community broadband networks

We recently reached out to Princeton, Massachusetts, after reading several local news articles about the city's ambition to improve broadband in the community. Phyllis Booth of the Landmark has been covering the story. Community leaders recently mailed survey cards to every residence in town and put the survey online to provide ample opportunity for feedback.

With survey results complied, the answer from respondents was an overwhelming, "Yes! We want better Internet!" The Princeton Broadband Committee has since made the results available in a series of visuals that express the community's experiences with speed, customer satisfaction, desirable applications, and other respondent concerns. Detailed survey results are available for review [PDF].

The results come as no surprise to Stan Moss, Board of Selectmen Member who is also on the Broadband Committee. "Everybody has tried everything," says Stan when he describes the survey outcome. The community of 3,300 has access to DSL in about 49% of households and other choices are satellite, dial-up, and wireless. According to Moss, Princeton DSL customers averaged a D+. From the Landmark article:

“Once we invest in the fiber it’s pretty good. It’s not costly to upgrade in the future, it’s reliable once it’s in place,” said [Broadband Committee Member John] Kowaleski. “If the town doesn’t do this, no one will,” he added. The town has contacted Verizon and Charter and “we’re not even on their plan,’’ said Kowaleski. “Princeton has insurmountable challenges. It isn’t profitable for Verizon or any other company to provide the infrastructure to give us the service,” said Kowaleski.

Moss says he receives calls on a regular basis from residents who want to know when the city is going to provide FTTH. Most of those calls come from people who work from home or have school age children.

K-8 Schools in Princeton currently use slow and unreliable T1 connections and bringing fiber to the students is a high priority. High school students attend in a nearby consolidated school. Often prospective families tour the local school and are thrilled to see small class sizes and an intimate setting. "When they learn that there is no high speed Internet for their children, you never see them again," says Moss.

While not set in stone, The Massachusetts Broadband Initiative (MBI) plans to bring its middle mile network to the local Thomas Prince School. The public library, the town hall, the public safety facility, the senior center, and the municipal light department will likely also be connected through MBI. Princeton's Broadband Committee wants to use that momentum to get households connected and capitalize on the benefits of ubiquitous access.

Real estate professionals in Princeton expect a direct benefit from a fiber network. They attribute lower property values in Princeton, in part, to the lack of high speed connectivity. There are a number of prospective telecommuters and home based businesses who have also spoken out in favor of a municipal FTTH network. One entrepreneur in Princeton who would like to work out of his home, spends $2,000 on office space in another city just to have productive Internet speeds.

Princeton is looking to Leverett, Massachusetts, as an example. (Btw, Princeton is not the first community we have encountered watching Leverett's process - way to go Leverett!) The Broadband Committee sees similarities between Princeton and Leverett and has watched the rural community as it move ahead. Both are rural, tree covered, hilly, and charming says Moss. "When I see some one new in town I ask them how they come to move to Princeton because you don't end up here by accident."

Readers will recall that Leverett plans to fund the project with a municipal bond. Debt service on the bond will be paid with revenue from the network and a property tax increase, about 6%. The community has already voted to approve the measure. Princeton believes a similar approach will work for them. From the Landmark:

We believe we can do this for even less than people are paying right now for Internet, said Kowaleski. “If the town funds it with a municipal bond we could have this in place by January 2015,” he added.

...

The committee is estimating monthly cost for fiber to the home would be $63.30. With a 20-year bond to pay for the buildout, the cost for the average homeowner (based on a home valued at $303,280) for taxes would be $284.90 per year, for a 20- year average.

According to the committee, the average cost today for subscribers for the Internet and phone bill is between $101 and $130, depending on whether the user has satellite, DSL or wireless. The new network cost would be $63.30 per month, plus $25.27 per month for the tax cost for the bond, for a monthly cost of $88.57.

While there may be some similarities with Leverett, Moss notes that Princeton has fewer more households over twice as many road miles, creating a more sparsely populated community. Fortunately, it also has an advantage not found in Leverett - a chance to hang their cable expeditiously.

Moss tells us that Princeton has worked with the local municipal light plant to reach an arrangement to speed up the process. Leverett has to wait for Verizon to prepare poles for the new fiber, estimated to take six to twelve months. Princeton's municipal light plant will allow fiber optic cable to be hung in the places reserved for power line attachments.

To save money and speed up the process, the Broadband Committee will take on the task of documenting utility poles. From another Leader article:

At the Monday, March 11 meeting, committee chairman Steve Cullen told selectmen that committee members and volunteers will do the work, saving taxpayers as much as $50,000. “We have the technology to do this,” said Cullen. “We’ll look at every single road and utility pole, take photos and bring the information to an engineering company to cut back on the time line.” Documenting the poles accounts for approximately 60 to 70 percent of the expense related to design costs, said Cullen.

The next step will be a series of community meetings to report the results of the survey. Moss expects the Broadband Committee will approach residents at the May 14th Town Meeting where they will ask for approval to fund a network design. Moss is optimistic and believes the city may be hanging fiber optic cable as early as October.

Regardless of what approach they take, the people who live there are hungry for something better. We found one survey question and the results especially revealing. When asked "What Internet speed would prompt residents to change Internet providers?," 60% of respondents answered, "Any speed, as long as it's faster."

The town of Erie, Colorado, is conducting a residential survey as it considers a community owned network. Erie has about 18,000 residents and straddles Boulder and Weld Counties. 

The concerns facing Erie's community leaders were recently summed up in a John Aguilar article in the Boulder Daily Camera. According to the article, four companies were to be screened to complete a $50,000 feasibility study. The community owned broadband approach has both strong supporters and some doubters in town.

From the article:

Trustee Jonathan Hager, who has spent the last dozen years managing fiber-optic networks for a Westminster-based wholesale electric power supplier, championed the idea for Erie from both a local control perspective and an economic development one.

"If I'm a company and I'm going to relocate here with 100 employees and I need 100 megabits per second of speed and the town can provide that, I think that would be something I would look at," Hager said. "If we can make Erie stand out as a good place to live because we offer broadband, that puts us in a good position."

Internet access, he said, has become so ubiquitous and necessary that it could be seen as just another municipally provided utility, like water and electrical service.

"We can provide it ourselves and cut out the middle man," Hager said.

Those who are not sold on the idea of funding a study, express resignation at entering a challenging industry:

"I'm very sensitive to the speed of technology's progression," Mayor Joe Wilson said. "By the time we cut the ribbon on this technology, it's old news."

Wilson also voiced concerns about whether it is government's proper role to be providing broadband Internet service or whether that is better left up to the private sector. He said there hasn't been an outcry from residents to pursue such a service.

The completion of a residential survey can clarify how the community feels about local broadband connectivity and help leaders decide how to move forward. Surveys are a common tool as part of feasibility studies, but in our experience the most important question to answer at this phase is whether the community has a vision and clear sense of what would be gained by investing in their own network.

Apparently, Erie is considering several different models. Also from the article:

Options for Erie included building and controlling the whole network itself or partnering with a private company to build and operate the system. The town is planning to issue a community survey later this year, which will now include a question about what priority the establishment of a municipal broadband system takes.

We will be sure to look in on Erie for future developments.

A collaboration between local Idaho and Wyoming counties, the town of Rexburg, Idaho, and Brigham Young University will be exploring the possibility of a community owned fiber optic network. Significant business interest in the project has contributed to the decision to move forward with a feasibility study.

According to a Standard Journal article, Design Nine has been hired to conduct the study which will look at what networks are currently in place and provide a detailed plan for future development. The $78,000 study, to be completed in May, is funded in half by a federal grant with the remaining paid for by public and private donations. 

Fremont County, Idaho; Madison County, Idaho; Teton County, Idaho; and Teton County, Wyoming are all participating and together obtained the federal grant. According to the City of Rexburg Department of Economic Development website on the fiber initiative:

Rexburg's City Council recently (June, 2011) passed an initiative to facilitate the availability of broadband internet in Rexburg. High-speed broadband internet, as referred to in this initiative, is a fiber-optic connection with download speeds exceeding 1,000 bytes per second (1 Gbps). Private businesses have requested for upgraded services, but these requests have not yet been met. Accordingly, citizens and city officials have established the Rexburg Community Access Network Initiative. High-speed broadband means smart growth for Rexburg.

From the Standard Journal Article:

Two companies have already expressed interest in adding data centers in Rexburg, but current lack of bandwidth makes that a challenge, [Economic Development Director for Rexburg Scott] Johnson told members of the Kiwanis Club earlier this week.

Brigham Young University-Idaho is the main component behind the study, he said during the meeting.

“They are the ones who asked us to do this and take this forward,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the university has minimum Internet connectivity expectations for every student on campus, which falls far short because of the current infrastructure. He said the rapid proliferation of electronic devices make it imperative to plan for better informational connectivity.

The discussion about fiber in the region has been going on for some time. A 2003 Standard Journal article described a meeting hosted by the Rexburg Chamber of Commerce. Many of the same groups along with representatives from Cable One, Qwest (now CenturyLink), and Idaho fiber network provider Fremont Telcom/FreTel Communications (now part of Blackfoot Telecommunications) attended that gathering.

Also in attendance at that 2003 meeting was Richard Holloway, from the Madison School District, who noted that the school district had installed $650,000 worth of buried fiber optic lines and were quite pleased with the results:

Holloway said while the initial installation was expensive, the quality of the connection is much better and very inexpensive to use.

Before, when the district was using a T1 line, the system was often down and student data information required by the state was easily lost.

"This has solved our down time," he said.

As can be expected:

Richard Jayo, Idaho general manager of Qwest Communications, suggested that Rexburg and the area has everything it needs to attract high-tech businesses and that the community already has everything available to it except for DSL.

"Fiber and broadband are not necessarily synonymous," he said, trying to convince the audience that the high speed T1 lines already available are sufficient to the community's needs.

"There's no amount of bandwidth that we can't deliver if someone wants it," Jayo said.

"If a business is interested in your community, we stand ready to make a trip to explain how robust your communications are."

Readers may recall that T1 lines are 1.5 Mbps, a far cry from the 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps upstream that the FCC now defines as a "basic" broadband connection. Taking advantage of modern applications requires even faster connections, especially for businesses. All Qwest (now CenturyLink) representatives parrot the claim that we can deliver anything necessary, but refuse to quote prices. Their prices are far in excess of what is reasonable, which is why communities are investing in their own networks -- to ensure everyone has access to fast, affordable, and reliable connections.

Los Alamos County is commonly known as home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It may soon also be home to an incredible next-generation network owned by the community. 

New Mexico's Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) received BTOP funding to construct a middle-mile fiber network connecting anchor institutions in Rio Arriba, northern Santa Fe, and Los Alamos Counties, along with the City of Espanola, and Pueblos of Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, and Tesuque. REDI is also working with local coops and with municipal utilities to bring the network across the northern part of the state.

Los Alamos County is expanding from the middle-mile network in anticipation of bringing fiber to every premise in Los Alamos county, about 8,900 homes and businesses. The design for the project is 90% complete and cost estimates are around $61 million.

While initial possibilities included cost projections for 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps connections, the County is pursuing 1 Gbps connectivity after early debate. From an April, 2011 article in the LAMonitor.com:

“These are immediate local uses for the infrastructure. But it’s also a long-term need,” [Tobey] Johnson, [managing partner of the Broadband Planning Group] said. “When you look at making this type of infrastructure investment in your community, it’s essential that the infrastructure’s going to be utilized for the next 30 years. So while there might be a handful of examples for uses today, how will it be used five years from now, 10 years from now? How will it be used locally in the community? How will it be used to connect the community to the outside world? A lot of those advances are still coming down the road, but we feel the best starting point for infrastructure is to look at gigabit speeds.”

The network will be open access with the hope of creating meaningful competition for consumers in Los Alamos County. At this point, no financing mechanism is in place and the surveys include questions on the public's tolerance for debt on the project.

As the county begins to formulate a business plan, they are now conducting research directly with the public. According to the Los Alamos Daily Post:

As part of this survey, the County is interested in conducting market research to assess demand and interest in broadband services, as well as explore preferences regarding methods of financing the CBN project and willingness to pay for the various costs to install and operate the network.

The surveys will be conducted at Time Out Pizza in White Rock, the Mesa Public Library, The Coffee House and The Reel Deal Theater. The in-person surveys are in addition to the telephone surveys that were conducted in September. The survey should take less than 3 minutes to fill out.

The face-to-face surveys will supplement telephone surveys conducted in September. Project IT Manager, Estevan Gonzales, tells us the business plan may very well be completed by the end of the year.

For more details on this project, visit Los Alamos County's Communuity Broadband Network page, where the County provides links to documentation from the beginning of the process.