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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.

Why towns have built their own broadband

By Jeffrey R. Lee, Medill News Service

Two years ago Princeton, a town of about 7,500 two hours west of Chicago, was staring at a potentially grim future. One of the community’s largest employers had just moved its manufacturing facilities to Chattanooga, Tenn.

LCN, a division of Ingersoll Rand Co. Ltd., had just hired a new plant manager for its Princeton factory, and he had a wake-up call for the town’s industrial board.

“He said that if Ingersoll Rand was looking to relocate a new facility, Princeton would not be on the list,” recalled Jason Bird, superintendent of the town’s electric and telecommunications utility. The town simply did not have the communications capacity that modern companies need.

That conversation was enough to scare the town council and the mayor into action. Last October, the town started construction of a $400,000, 12-mile fiber optic network, and on Dec. 15, it announced it would take the fiber optic cable to any customer that wanted it.