In another example of how some private companies continue acting against the public interest, Verizon is again using FiOS as a weapon, threatening not to bring it to a New York town unless the town essentially waives some $12,000 in real estate taxes.
Communities maintain what is called the "right-of-way" - where utility polls are located or conduit is buried underground. Imagine if a cable company had to work out an arrangement with every resident who had a poll in their yard to string cable - what a headache! Instead, companies like Verizon negotiate with the municipal government for access to the right-of-way. In return, communities typically negotiate for things like a franchise fee, often a 3%-5% fee from television revenues that is used to fund local public access channels. The right-of-way is a valuable community asset and the community deserves to benefit from allowing private companies to profit from it.
In this case, Verizon wants to dodge the real estate taxes it owes by taking them out of the franchise fee - which would pass effectively reduce its public interest obligations required by using the rights-of-way. Yet another way in which companies put profits above the community.
Verizon must have some skilled accountants, they never seem to pay taxes. When they sold off their customers in New England to the failing Fairpoint, they also avoided paying taxes on the income from the sale.
Schoharie County, New York officials have applied for a $30 million New York State ConnectALL grant with the hopes of eventually building a $33 million, county-wide fiber network. The shape and scope of the network has yet to be determined, but the county hopes to build a network that brings affordable access to the rural, agriculture-heavy county.
Driven by past successes with city-owned fiber and Wi-Fi, Newark New Jersey has announced the city is significantly expanding the availability of $20/month broadband service to numerous Newark Housing Authority (NHA) apartment buildings. A partnership with Adrena leans heavily on Newark Fiber, a 288-strand city-owned fiber network that has been a cornerstone of the city’s efforts to revitalize and assist many lower income – and long neglected – Newark neighborhoods.
Advocates for better Internet access are breathing a sigh of relief in New York as the State Assembly nixed a budget bill amendment that would have undermined the state’s municipal broadband grant program.
As the municipal broadband movement continues to gain momentum, here is a new fact sheet that highlights the dramatic surge in the building of publicly-owned, locally controlled high-speed Internet infrastructure. We also unveil a new map of municipal broadband networks across U.S.
Massachusetts and New York officials hope to entice affordable housing property owners with new grant programs that would pay the retrofitting costs to expand high-speed Internet connectivity into decades-old affordable housing developments. Given that many of these multi-dwelling units (MDUs) were built before the advent of the Internet, a significant number of low-income tenants are living in buildings that are not wired to support reliable broadband connections or where residents can’t afford monopoly provider prices.
West Springfield residents recently gathered to break ground on a plan to deliver affordable fiber access to all 28,000 city residents. The effort, first conceived in 2021 during the height of the pandemic, involves working with Westfield Gas and Electric's broadband subsidiary Whip City Fiber to deliver symmetrical gigabit fiber.