bristol virginia utilities

Star Tribune Editorializes About Importance of Broadband, Community Ownership Option

Today's Star Tribune editorializes about the importance of broadband and calls on the state to reduce the 65% referendum barrier that prevents a number of communities from building the network infrastructure they need.

The editorial recognizes the successes of Monticello, Minnesota, as well as Bristol Virginia Utilities at spurring broadband growth and lowering prices.

Just as we previously wrote about the unfairness of the 65% referendum requirement, the Strib agreed:

An antiquated state law also stands in the way of communities that want to pursue their own version of FiberNet Monticello. With research increasingly demonstrating that high-speed service boosts rural economic development, communities underserved by current providers should not be held back by the unfair 65 percent threshold for popular support the law requires to go forward. A simple majority would suffice.

Finally, they corrected noted that broadband has been a total sleeper issue. If the next governor pays as little attention to broadband as current Governor Pawlenty, the state will be in dire straits.

Bristol Gets Stimulus Funds for Middle Mile and Starts Smart Grid

Bristol Virginia is again expanding broadband access in rural Virginia. Following a $22.7 million BTOP (broadband stimulus) grant and matching $5.7 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, in combination with in-kind contributions from the Virginia Department of Transportation, BVU will greatly expand middle-mile broadband throughout 8 counties in Southwest Virginia. The project is expected to take 2.5 years to complete.

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph covered the story:

“With this broadband network, Bristol Virginia Utilities will enable service to more than 120 of what we refer to as anchor institutions,” [US Senator] Boucher said. “That includes schools, libraries, hospitals, clinics, major government facilities and other large public facilities. The new network will also come within two miles of 18,000 homes and 500 businesses. That makes it feasible for what we refer to as last mile service to be provided to these 18,000 homes and 500 businesses. Some of these have broadband today, but not all of them do.”

This project will add onto the economic development successes resulting from previous networks built by the publicly owned utility:

Boucher said the original broadband line deployed across the region several years ago has already helped to create a number of new jobs, including 137 new virtual call center jobs that have been created in the region by DirectTV, and another 700 plus jobs that have been created by the Northrop Grumman and CGI technology centers in Lebanon.

Read BVU's press release on the grant award [pdf].

Though BVU is expanding middle mile access, it cannot offer last-mile services in most of these communities. Virginia law prevents BVU from offering some services outside its existing footprint - a policy that is great for telco profits but terrible for people that actually want modern telecom services.

For its existing broadband subscribers where it is allowed to offer services, the utility has boosted downstream and upstream speeds [pdf]. The new tiers remain asymmetrical, as with a number of the earlier muni broadband networks. Tiers are now 16/2, 30/10, and 50/20.

For its electrical customers, BVU has announced a smart-grid investment, as have many other utilities in the forward-looking Tennessee Valley - a hotbed of publicly owned utilities following the private sector failure to wire their communities 100 years ago.

The Economist Profiles Bristol Virginia Utilites Network

In a recent issue, the Economist profiled BVU - the first municipally-owned triple-play fiber-to-the-home network in the U.S. Evidently, the Economist thinks Bristol an unlikely spot to find a full fiber-to-the-home network, but some of the best networks in the U.S. are in these unlikely spots because they are built by communities who have realized the private sector will not build the needed infrastructure.

And this infrastructure has brought many jobs to the region:

And the fibre brought jobs. In 2007 both Northrop Grumman, a big American defence contractor, and CGI, an international IT consultancy, said they would hire between them 700 technicians, consultants and call-operators at offices in nearby Lebanon, Virginia, part of BVU’s fibre backbone. Both cited the area’s universities and low cost of living, but neither would have come without BVU’s investment, which Northrop calls absolutely critical.

The article asks a common question but answers it exceedingly well:

Should cities be in the business of providing fast internet access? It depends on whether the internet is an investment or a product. BVU could not afford to maintain its fibre backbone without selling the internet to consumers. And it could not build a subscriber base without offering cable television and a telephone line as well; households these days expect a single price for all three services.

Most communities would rather not have to get involved with selling services like cable television, but such services are generally a necessity to cash-flow the network. So, as they did before with electricity, they do what they must to keep the community strong and competitive.

Bristol Virginia Utilities - Doing Well

BVU's OptiNet has received a grant to expand its fiber network in rural Virginia from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.

The project adds redundancy in a rural area where telecommunications infrastructure tends to be ignored by the private sector.

“The broadband expansion fortifies the existing fiber route between BVU and Citizens as well as giving our area a redundant fiber-optic line to Northern Virginia, where bandwidth needs are increasing all the time. It is necessary to our region’s future and the survivability of our existing telecom network,” he [Virginia Delegate Terry Kilgore] noted.

BVU was the first municipal network in the U.S. providing the triple-play over a full fiber-to-the-home network.

And it is doing quite well according to its annual audit report.

Conducted by Brown Edwards & Co., certified public accountants, the audit revealed increased revenues and no surprises, partner and accountant Richard Linnen told the BVU board of directors at its Monday meeting.

“It was a clean opinion and an unqualified audit, as it is every year,” Linnen said.

Such independent audits are a useful exercise to ensure these essential networks are operating efficiently and accountably. Additionally, these audits are useful to refute false claims of impropriety from private sector companies looking to discredit publicly owned networks.

Advice to President Obama about Broadband

Publication Date: 
December 1, 2008
Author(s): 
Broadband Properties Magazine
Publication Title: 
Broadband Properties

The December 2008, issue of Broadband Properties features an article that offers advice to incoming President Obama regarding broadband policy. Some of the comments center around community networks.

The Case for Public Fiber-to-the-User Systems

Publication Date: 
March 6, 2006
Author(s): 
Jim Baller - Baller Herbst Law Group
Author(s): 
Casey Lide - Baller Herbst Law Group

Jim Baller and Casey Lide are two of the foremost experts on municipal broadband systems in the United States. This report offers a clear and rational defense of publicly owned broadband systems. The discussion takes on philosophical, economic, and pragmatic arguments and comes to the conclusion that communities should not be prevented from building their own networks.

Muni FTTH Snapshot - BVU

Publication Date: 
September 1, 2008
Author(s): 
Broadband Properties Magazine
Publication Title: 
Broadband Properties

A recurring feature in Broadband Properties is the Municipal FTTH Deployment Snapshot. The Aug/Sept 2008 issue featured one of oldest municipal citywide FTTH deployments in the United States - Bristol Virgina Utilities' Optinet.

The article featured a wealth of technical data from the network as a well as a short history of their legal fights and their "Biggest Success."

Bringing Fiber to the User: Market Opportunity and Case Studies

Publication Date: 
April 21, 2005
Author(s): 
Eniola Campbell, Alcatel
Author(s): 
Allison Cerra, Alcatel

Discussion about Bristol Virginia Utilities and Chelan Public Utility District in Washington.

Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU), a not-for-profit electric municipal utility, began offering voice and data services to local schools and government operating in the Bristol, Va., area in 2001. Using a fiber optic network, the company affordably provided the community with access to the most advanced communications technology available. As a result, BVU satisfied a primary objective of enabling economic prosperity and new business development from the improved communications infrastructure.

Community Savings

In terms of fiber-enabled cost savings, 120 businesses in Bristol reported an average of $2,951 in savings per year, while, in Reedsburg, 33 cited annual cost savings averaging $20,682. Twenty Jackson businesses reported cost impacts due to fiber, with one large organization reporting a total of $3 million in savings. The other 19 Jackson respondents reported a net average cost increase of $3,150 per organization.

BVU School Connections

BVU's initial fiber deployment linked local government and school buildings. According to a study done at that time, this yielded annual savings of $156,000. Today, says Lane, some connections between local schools are operating at data rates as high as 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. The school's fiber links, he says, have enabled testing and other applications that could not be supported by the T-1 links on which they previously relied.

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