U.S. increased 2.3 percentage points, from 14.4 percent of the population to 16.8 percent, about the same rate of growth as the OECD overall. When OECD first collected this data in 2000, the United States ranked 4th among the 30 nations surveyed, behind Korea, Sweden and Canada. Now, we are 12th, with our rank unchanged from December 2004.

Baller Herbst white paper on municipal fiber systems

The Tennessee Broadband Coalition has asked the Baller Herbst Law Group to respond to the main criticisms that opponents of public Fiber-to-the-User (FTTU) initiatives have raised in Tennessee and elsewhere. The Coalition would like to know whether any of these criticisms is valid, and, if so, what lessons the Coalition can learn from them to avoid or mitigate similar problems in Tennessee.

Financing Community Broadband

By Cathy Swirlbul

Municipal utilities are expanding into offering broadband service for a variety of reasons. Some communities have a history of providing utility services through public ownership. Other areas pursue community broadband when the incumbent cable and telecommunications companies fail to provide the service. What these projects have in common is the need for financing. The reality of financing in today’s market, though, may be different from commonly held perceptions.