mark calendars - · pdf file“all the session including the actual muni broadband case...

APRIL 5 – 7, 2016Renaissance Hotel – Austin

CALENDARS

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TO SPONSOR OR EXHIBIT:email: [email protected]

505-867-3299

MARK YOUR

PRESENTATIONS WERE VERY USEFUL IN CASTING KEY BROADBAND ISSUES“The keynote presentations were very useful in casting key broadband issues in a very important global light.”

– Andrea Brown, Attorney Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (KY)

BEST CONFERENCE AND FRIENDLIEST I’VE BEEN TO IN YEARS“All the session including the actual muni broadband case studies were very useful. Best conference and friendliest I’ve been to in years.”

– Saul Tannenbaum, Community Member Cambridge Broadband Task Force (MA)

THE SCHEDULE OF GUEST SPEAKERS WAS FANTASTIC“The Broadband Communities Summit was a fantastic event. We met with lots of people interested in what SiFi Networks has to offer. The schedule of guest speakers was fantastic and the workshops very useful, we look forward to hopefully attending again next year.”

– Sara Pickstock, Marketing and Communications Director SiFi Networks

EVENT WAS PERFECT AND ENERGY WAS GREATER THAN EVER“The BBC team once again batted a homer over the fence, the event was perfect and the energy was greater than ever. The unanimous popular opinion among all participants is that BBC is by far the best organization in our field!”

– William Vallee, State Broadband Policy Coordinator State of Connecticut

NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES WERE SECOND TO NONE“A very professional effort put forth by every one of the BBC staff. The conference was outstanding, and it was extremely professional and the networking opportunities were second to none.”

– Gordon Caverly, RCDD Regional Vice President Mid-State Consultants

ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING AND REWARDING EVENTS I HAVE EVER ATTENDED“I am back from attending the Broadband Community Summit and will tell you it was one of the most exciting and rewarding events I have ever attended. I have so much to learn and attending this event has helped me tremendously in this journey. The level of education and expertise along with the common sense approach of the three track program was more than I had thought possible. I plan to ask our Governor to send someone to next year’s Summit as it is a very valuable experience.”

– Mayor Eddie Fulton, Mayor City of Quitman, MS

REAL WORLD EXPERIENCES“Real world experiences and the associated consequences – found value in all of the panelist’s commentary.”

– David Hopkins, 911 Director Southern Tier Network

Hilda LeggFormer RUS Administrator and Vice Chair, Broadband Communities

Tom WheelerChairman, Federal

Communications Commission

Eric FreeVice President, The Internet of Things Group, Intel Corp.

WAS MY FIRST TIME HERE BUT NOT MY LAST“The sessions gave great examples and covered all types of financing. Overall, this was a great conference. Was my first time here but not my last.”

– Terrie Salinas, Economic Development Director Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council (TX)

AS A FIRST TIME PARTICIPANT, THE EVENT WAS VERY IMPRESSIVE“Each speaker described their individual origins within their deployment, key positives and negatives. As a first time participant, the event was very impressive.”

– Mayor William Wescott, Mayor City of Rock Falls, IL

EXPERIENCES TO HELP MAKE MY CASE BACK HOME“The sessions were very useful – real life experiences, ideas to help make my case back home.”

– Richard Wilson, IT Director, Special Projects Walton County BCC (FL)

APRIL 5-7, 2016 • AUSTIN SUMMIT

Here’s what attendees are saying about the 2015 Summit!Make plans to attend the 2016 Summit now. April 5–7, 2016 • Renaissance Hotel - Austin • www.bbcmag.com To sponsor or exhibit: email [email protected] or call 505-867-3299

2 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015

EDITOR’S NOTE

Broadband Communities (ISSN 0745-8711) (USPS 679-050) (Publication Mail Agreement #1271091) is published 7 times a year at a rate of $24 per year by Broadband Properties LLC, 1909 Avenue G, Rosenberg, TX 77471. Periodical postage paid at Rosenberg, TX, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Broadband Communities, PO Box 303, Congers, NY 10920-9852. CANADA POST: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Copyright © 2015 Broadband Properties LLC. All rights reserved.

CEO & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Scott DeGarmo / [email protected]

PUBLISHER

Nancy McCain / [email protected]

EDITOR

Masha Zager / [email protected]

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Steven S. Ross / [email protected]

ADVERTISING SALES ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Irene Prescott / [email protected]

COMMUNIT Y NEWS EDITOR

Marianne Cotter / [email protected]

DESIGN & PRODUCTION

Karry Thomas

CONTRIBUTORS

Joe Bousquin

David Daugherty, Korcett Holdings Inc.

Joan Engebretson

Richard Holtz, InfiniSys

W. James MacNaughton, Esq.

Henry Pye, RealPage

Bryan Rader, Bandwidth Consulting LLC

Robert L. Vogelsang, Broadband Communities Magazine

BROADBAND PROPERTIES LLC

CEO

Scott DeGarmo

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS & OPERATIONS

Nancy McCain

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Robert L. Vogelsang

VICE CHAIRMEN

The Hon. Hilda Gay Legg

Kyle Hollifield

BUSINESS & EDITORIAL OFFICE

BROADBAND PROPERTIES LLC

1909 Avenue G • Rosenberg, Tx 77471

281.342.9655 • Fax 281.342.1158

www.broadbandcommunities.com

[email protected]

A few years ago, as we were finishing an issue of BroadBand Communities,

I told the CEO, Scott DeGarmo, that I was having trouble finding a subject for the editor’s note.

Scott was dumbfounded. “How could you possibly have any problem?” he asked. “Just talk about the benefits of fiber to the home. Tell everyone why fiber broadband is the most important thing happening right now. Tell them how it’s changing the world. Isn’t that the message we want to get across?”

“But, Scott,” I protested, “the whole magazine is about the benefits of fiber.” And I went on to find some other subject to write about.

So here’s the column Scott wanted me to write.

WHY FTTH IS IMPORTANTFiber to the home erases distance. Humans evolved with two incompatible needs – to live in small tribes and to travel. Having families and friends scattered around the world is an age-old problem. Letters, telephone, email, and now Skype, FaceTime and similar programs help bring people closer. Universal fiber to the home and true bandwidth abundance will allow people to interact as if they are in the same room. Wouldn’t you like to have dinner with your far-flung family this evening?

Fiber to the home (or to the desk, or the classroom) opens up new worlds of possibilities. Musicians and dancers can perform or study with musicians and dancers in faraway cities. Art lovers can

wander around museums anywhere in the world. Students can travel abroad, climb Mount Everest from their classrooms or learn any subject of their choosing – and interact in real time with their guides and professors.

Fiber to the home (desk, office) enlarges human knowledge. Today’s scientific breakthroughs depend on analyses of vast data sets – astronomical data, genomic data, climate data and more. There’s no way to handle these data sets without supercomputers and massive bandwidth.

Fiber to the home (desk, office) improves health and quality of life. To coordinate care, multiple doctors need instant access to terabyte-sized patient records. There’s no way to access these centralized records without fiber connections to medical offices. Fiber connections at home help caregivers monitor patients who have chronic illnesses, those recovering from surgery and those in frail condition. People can live at home longer than they otherwise could have.

Fiber revitalizes depressed areas by attracting new and home-based businesses. Fiber makes businesses more productive. Fiber-connected smart grids and smart farms conserve natural resources. Fiber-based smart cities serve citizens better.

And this is only the beginning. v

Did you like this article? Subscribe here!Did you like this article? Subscribe here!

The Benefits Of FTTH

Universal fiber to the home will change the world.

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Broadband Communities and FriendsHonor

Scott DeGarmoFor his role in accelerating the deployment of fiber-based broadband access, and for

• His friendship and generous mentoring to many in the broadband industry• Integrity and commitment• Vision and innovation• Dedication to bringing the industry together• Sharing his joy and radiant spirit with all of us

Scott DeGarmoPresident & CEO

September 3, 1943 – August 15, 2015

Joe SavageJoe SavageSteve Sadler Karry Thomas Bob Vogelsang

Hilda Legg Nancy McCain Irene Prescott Steve Ross

Dave DaughertyMichael CurriChris Acker Doug Adams

Heather Gold Cheryl Jordan Diane KruseTricia French

Masha ZagerThuy Woodall


TABLE OF CONTENTS

New York artist Irving Grunbaum is feeling community-spirited.

ABOUT THE COVER

COVER STORY

DEPARTMENTS

2 EDITOR’S NOTE

6 BANDWIDTH HAWK

74 MARKETPLACE ADS

75 ADVERTISER INDEX / CALENDAR

IN THIS ISSUE

14 Census of Community Fiber Networks Rises to 165 / By Masha Zager, Broadband Communities

BroadBand Communities’ annual list of community networks finds a 15 percent increase over last year. More fiber networks are being planned.

COMMUNITY BROADBAND

27 Charlotte’s Google Fiber Web / By Marianne Cotter, Broadband Communities

32 A Fiber to Every Premises / By Bill Vallée, Connecticut State Broadband Office

36 A Rural Community Thinks Big / By Andrew M. Cohill, Design Nine Inc. and Matt Rowe, Charles City County

39 SandyNet Launches FTTH Services / By Christopher Mitchell and Hannah Trostle, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

43 Show Me the Money / By Craig Settles, Gigabit Nation

46 Tapping Hidden Sources of Broadband Funding / By Misty Stine and Joel Mulder, EX2 Technology LLC

48 A Broadband Policy Agenda From Next Century Cities

52 Key Issues in Public-Private Partnerships / By Blair Levin and Denise Linn, Gig.U

COMMUNITY BROADBAND SPOTLIGHT

58 Companies Whose Offerings Support Fiber for the New Economy

FIBER DEPLOYMENT

62 Texas Agency Saves With Fiber LAN / By Ryland Marek, 3M Communication Markets Division

TECHNOLOGY

64 Powered Fiber Cable Adds Value to FTTH Networks / By Ryan Chappell, TE Connectivity

67 Supercharge ROI With GIS / By Tom Brooks, Mapcom Systems

FTTH CONFERENCE COVERAGE

70 Cheaper Fiber Deployments – And More of Them / By Steven S. Ross, Broadband Communities

FEATURES

PROVIDER PERSPECTIVE

8 It’s Hard to Be Easy / By Bryan J. Rader, Bandwidth Consulting LLC

Customer friendliness is in the eye of the customer. Make sure your customers like what they see.

PROPERTY OF THE MONTH

10 The Gigabit Life: San Travesia, Scottsdale, Ariz. / By Masha Zager, Broadband Communities

Developer Mark-Taylor wanted these apartments to have the best of everything, including Internet access. That’s why San Travesia became one of the first Cox G1GABLAST communities.

THE GIGABIT HIGHWAY

76 Making Broadband Work / By Heather Burnett Gold, FTTH Council Americas

The federal government can do more to increase broadband investment and adoption.

10

39

MAKETHE

LEAP


BANDWIDTH HAWK

For a decade, we at BroadBand Communities have advocated public-private partnerships. Modern, flexible, future-proof network technology, especially fiber to the

home, makes these partnerships easy to implement, especially when a community wants to preserve fiber for municipal services such as meter reading or traffic light control or when several communities and private entities want to team up to start or grow a network. Software-defined networks (SDN) make partnership even more attractive. And there’s a fair amount of experience with partnerships in Europe – half of all builds and about a third of all homes passed are through such partnerships.

Partnerships help communities get around the financial roadblocks they face when they look for broadband as an increasingly necessary component of their economic development plans. Today, private financing is more available than at any time since 2008. Indeed, it is more available to network builders than ever before. Interest rates have fallen from a typical 10 percent down to 5 or 6 percent – or lower for borrowers that have assets they can mortgage.

REASSURING INVESTORSNevertheless, there have been a few widely publicized failures in community broadband, and even under the most favorable circumstances, positive cash flow for a communitywide network is still three years from start of construction. This understandably makes investors wary.

Federal politicians can scream “no new taxes” and let the nation’s infrastructure fall apart; state politicians face competition from other states and from health care and education needs. The buck (or lack of bucks) stops at the local level, where communities are left to face urgent problems with empty bank accounts.

In addition, communities have little room for error in their network planning. They typically seek to do little better than break even with new networks. Their “profit” is mainly (or entirely) in soft dollars and in future dollars from arresting the loss of population and jobs and from boosting local property values. These are worthy goals, but soft dollars do not repay investors who have bought municipal bonds or loaned money to small telephone and cable operators. Investors in community

networks also worry about management risk. There are plenty of technically adept people to fill staff jobs but not many available skilled leaders and marketers.

Private companies – typically Tier-3 local exchange carriers and competitive overbuilders (in regulatory-speak, ILECs and CLECs) – have their own problems. They worry about eroding or stagnant customer bases as their communities lose population. They worry about local governments – especially utility districts – overbuilding them. They worry about pay-TV subscribers cutting the cord and about Universal Service Fund support being cut off. They worry about the costs of interconnects.

Somewhat surprisingly, investors in small telcos say they are not particularly worried about the regulation of data services under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. After all, most ILECs are already Title II carriers. They welcome other network providers’ sharing the pain. Investors in large telcos and cable companies, on the other hand, are very worried about Title II.

Many of these worries – on both sides – go away when a small LEC or giant national carrier partners with a local or state-level public entity because partners are unlikely to ambush one another. However, other problems appear in their stead. Hence the need for a carefully drawn prenuptial agreement. In some states, a successful public power utility is not allowed to use its profits or its assets to start or enhance a broadband operation. Equity investors, as well as lenders who seek an exit strategy if something goes wrong, want some mechanism for selling the assets, if necessary. That can remove those assets from any direct public control.

States that have banned municipal broadband may consider a public-private partnership as just that, or they may decide that private operators, having partnered with public entities, no longer want or need municipal broadband restrictions.

These issues will be explored in more detail at our economic development conference in Lexington September 15–18 and in BroadBand Communities in the following months. We’ll also show how our free investor and cash-flow models can enhance business plans in ways investors want to see. v

Contact the Hawk at [email protected].

Preparing for Public-Private PartnershipsFinanciers are showing interest in public-private partnerships. But though flirting with communities is easy, hammering out prenuptial agreements remains challenging.

By Steven S. Ross / Broadband Communities



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PROVIDER PERSPECTIVE

Do you think your company is easy to do business with? When companies ponder this self-assessment question, they often answer, “Of course we are!”

They may believe their sales teams’ 800 numbers, their online new-property forms or the well-thought-out FAQ buttons on their websites qualify them as “easy to do business with.”

That seems easy enough!A few years ago, in a nationwide customer service study,

two companies were ranked as the easiest to do business with. One was USAA, a large insurance and banking organization, and the other was Kohl’s, an affordable retailer. What did customers like about them?

USAA customers cited service reps who were so well-trained, they could handle any inquiry on a single call without having to transfer callers to multiple departments. Kohl’s customers identified the no-hassle return policy and the in-store kiosks at which customers could efficiently order products to be shipped directly to their homes.

“Easy to do business with” is defined by customers, not by sellers. USAA and Kohl’s win because they excel at what their customers define as important.

Too many companies mistakenly call themselves “easy” because they design great customer-facing websites or they believe their sales teams are responsive to client needs. They fail to realize that “easy” may mean something else to their customers (property owners, in the case of multifamily service providers).

Some companies get it; others don’t. Uber is easy to do business with. Download the app, key in your address, order a driver when you need one and go. FedEx is easy, too. Print the label at home, drop off the package at a store or a box and track it until it is received.

Other companies seem lost. Ever try to redeem frequent-flyer points from one of the mega-airlines? They are eager for customers to build up points balances, and they make it easy to track balances and watch them grow. But they make redemption virtually impossible with blackout dates, multiple phone calls, and crazy, newly announced redemption fees and limitations.

Business practices that impact “ease of doing business” can be policies, internal procedures, pricing plans and sales or

operational strategies. Some companies have simply developed a culture of being easy (or hard) to work with.

My firm works with many service providers on new multiple-dwelling-unit communities. We are constantly amazed that some providers make working with them so difficult. Property owner clients notice, and they encourage us to steer away from these providers.

Why is this?

EASY OR NOT?Let’s start at the beginning of the relationship. An owner typically creates a request for proposals and sends it to multiple candidates. What happens next separates pretenders from contenders. Some providers ask for a six-month lead time. Others raise more questions than answers. And some can’t coordinate an engineering site survey for 30 days or even forget to respond. That’s “easy”?

Next is the selection process. Owners ask follow-up questions. How fast do providers respond? How do they handle these unique requests?

Then comes the dreaded draft service agreement phase. Some providers are great about submitting well-crafted, customized agreements and make their legal reps available for comments. Others send draft agreements and then spend the next two months begging owners not to request any changes, as it would slow down the deal process.

Finally, an agreement is signed – then comes the launch process. How well sales coordinates with operations is a good way to distinguish “easy to work with” providers from difficult ones.

These are just some key measures clients use to determine how easy a company is to work with. Look at your company to see how you stack up. Are you more like USAA and Kohl’s or more like the mega-airlines?

Yes, it’s difficult to be easy, but it’s so important for driving success. Don’t ask me. Ask your prospective customers. v

Bryan Rader is CEO of Bandwidth Consulting LLC, which assists providers in the multifamily market. You can reach Bryan at [email protected] or at 636-536-0011. Learn more at www.bandwidthconsultingllc.com.

It’s Hard to Be EasyCustomer friendliness is in the eye of the customer. Make sure your customers like what they see.

By Bryan Rader / Bandwidth Consulting LLC




The Gigabit Life: San Travesia, Scottsdale, Ariz.This month, BroadBand Communities showcases San Travesia, an elegant new community located near Scottsdale’s quaint Old Town. Developer Mark-Taylor wanted the apartments to have the best of everything, including Internet access, so San Travesia became one of the first Cox G1GABLAST communities. “It’s pretty fantastic,” said one new resident of the gigabit-speed, fiber-to-the-unit service. Thanks to John Carlson of Mark-Taylor and Denise Tremmel of Cox Communications for providing the information for this profile.

By Masha Zager / Broadband Communities

Things are percolating in the McDowell corridor, a formerly rundown, 8-square-mile portion of southern Scottsdale. Ever since the mall

that anchored the area closed, the city has promoted revitalization there; today, private capital is pouring in, and new jobs are opening up. The McDowell corridor has great potential because it’s close to everything – the Phoenix beltways, the Sky Harbor Airport, Arizona State University, the quaint Old Town (Scottsdale’s downtown area) with its financial and health care institutions, and the cities of Phoenix and Tempe.

“It’s a phenomenal location,” says John Carlson, vice president of the residential division of Mark-Taylor, one of Arizona’s largest apartment developers. So phenomenal, in fact, that Mark-Taylor chose it as the site of a Next Generation community – the designation it gives its newer assets, whose living units, Carlson says,


are “more like modern, custom homes” than like apartments.

Assembling the 29-acre site was a complex undertaking – Mark-Taylor had to redevelop several parcels, including the dilapidated mall – and took several years. It was worth the effort, Carlson says: “We felt this was the ideal product for an urban environment like south Scottsdale. An opportunity with this much space is quite rare. We leveraged the expansiveness by building the Valley’s largest rental units. … We believe residents appreciate that apartments don’t have to be compact just because they’re in urban locations.”

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 | www.broadbandcommunities.com | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | 11

San Travesia (named after the Spanish word for “crossroads,” not for an actual saint) opened in January 2015, complete with “everything a discerning apartment resident expects, and more.”

The property is already nearly half leased; the average resident age is 32, and the average household income is above $100,000. Residents include both empty nesters moving out of their houses and young professionals who aren’t ready to buy their first houses.

One thing Mark-Taylor expected discerning residents to want was good Internet access. Fortunately, the property was being planned at about the

same time as Cox Communications’ 1 Gbps service, branded as G1GABLAST. When Cox approached the developer about installing the new technology at San Travesia, Carlson

jumped at the chance. “Our strategy is long-term hold,” he explains. “We’re not looking to exit. We wanted to be armed with the right technology to take care of our residents on a going-forward basis.”

PROPERTY OF THE MONTH HIGHLIGHTS~ San Travesia, Scottsdale, Ariz. ~

• Luxury apartment community in a rapidly redeveloping area of Scottsdale

• One of the first Cox G1GABLAST communities• Fiber-to-the-unit network supports 1 Gbps Internet access along with

other services



The choice appears to have been a good one. When the property first opened, leasing agents had to explain to prospective residents what a gigabit was; today, residents tell their friends about the gigabit service, and the friends call the leasing office to ask when they can move in. The property is

9 percent ahead of its rent projection – which, given that Mark-Taylor prides itself on accurate projections, is “very significant,” Carlson says.

The company’s next three developments will all be G1GABLAST communities. “There’s no going backward at this point,” Carlson says.

“The take-home is that, as you move into the future, apartment properties might be branded or labeled in terms of their Internet access as much as their curb appeal. If owners don’t plan for that, they’ll miss an opportunity.”

VITAL STATISTICS Property Description: San Travesia is

a two-phase (441 units and 131 units), 572-unit community that covers 29 acres, with large, open, recreational areas and an amenity package for residents that includes a 6,000-square-foot fitness facility, a spinning and yoga studio, a poolside volleyball court and outdoor living rooms. It is the only contemporary, low-density rental community in the midst of the high-rise developments in downtown Scottsdale.

As part of “The Next Generation of Mark-Taylor,” the apartments have features that are expected in modern, custom homes, such as kitchen islands, custom wood cabinets, clean steel appliances, distressed plank flooring, oiled-bronze fixtures, pendant lighting and direct-access garages.

The McDowell Road corridor, where San Travesia is located, has garnered acclaim for its ongoing revitalization. Helped in large part by its irreplaceable location, directly between Loop 101, Loop 202 and Sky Harbor Airport, the area has become a very attractive residential option.

Demographics: The average age is 32, and the average household income is $100,400.

Greenfield or retrofit? Greenfield

Number of units: 572

Style: Garden apartments

Time to deploy: 21 months

Date services started being delivered: December 4, 2014

SERVICES Services offered on the network: High-

speed Internet access with top speed of 1 Gbps, digital video with DVR

‘EVERYTHING WORKS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT’

Residents of San Travesia are enthusiastic about having gigabit Internet service and say it makes a positive difference in their lives. Rob Wax, a business developer for an energy services company, uses his Internet connection for both work and play.

“I don’t really have hours,” he explains. “I work when my customers are working. We do a lot of videoconferencing. My team is spread out across the Southwest, so we use GoToMeeting. It’s critical to have high-speed Internet so we don’t have choppy calls and so we can download files without cutting down the bandwidth for the call. That’s what clogged everything up [before moving to San Travesia] – we’d be doing a video call, and a 5 MB file would take forever to download, or the call would get choppy.

“Now, I don’t have to go into the office as much. I’m on the road a lot, and when I get back and I can work from home, it’s pretty fantastic – it’s a stress-free environment. It makes life a lot easier for me.”

Wax, a former New Yorker who says patience is not his virtue, also appreciates being able to download a high-definition movie in five seconds. “It’s a crazy thing to watch. I used to have to check back on the progress. Now it goes from 0 to 100 percent instantly. It’s the coolest thing to see. Everything works at the speed of light.”

At another G1GABLAST community, Park Place in San Diego, resident Andy De La Cruz is equally appreciative of the gigabit Internet service. De La Cruz works from home full-time, counseling patients as they return to the “real world” after stays in rehabilitation centers. He spends most of his time on video or VoIP calls while logged in to several Web-based applications. For him, gigabit service means not having to worry about whether his roommate might be trying to use the Internet during his work hours.

“Before, I would notice a total difference if there was someone in the other room – it would freeze up, or there would be a lag in the video feed,” he says. That no longer happens – and, “for our line of work, that’s very imperative, and very helpful.”

“As you move into the future, apartment properties might be branded or labeled in terms of their Internet access as much as their curb appeal.”

http://blog.mark-taylor.com/2012/10/04/san-marquis-celebrates-grand-opening-in-style/

http://blog.mark-taylor.com/2012/10/04/san-marquis-celebrates-grand-opening-in-style/


and video on demand, telephone, common-area Wi-Fi with 50 Mbps, home security and automation

Technical support: Provided by Cox

BUSINESS Which parts of the network are owned

by the service provider, and which are owned by the property owner? The distribution system is owned by Cox. Inside wiring is owned by Mark-Taylor.

Is there a marketing agreement with the property owner? Yes, there is an exclusive marketing agreement.

Does the agreement include an incentive such as a door fee or revenue share? Yes.

How do the service provider and owner work together to market the services? Cox and Mark-Taylor work together to have active Internet service turned on before a resident moves in. Cox supports property events, and in return it is provided with an opportunity to market services at key events.

Is there a bulk-service agreement? No.

Network benefits: Prospective residents are asking about the gigabit Internet service, and the property is leasing faster than expected.

TECHNOLOGY Broadband architecture: Fiber to the

unit. Within each unit, signals are distributed via Cat 6 cables and a wireless 802.11ac gateway.

Where are ONTs placed? In each unit’s structured wiring panel

Technology used: GPON for Internet service, RFoG for video and telephone service

Methods for running cables between and within buildings: In-ground conduit and risers

LESSONS LEARNEDAnswers from John Carlson, Mark-Taylor:

What have you learned about the role of technology in multifamily communities? The Internet has

become deeply embedded in residents’ everyday lives, and an era is approaching when people are not constantly limited by the capabilities of their connections. Increased connectivity will change all aspects of life, including the existing business model. Sensors will be located everywhere on the property – including thermostats, appliances, doors, lights, plumbing fixtures and so forth – feeding digital information to the cloud. A washing machine will send an electronic alert to management to inform them what the issue is and what part is needed for repair. The system will automatically schedule a repair based on availability of the technician and resident. This will allow for a much more efficient working environment and communication platform.

Ultimately, people will expect to be able to access and control everything they own that uses electricity all the time from any location, using a device they always have with them.

The take-home lesson for apartment firms is that, in the future, apartment properties may be branded and labeled as much for their Internet services as they are for their unit finishes and curb appeal. It will be imperative that owners anticipate and plan ahead for broadband demand if they hope to capture a share of the 86 million millennials and more.

What feedback does the leasing office get from residents? What has the experience taught them about marketing, installing or supporting these services? The leasing office gets

a lot of positive feedback about the service – people haven’t seen speeds like that before. There are also a lot of comments on the customer service and installation. You could have a great product, but without the customer service, you wouldn’t get that kind of feedback. Cox really nailed it.

Prospects who work from home are very excited to know that 1 Gbps service is available. They can work more efficiently, and there is no downtime when downloading or uploading documents or other work material. Some prospects do not have a great deal of understanding of the 1 Gbps product, but after the team explains the benefits of fiber optics and the speed, it does make a difference in their decision to lease. The staff is quick to point out that no other community in San Travesia’s submarket has 1 Gbps service available.

Because San Travesia was the first community to roll out 1 Gbps service, our leasing strategy for marketing was mainly word of mouth paired with Cox Communications’ social media campaigns, news articles and television exposure. This really gave us the edge up on our leasing presentation. The team pushed the campaign of being the first community to roll out the 1 Gbps service. Ultimately, word got around, and prospects started asking first about the service at the first point of contact. v

Masha Zager is the editor of BroadBand Communities. You can reach her at [email protected].

“Prospects who work from home are very excited to know that 1 Gbps service is available. They can work more efficiently, and there is no downtime when uploading or downloading.”




COMMUNITY BROADBAND

Census of Community Fiber Networks Rises to 165A spate of new projects increases BroadBand Communities’ list of community networks by 15 percent over last year. Many more fiber networks are being planned.

By Masha Zager / Broadband Communities

BroadBand Communities’ count of public and public-private fiber-to-the-premises network projects now stands at

165, a 15 percent increase over last year’s count of 143.

As usual, additions to the list include a few that should have been included on earlier lists but were overlooked. However, the great majority are new projects – some pilot deployments in single neighborhoods and others more comprehensive. Fourteen new community fiber projects have been announced in 2015 alone.

More potential community fiber projects appear to be in the works than at any time in history. As many as 200 communities are actively exploring the possibility of building fiber to homes or businesses. Some initiatives will fizzle out, and others will spur incumbent providers to upgrade their existing networks. However, some will likely result in the creation of municipal or public-private networks.

Indeed, a few initiatives are almost ready to launch. For example, WiredWest, a coalition of several dozen Western Massachusetts towns that has been planning for five years to build an FTTH network, is very close to pushing the “go” button. Twenty-three WiredWest communities have already passed bond authorizations totaling $36 million, which will qualify them for $19 million in state funding. In addition, more than 7,000 would-be subscribers have put down deposits for service.

A year ago, reporting on several cities that had sold their networks to private entities, I wrote, “Additional networks are likely to be privatized in the near future to access more secure funding streams for growth and upgrades. As of press time, the cities of North Kansas City, Mo., and Burlington, Vt., were considering seeking buyers for their networks, and several UTOPIA communities were negotiating with Macquarie Capital for a long-term lease arrangement.”

This prediction was not entirely borne out. To the best of our knowledge, no community networks have been fully privatized in the last year, though some financially struggling communities continue to look for help from the private sector. North Kansas City leased its network to a private company, and Burlington sold its telecom assets to a private company and leased them back again. Both cities remain involved with their networks. The UTOPIA communities’ negotations with Macquarie have not reached any conclusion. Recently, Tacoma, Wash., began considering a public-private partnership for its underperforming Click! Network (which is mostly HFC but offers some fiber connections for businesses).

Despite the well-publicized financial difficulties some community broadband networks have encountered, the majority of community fiber networks appear to be self-sustaining or even profitable. Many continue to expand year after year or to add new types


of customers and services. Often, a municipal fiber network begins in one community and expands by popular demand into neighboring communities, though in some cases, expansions requested by residents have been quashed by state legislatures.

More important, well-run community fiber networks are instrumental in attracting new businesses and retaining existing businesses in their communities. The most common rationale for building community networks is to provide

businesses with affordable fiber connections; in fact, many networks are built or extended to accommodate specific requests by local businesses.

THE CHANGING LEGAL AND POLITICAL LANDSCAPEAbout 20 states either prohibit communities from building community networks altogether or impose restrictions that discourage or effectively prevent them from building such networks. In February 2015, the FCC voted to preempt

state laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that limit the expansion of municipal networks into neighboring communities. The decision had no immediate practical effect – it applied only to two states, and even in those states, there are still judicial, legislative and political challenges to overcome – but it offers new hope to communities that have no other possibility of getting advanced broadband.

In any case, the FCC decision, along with President Obama’s expressed support for public broadband, raised

All the “MUNI” network deployers on this list

• Are public agencies, public authorities, public benefit corporations or consortia of public entities

• Own all-fiber networks that connect local homes or businesses to the Internet (or are actively developing such networks)

• Make available – directly or through retailers – such services as voice, Internet access or video (or are planning such services)

• Are in the United States or U.S. territories.

Excluded are the growing number of municipalities that provide broadband services exclusively for municipal government facilities, schools and other anchor institutions; those that serve private entities only by leasing conduit or dark fiber; and those that provide broadband services only over cable or wireless networks.

This list includes only organizations that have functioning networks or approved plans and funding. However, plans do not always materialize; several projects that were reported on earlier versions of the list failed to survive. Some others, although still in progress, have not met their deployment goals.

Multiple-municipality projects have become more common because they can achieve economies of scale in construction and operation and, by aggregating demand, they can attract third-party service providers more easily. UTOPIA, in Utah, is an example of an early FTTH network built by a consortium of cities. More recent projects include ECFiber in Vermont, SMBS in Minnesota and FastRoads in New Hampshire.

Even a network owned by a single town or city may provide service beyond city limits. For example, Jackson Energy Authority and Chattanooga EPB in Tennessee both serve areas adjacent to the cities that own them –

areas that were already served by their electric utilities. The city of Williamstown, Ky., used broadband stimulus funding to expand its community network beyond city borders. (Its original network was hybrid fiber-coax, but the expansion area is FTTH.) In Washington state, though each public utility district builds and operates its own network, most or all belong to the Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet), a coalition of public utility districts that linked their fiber optic networks together to achieve economic feasibility in underserved areas. NoaNet offers long-haul transport and last-mile access to wholesale communications providers throughout the Pacific Northwest.

BroadBand Communities maintains updated information about community fiber networks and other FTTP deployments in the U.S. on a searchable database at www.fiberville.com. The database field labeled “Community Benefits” contains a wealth of information on the economic development and other benefits of these networks.

WHAT’S A MUNICIPAL NETWORK?

http://www.fiberville.com

http://www.fiberville.com


COMMUNITY BROADBAND

public awareness about municipal fiber networks. This change in the political landscape is probably one reason for the great increase in the number of cities considering building broadband.

State legislatures aren’t the only entities to impose constraints; often, opposition comes from community members who disapprove of municipal broadband on principle. Because the pendulum of public opinion shifts constantly, a broadband project that proves legally or politically impossible one year may become feasible a few years later, even in a conservative community. In several cases, city leaders and broadband activists succeeded in changing public opinion by educating citizens about the economic and social benefits of high-speed broadband.

Some states now actively support municipal broadband projects. For example, the state of Illinois helped fund Onlight Aurora.

MUNICIPAL UTILITIESMunicipalities are more likely to become broadband providers when

they are already in the business of providing electric power. Citizens in these municipalities are already used to the idea of government-provided utility services. Many public power utilities were set up in response to the failure of the private sector to deliver adequate services, and residents accept that government might set up public communications utilities for the same reason. In most cases, citizens have had positive experiences with their municipal utilities and are prepared to buy additional services from them.

In addition, public power utilities already have the outside-plant personnel and the back-office operations, such as billing and customer service, that they need for providing telecom services. Finally, public power utilities are increasingly building communications networks for smart-grid applications; once they begin planning these networks, they often realize the networks are suitable for purposes such as business or residential broadband. Municipal utilities that distribute Tennessee Valley

Authority electricity have been in the forefront of combining smart grid and telecom applications.

In some cases, such as Wilson, N.C., the city operates a municipal electric utility but set up the telecommunications utility as a separate entity or department. A few cities, such as Salisbury, N.C., do not have municipal electric utilities.

WHO ARE THE CUSTOMERS?Cities often begin by installing institutional fiber networks to serve municipal office buildings or utility substations, then extend fiber to commercial buildings or business parks, add multiple-dwelling-unit properties and greenfield residential developments, and finally reach single-family households and small businesses. The list shows deployers at various points along this path. Building an institutional fiber network can also be a starting point for a path to a public-private partnership, as exemplified by UC2B.

Fifty-three of the municipal networks, or nearly one-third of the

Community broadband networks operate in 38 states and American Samoa (Alaska and American Samoa not shown).


total, deliver fiber services only to businesses, and several others serve mainly businesses. (Many of these deliver residential broadband services via cable or wireless; others don’t serve residences at all.)

A few fiber networks that began as business-only, such as Gainesville Regional Utilities in Florida, now serve residential customers in MDUs or greenfield developments, and several, such as nDanville in Virginia and Cedar Falls Utilities in Iowa, built out fiber to residential customers citywide. Owensburg Municipal Utilities in Kentucky and Whip City Fiber in Massachusetts recently added residential pilot programs to their fiber-to-the-business networks.

WHOLESALE OR RETAIL?Municipalities are more likely than private deployers to allow third-party providers on their networks. In some cases, state laws require them to do so; in other cases they do not have the expertise to provide services themselves or they want to offer a wider variety of services than they can provide on their

own. Thirty-four municipal networks either allow or plan to allow multiple retail service providers to deliver services. Twenty others have contracted with a single third-party service provider to deliver services (some of these are open to additional service providers).

Some municipal providers have both wholesale and retail strategies. For example, ECFiber was conceived as an open-access network but is offering retail services until the network grows large enough to attract third-party providers. UC2B, which followed a similar strategy, recently turned network management and service delivery over to its private partner, iTV-3, which is expanding the network and also opening it to additional retail service providers.

Certain states, such as Utah and Washington, prohibit municipalities from providing retail services. This can pose a problem for municipal fiber deployers at startup, when third-party providers (especially for residential services) may not find joining the network worthwhile.

OTHER PARTNERSHIPSAt least 19 municipal fiber systems contract with third parties – local exchange carriers or other network operators – to operate their networks. Such contracts (which also exist in the private sector) can be helpful for municipalities that lack experience operating telecommunications networks. On the other hand, like any critical outsourcing contracts, they must be intensively managed. Several such arrangements have ended abruptly or even resulted in lawsuits.

Some municipalities have formed agreements with real estate developers to allow municipal networks to build fiber in new buildings or developments or to provide fiber backbone and services if developers build the local access infrastructure. New models continue to be developed all the time.

VENDORS AND TECHNOLOGIESBecause of open-access requirements and the importance of business customers, active Ethernet networks are slightly more prevalent among

Throughout the broadband industry, the term public-private partnership is used rather loosely – and no two partnerships seem to follow the same model. An interesting development of the last few years has been cities’ becoming proactive about working with private providers and offering a variety of concessions and assistance to encourage the provision of better broadband. This article doesn’t consider most of those arrangements to be true public-private partnerships, but some other articles in this issue use more inclusive definitions.

All the “PUBLIC-PRIVATE” network deployers on this list

• Are consortia of public and private entities, publicly built networks that later received infusions of private capital, or private entities that received significant investment or participation by local governments

• Own all-fiber networks that connect local homes or businesses to the Internet (or are actively developing such networks)

• Make available – directly or through retailers – such services as voice, Internet access or video (or are planning such services)

• Are in the United States or U.S. territories.

In all these networks, both public and private partners have made significant investments (which may include contributing preexisting conduit or fiber).

Excluded are publicly owned networks that contract with private retail service providers or operators (those are labeled as MUNI); privately owned networks for which public entities have helped raise funding, for example through low-cost tax increment financing or tax abatement financing, or have contributed grant funds; and privately owned networks for which public entities have donated access to rights-of-way, expedited permitting and so forth.

WHAT’S A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP?


COMMUNITY BROADBAND municipalities than among private network builders. (Supporting open access used to be easier on point-to-point than on PON systems.) At least one-third of municipal deployers use active Ethernet technology. Several electronics vendors have sizable shares of this market, with no single vendor taking a leading position.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTIONLaws that govern municipalities’ ability to compete as telecommunications providers vary from state to state. Some states give municipalities a free hand, and others do not. Municipal electric utilities are more common in some areas than others, and some regions are better served by private providers than others are.

Considering all these factors, the chances of municipalities’ building their own broadband networks are wildly uneven in different parts of the United States. This census identified community fiber systems in 38 of the

50 states and in American Samoa. There are also about a dozen fiber networks, not listed here, built on tribal lands by tribal governments. Seven states account for a large number of deployments: California, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington.

TRIPLE PLAY AND BEYONDThough some municipalities offer only Internet access over their fiber networks, most whose planned or actual services we could determine offer the triple play of voice, video and data. Specialized business services are common, as are smart-grid applications. Broadband stimulus funding and encouragement from the Tennessee Valley Authority have made smart-grid applications more prevalent in the last few years, and these applications are likely to become still more important in the future.

A few open-access networks are actively recruiting many different kinds of services. For example, on the St. Joe

Valley Metronet, 30 providers deliver 20 different types of services, including such offerings as conferencing, disaster recovery and video surveillance. Enabling a wide variety of broadband services could become a way to make more community networks financially viable.

In conclusion, there is no single model for public broadband. Each project takes a slightly different approach, depending on the legal and political landscape, the availability of financing, the interest of potential partners, and the skills and assets that public agencies possess. Communities have many options and should explore as many as possible before committing to a plan or deciding that public broadband is not for them. v

Masha Zager is the editor of BroadBand Communities. You can reach her at [email protected].

NETWORK DEPLOYER COMMUNITY(IES) STATE(S) PUBLIC-PRIVATE

OR MUNI

DATE PROJECT STARTED

VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)

TECHNOLOGY SERVICES MARKETS SERVED BY FIBER (all

premises unless otherwise noted)

SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

AccessEagan Eagan MN MUNI 2013 Active Ethernet

Business Services, Data

Businesses only Multiple

Algona Municipal Utilities

Algona IA MUNI 2013 ADTRAN Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice

American Samoa Telecom

American Samoa MUNI 2008 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Anderson Municipal Light and Power

Anderson IN MUNI 2009 Active Ethernet

Data Businesses only Multiple

Ashland Fiber Network Ashland OR MUNI 2000 Data, Video, Voice

Fiber connections mainly for

businesses, HFC for residential

Multiple

Athens Utilities Board Athens TN MUNI 2015 Data Businesses only

Auburn Essential Services

Auburn IN MUNI 2006 Aurora EPON Data, Smart Grid, Voice

Barbourville Utility Commission

Barbourville KY MUNI 2010 Calix GPON Data, Video

Barnesville Municipal Utilities

Barnesville MN MUNI 2009 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

MUNICIPAL AND PUBLIC-PRIVATE FTTP NETWORKS IN THE UNITED STATES



OR MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Bellevue Municipal Utilities

Bellevue IA MUNI 2006 Aurora EPON Data, Video, Voice

Benton County Public Utility District

Kennewick, Prosser and Benton City

WA MUNI Business Services, Data

Businesses only

Bowling Green Municipal Utility

Bowling Green and Warren County

KY MUNI 2007 CTDI EPON Business Services. Data,

Voice

Businesses only

Bozeman Fiber Bozeman MT PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2015

Braintree Electric Light Department

Braintree MA MUNI 2008 Active Ethernet

Data Businesses only

Bristol Tennessee Essential Services

Bristol TN MUNI 2005 Alcatel-Lucent

GPON Data, Smart Grid, Video,

Voice

Buffalo Municipal Utilities

Buffalo MN MUNI 1996 Data Businesses only

Burlington Telecom Burlington VT PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2006 Calix GPON Business Services, Data,

Video, Voice

BVU OptiNet (BVU Authority)

Bristol VA MUNI 2003 Calix, Alcatel-Lucent

GPON Business Services, Data,

Smart Grid, Video, Voice

Calnet (Calhoun Utilities)

Calhoun GA MUNI 2012 (built 1997)

Carrier Ethernet

Data, Voice Businesses only

CBPU Telecom (Coldwater Board of Public Utilities)

Coldwater MI MUNI 2010 EPON Data Businesses only

CC Communications Churchill County NV MUNI 2004 Aurora, Calix Active Ethernet,

EPON

Business Services, Data, Security, Video,

Voice

CDE Lightband Clarksville TN MUNI 2007 Ciena, Zhone Technologies

Active Ethernet

Voice, Data, Video, Smart

Grid

Cedar Falls Utilities Cedar Falls IA MUNI 2006 ADTRAN, Calix

Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Smart Grid, Video

Chanute Utilities Chanute KS MUNI 2005 Data Businesses only

Charles City County Charles City County VA MUNI 2015 Data Multiple

Chaska.net Chaska MN MUNI 2004 Active Ethernet

Businesses only

Chelan County Public Utility District

Chelan County WA MUNI 2004 Alcatel-Lucent

GPON Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

Chicopee Electric Light Chicopee MA MUNI Data Businesses only

Circa (Idaho Falls Power)

Idaho Falls ID MUNI 2007 Active Ethernet

Data, Voice Businesses only Multiple

City of Ammon Ammon ID MUNI 2011 Data Multiple

City of Bridgeport Bridgeport WV MUNI 2014 Pilot project Citynet Citynet

City of Cortez Cortez CO MUNI 2011 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice



COMMUNITY BROADBAND NETWORK DEPLOYER COMMUNITY(IES) STATE(S) PUBLIC-

PRIVATE OR

MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

City of Danville Danville IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2015 Calix GPON Data Smithville Smithville

City of Ellsworth Ellsworth ME MUNI 2015 Data Businesses only

City of Hamilton Hamilton OH MUNI 2014 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON


Businesses only CenterGrid

City of Jasper/Dubois County

Jasper, Dubois County IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2015 Data, Video, Voice

Smithville Smithville

City of LaGrange LaGrange GA MUNI Calix GPON Business Services, Data,

Voice

Businesses only

City of Lancaster Lancaster PA MUNI 2015 Data, Smart Grid

MAW Communi-

cations

MAW Communi-

cations

City of Laurinburg Laurinburg NC MUNI 2014 Data Businesses only Broadplex LLC

City of Leesburg Leesburg FL MUNI 2001 Data Businesses only

City of Mishawaka Mishawaka IN MUNI 2012 Data Businesses only St. Joe Valley

MetroNet

City of Mount Vernon Mt. Vernon (also serves Burlington and Port of

Skagit)

WA MUNI Businesses only Multiple

City of Ontario Ontario CA MUNI 2015 Calix Data

City of Ponca City Ponca City OK MUNI Businesses only

City of South Portland/GWI

South Portland ME PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2014 Data

City of Vernon Vernon CA MUNI 1999 Data Businesses only

City of Westminster Westminster MD MUNI 2014 Data Ting

City Utilities of Springfield (SpringNet)

Springfield MO MUNI 2000 Active Ethernet


Businesses only

Clallam County Public Utility District

Clallam County WA MUNI 2002 Cisco Active Ethernet

Data Multiple

Click! Network (Tacoma Power)

Tacoma WA MUNI Carrier Ethernet


Community Fiber Network (formerly Goshen Fiber Network)

Goshen, New Paris, Milford, Nappanee, Wakarusa

IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2008 Data, Voice Businesses only New Paris Telephone

New Paris Telephone

Community Network Services

Thomasville, seven other communities

GA MUNI 1999 Carrier Ethernet

Businesses only in some communities

Community Network System (Pend Oreille County Public Utility District)

Pend Oreille County WA MUNI 2001 Zhone Technologies

Active Ethernet

Business Services, Data,

Video, Voice

Multiple

Concord Light Broadband

Concord MA MUNI 2014 Calix Data, Smart Grid



OR MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Conway Corporation Conway AZ MUNI 2011 Data, Voice

Crosslake Communications

Crosslake MN MUNI 2005 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice

DiamondNet (Sallisaw Municipal Authority)

Sallisaw OK MUNI 2004 Aurora EPON Data, Video, Voice

Momentum Telecom

Douglas County Public Utility District

Douglas County WA MUNI 1999 Telco Systems Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

Dover Technology Services

Dover OH MUNI 2004 Hitachi Data Businesses only

ECFiber Consortium of 23 towns VT MUNI 2010 Calix, Zhone Technologies

GPON Business Services, Data,

Voice

EmeryConnect Emeryville CA PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2013 Active Ethernet

Multiple PAXIO

EPB Fiber Optics Chattanooga TN MUNI 2007 Alcatel-Lucent

EPON, GPON Data, Smart Grid, Video,

Voice

EPlus Broadband (Jackson Energy Authority)

Jackson and part of Madison County

TN MUNI 2004 ADTRAN Carrier Ethernet,

EPON

Data, Smart Grid, Video,

Voice

Erwin Utilities Erwin TN MUNI 2014 Calix Data, Smart Grid, Voice

Pilot project

FastRoads NH Community Development Finance Authority, Monadnock

Economic Development Corporation, 42 towns

NH MUNI 2011 Calix Multiple WideOpen Networks

Fayetteville Public Utilities

Fayetteville TN MUNI 2010 CommScope EPON, RFoG Data, Video, Voice

FiberCom Cartersville and surrounding areas

GA MUNI Carrier Ethernet


Voice

Businesses only

FiberNet Monticello Monticello MN MUNI 2008 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Fibrant Salisbury NC MUNI 2008 Zhone Technologies,

Calix

Data, Video, Voice

FPUAnet Communications (Fort Pierce Utilities Authority)

Fort Pierce FL MUNI Cisco Active Ethernet

Data, Voice Businesses

Frankfort Plant Board Frankfort KY MUNI 2009 CommScope Carrier Ethernet,

RFoG

Data, Security, Video, Voice

Franklin County Public Utility District

Franklin County WA MUNI Active Ethernet


Multiple

Franklin Municipal FiberNET

Franklin KY MUNI 2013 Data Businesses only



PRIVATE OR

MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Gahanna Net Gahanna OH PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2010 Data, Business Services

Businesses only WOW Business

WOW Business

Gainesville Regional Utilities

Gainesville FL MUNI 2001 Cisco Active Ethernet

Data Businesses, MDUs, greenfield

developments

Get Wired Alabama (South Central Alabama Broadband Commission/Oasis Construction)

17 counties AL PUBLIC-PRIVATE


Multiple Oasis Alabama

Broadband

Glasgow Electric Plant Board

Glasgow KY MUNI Data Businesses only

Glenwood Springs Community Broadband Network

Glenwood Springs CO MUNI 2002 Calix GPON Data, Voice Multiple for

residential services

Grant County Public Utility District

Grant County WA MUNI 2000 Cisco, Allied Telesis

Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

Grays Harbor County Public Utility District

Grays Harbor County WA MUNI 1998 Data Multiple

Greenlight Wilson NC MUNI 2008 Alcatel-Lucent


Harlan Municipal Utilities

Harlan IA MUNI 2010 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

HES (Hopkinsville Electric System) EnergyNet

Hopkinsville KY MUNI Calix Data Fiber for businesses, wireless for residential

HG&E Telecom (Holyoke Gas & Electric Department)

Holyoke (also serves Chicopee and Springfield)

MA MUNI 1997 Calix Carrier Ethernet

Data, Voice Businesses, some MDUs

OTT Communi-

cations

Highland Communi-cation Services

Highland IL MUNI 2010 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Holland Board of Public Works

Holland MI MUNI Data Multiple

Hometown Utilicom Kutztown PA MUNI 2002 Calix BPON, GPON Data, Smart Grid, Video,

Voice

D&E Communi-

cations

Independence Light and Power Telecommunications

Independence IA MUNI 2013 ADTRAN GPON Data, Video, Voice

Businesses

Indianola Municipal Utilities

Indianola IA MUNI 2012 Calix Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

MCG

Kitsap County Public Utility District

Kitsap County WA MUNI 2000 Active Ethernet

Data Mainly businesses Multiple

KPU Telecommuni-cations

Ketchikan AK MUNI 2007 Zhone Technologies,

ADTRAN

Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice



OR MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Lac qui Parle County Economic Development Authority/Farmers Mutual Telephone

Lac qui Parle County MN PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2010 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Lake Connections (Lake County)

Lake County, part of Saint Louis County

MN MUNI 2010 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice

Lenox Municipal Utilities

Lenox IA MUNI 2008 Calix PON Data, Video, Voice

Leverett Municipal Light Plant (LeverettNet)

Leverett MA MUNI 2012 Calix Active Ethernet

Crocker Communi-

cations

HG&E

liNKCity North Kansas City MO MUNI 2007 Ciena, Calix Active Ethernet

Data DataShack

Lit San Leandro San Leandro CA PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2012 ADVA Optical Networks

Businesses, MDUs

Loma Linda Connected Communities Program

Loma Linda CA MUNI 2005 Allied Telesis Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

Longmont Power and Communications

Longmont CO MUNI 2012 Calix GPON Data, Voice

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Fiber Optic Enterprise

Los Angeles CA MUNI Carrier Ethernet


Businesses only

LUS Fiber Lafayette LA MUNI 2007 Alcatel-Lucent


Voice

Marshall Municipal Utilities

Marshall MO MUNI 2005 Data, Smart Grid

Martinsville Information Network (MINet)

Martinsville VA MUNI 2009 Business Services, Data,

Voice

Businesses only

Mason County Public Utility District

Mason County WA MUNI 2000 Telco Systems,

Ciena

Active Ethernet


Voice

Multiple

Mayfield Village Mayfield Village OH MUNI 2012 Data Businesses only OneCom-muni ty

Medina County Fiber Network

Medina County Port Authority

OH MUNI 2012 Data Businesses only Multiple

MI-Connection Mooresville, Davidson and Cornelius

NC MUNI 2009 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

MINET Monmouth and Independence

OR MUNI 2007 Alcatel-Lucent

BPON Data, Video, Voice

Montana Economic Revitalization & Development Institute/Fatbeam

Butte MT PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2013 Business Services, Data,

Voice

Businesses only



PRIVATE OR

MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Morristown Utility Systems (MUS Fibernet)

Morristown TN MUNI 2006 Alcatel-Lucent, ETI Software Solutions


Voice

Murfreesboro Electric Department

Murfreesboro TN MUNI 2015 Pilot project

Murray Electric System Murray KY MUNI 2000 Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

Fiber for businesses, HFC for residential

Muscatine Power & Water

Muscatine IA MUNI 2015 Data, Video

nDanville Danville VA MUNI 2007 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON

Business Services,

Security, Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

NetQuincy Quincy and surrounding areas

FL MUNI 2003 Alcatel-Lucent

BPON Data, Video, Voice

New Albany Net New Albany OH MUNI 2010 Business Services, Data

Businesses only WOW Business

Norwood Light Broadband

Norwood MA MUNI Data, Voice Fiber for businesses, HFC for residential

Ocala Utility Services Ocala FL MUNI 1995 Active Ethernet


Businesses only

Okanogan County Public Utility District

Okanogan County WA MUNI 2002 Active Ethernet

Multiple

OMU Fibernet (Owensboro Municipal Utilities)

Owensboro KY MUNI 1998 Calix Data Businesses, residential pilot

program

ONE Burbank (Burbank Water and Power)

Burbank CA MUNI 2010 MRV, Cisco Active Ethernet,

Carrier Ethernet


Businesses only

Onlight Aurora Aurora IL MUNI 2012 Business Services, Data

Businesses only

Opelika Power Services Opelika AL MUNI 2010 Alcatel-Lucent


Voice

Optilink (Dalton Utilities)

Dalton GA MUNI 2003 Alcatel-Lucent, ETI Software Solutions


Orangeburg County Broadband

Orangeburg County (serves nine communities in the

county)

SC MUNI 2010 Calix Active Ethernet

Data

Pacific County Public Utility District

Pacific County WA MUNI 2000 Data

Palm Coast FiberNET Palm Coast FL MUNI 2009 Cisco Active Ethernet


Voice




OR MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

PES Energize (Pulaski Electric System)

Pulaski (also serves Giles County)

TN MUNI 2007 Calix EPON Data, Smart Grid, Video,

Voice

Philippi Communi-cations System

Philippi WV MUNI 2005 Motorola BPON Data, Video

Piqua Municipal Power System

Piqua OH MUNI 2013 Businesses only

PowelLink Powell WY MUNI 2007 Calix GPON Data, Security, Video, Voice

Tri County Telephone,

open to other

providers

PPS FiberNet (Paducah Power System)

Paducah, McCracken County KY MUNI 2004 Alcatel-Lucent, Allied

Telesis

Active Ethernet,

BPON

Data, Security, Video, Voice


Princeton Electric Department

Princeton IL MUNI 2003 Data Businesses only IVNet IVNet

Reedsburg Utility Commission

Reedsburg (also serves nearby rural communities)

WI MUNI 2003 Calix BPON, GPON Data, Video, Voice

Rochelle Municipal Utilities

Rochelle IL MUNI Zhone Technologies

Active Ethernet


Fiber for businesses, wireless for residential

Rock Falls Electric Utilities

Rock Falls IL MUNI 2007 Data Businesses only Essex Telcom

Rockbridge Area Network Authority

Rockbridge County, Lexington and Buena Vista

cities

VA MUNI 2013 Data Multiple

RS Fiber Cooperative Communities in Renville and Sibley counties

MN PUBLIC-PRIVATE


Hiawatha Broadband Communi-

cations

Hiawatha Broadband Communi-

cations

Russellville Electric Plant Board

Russellville KY MUNI 2010 Calix Active Ethernet,

GPON

Data, Video, Voice, Smart

Grid

Sandersville FiberLink Sandersville and surrounding area

GA MUNI Data

SandyNet Fiber Sandy OR MUNI 2011 Calix Data, Voice

Santa Monica City Net Santa Monica CA MUNI 2004 MRV Active Ethernet, fiber to the building


Scottsboro Electric Power Board

Scottsboro AL MUNI Active Ethernet

Data, Smart Grid

Fiber for businesses, HFC for residential

Sebewaing Light and Water Department

Sebewaing MI MUNI 2013 Calix GPON Data, Voice

Selco (Shrewsbury Electric and Cable Operations)

Shrewsbury MA MUNI 1999 Calix Data, Video, Voice

Sherwood Broadband Sherwood, Oregon OR MUNI 2004 Data Businesses only Multiple

Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services

Bingham Lake, Heron Lake, Lakefield, Jackson, Round Lake, Brewster, Okabena,

Wilder

MN MUNI 2010 Calix Data, Video, Voice

Windom Telecom-

muni-cations



PRIVATE OR

MUNI


VENDORS (FTTH

Electronics)



SERVICE PROVIDER

(if other than

network owner)

OPERATOR (if other

than network owner)

Spencer Municipal Utilities

Spencer IA MUNI 2007 Calix GPON Voice, Data, Video, Smart

Grid

Sun Prairie Utilities Sun Prairie WI MUNI 1999 Ciena, Calix Active Ethernet

Data, Smart Grid

Businesses, MDUs, residential pilot

project

INOC

Swiftel Communications (Brookings Municipal Utilities)

Brookings SD MUNI 2006 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Sylacauga Utilities Board

Sylacauga AL MUNI 1997 Alcatel-Lucent

Active Ethernet

Data

SyncSouth (SGRITA) Baker, Calhoun, Early, Miller, Mitchell, Terrell, & Seminole

counties

GA MUNI 2007 Mainly businesses

Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant

Taunton MA MUNI 2003 Calix EPON Data

Town of Rockport/GWI Rockport ME PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2014 Data, Voice

Tullahoma Utilities Board

Tullahoma TN MUNI 2007 Aurora GPON Data, Video, Voice

UC2B (Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband)

Urbana-Champaign IL PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2010 ADTRAN Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

iTV-3 iTV-3

UTOPIA Consortium of 16 cities UT MUNI 2004 Allied Telesis, Alcatel-Lucent

Active Ethernet

Data, Video, Voice

Multiple

Velocity Broadband Hudson OH MUNI 2015 Calix Businesses - pilot project

Wadsworth CityLink Wadsworth OH MUNI Carrier Ethernet

Data Businesses only

Waverly Utilities Waverly IA MUNI 2015 Calix Data, Video, Voice

Whip City Fiber Westfield MA MUNI 2015 Data Businesses, residential pilot

program

Williamstown Cable & Broadband

Williamstown (serves Corinth and parts of Grant

and Owen counties)

KY MUNI 2010 Data, Video Fiber in network extension area

only; Williamstown served by HFC

Windomnet (Windom Telecommuni-cations)

Windom MN MUNI 2004 Calix GPON Data, Video, Voice

Wired Road (Blue Ridge Crossroads Economic Development Authority)

Carroll & Grayson counties, city of Galax

VA MUNI 2009 Data Multiple WideOpen Networks

Zing (St. Joe Valley Metronet)

South Bend, Mishawaka, St. Joseph County

IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE

2005 Business Services,

Data, Security, Videoconferen-

cing, Voice

Businesses, MDUs Multiple




Charlotte’s Google Fiber WebGoogle came, Google saw, Google is building. But why did Google choose Charlotte?

By Marianne Cotter / Broadband Communities

On January 16, 2015, 800,000 residents of Charlotte, N.C., woke up to the news that Google Fiber had

chosen Charlotte as one of its next fiber cities. Though many of these citizens might have been a bit vague as to what a gig to the home would mean, a large contingent of city officials, community partners and grassroots organizers were not. Euphoria spread quickly among those who had spent much of the last year prepping to make this moment happen.

Who can blame them? Google was about to invest millions of its own dollars in building a state-of-the-art fiber network that would reach every neighborhood in the city – without costing the city or its citizens a cent.

But how did Charlotte make the grade? Oddly enough, the city didn’t even bite in 2010 when Google launched the competition that had cities vying with one another to win Google’s first fiber buildout, which eventually went to Kansas City. “We knew Google was a long shot and declined to participate in the frenzy,” recalls Charlotte CIO Jeff Stovall. “At the time, we were more interested in the federal BTOP [broadband stimulus] grant, which we received in September 2010, within a few months of the Google competition.”

In choosing its second round of cities, Google took a more considered approach. Instead of using a competition model, it researched the potential of a group of cities and then approached the leadership to ascertain interest. “It was different the second time around,” Stovall recalls. “We were apparently on their short list of cities, and they didn’t tell

us why except [for] some generalities about Charlotte being fast-growing. Clearly the growth that Charlotte had gained over the last decade, plus our reputation for being business-focused as both a city government and a city, likely contributed to their initial interest in Charlotte.”

Jess George, Google Charlotte’s manager of community impact, puts it like this: “When Google is looking to bring fiber into a city, the questions are, ‘Is it growing? Is it vibrant? Is it welcoming? Does it have a city government that is eager and helpful to work with?’ And then there’s the aspirational question of what will this city do with a gig that will transform not only the city itself but also the region and perhaps beyond.”

She adds, “Charlotte is a major U.S. financial and business center, host to the headquarters of seven Fortune 500 companies, in which we think Google Fiber will have a powerful local impact. We knew those companies would benefit in terms of being able to attract and retain high-caliber employees who want Google Fiber in their communities.”

So in February 2014, Charlotte became one of 34 cities invited to complete Google’s infamous checklist – that laundry list of needs, assets, access and cooperation that allows Google to gauge how responsive each city would be to a smart company that moves fast.

GAUGING RESPONSIVENESSA fully committed city government went to work on the checklist under the leadership of Phil Reiger, the city’s assistant transportation director, who was in the best position to manage Google’s work environment. “The fiber optic cable will,

COMMUNITY BROADBAND


COMMUNITY BROADBAND

for the most part, be put in the city’s right of way between the curb and the sidewalk, so for the practical matter, that’s why I lead the effort,” he explains.

Reiger and Stovall started by reaching out to other Google cities (in addition to Kansas City–area cities, Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, had become Google cities by that time). They visited some of them, including Kansas City, where Aaron Deacon of KC Digital Drive provided considerable advice and support.

“We were able to take what we learned from the other cities and put it into our plan much earlier,” says Stovall. “In local government, there’s always an advantage when someone else has done it first; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We had a lot of connections with Kansas City because several of our local government officials have affiliations there through education or profession.” Stovall himself had lived in the Kansas City area for seven years prior to coming to Charlotte.

One significant similarity Stovall noticed right away was that Charlotte and Kansas City, Mo., shared the same city manager form of government, as opposed to the mayoral form. The role of the city manager is similar to that of a company CEO, and the mayor’s role

is more like that of the chairman of the board. “It makes some differences in the way that we execute that can be material in terms of how you build support, making sure everybody on the city council is on the same page,” says Stovall. “Council members have a vote; the mayor doesn’t.” (A good thing, it turns out, as Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon resigned in March 2014 after being arrested on corruption charges, for which he was later convicted. His successor, Dan Clodfelter, was on hand for the Google announcement in January 2015.)

WORKING AT THE SPEED OF GOOGLEGoogle expects to work fast, at a speed city governments rarely achieve. Still, the city of Charlotte had a few things working in its favor, including an already streamlined permitting process, one of Google’s key concerns. “We didn’t have to make any changes to our permitting process to accommodate Google,” says Reiger. “Charlotte is unique among cities because we have created a streamlined, citywide utility right-of-way management program. Google comes to one place to get their permits, which gives them permission from city utilities, our tree folks and our

right-of-way folks. It’s a one-stop shop.” The completed checklist came

to 118 pages and was delivered on deadline. The process involved a lot of back-and-forth with the Google team, during which valuable relationships were formed.

THE GRASSROOTS COMPONENTIn February 2014, just after Google identified Charlotte as a possible fiber city, another conversation took place, this one between two local techies – Terry Cox, president of BIG Council, and Alan Fitzpatrick, COO of DC74 Data Centers. They fully comprehended the opportunity at hand. Cox immediately wrote a letter to The Charlotte Observer urging the city to seize the moment. Next, the two formed CharlotteHeartsGigabit.com, a resource to update the community that included a newsletter and Twitter account. Soon they became an integral part of the city’s effort to snag Google Fiber. They briefed the press, spoke at conferences and attended official meetings. Cox stood on the podium with the mayor and Google reps when the announcement was made.

Finally Charlotte had its grassroots component in place.

Charlotte programmers participated in a multicity GigHacks event to develop gigabit applications.

Phot

o cr

edit:

Lew

Har

ford


Today, as the buildout proceeds, CharlotteHeartsGigabit continues to drive the conversation about what gigabit Internet will mean for Charlotte. Among other things, it emphasizes innovations, an issue not yet being addressed by a community effort focused on inclusion. In May 2015, CharlotteHeartsGigabit sponsored Charlotte in a multicity GigHacks event, which allowed local teams to create applications that utilized 1 Gbps. (Fitzpatrick made gigabit broadband available to the contestants at DC74 Data Centers.)

Fitzpatrick explains, “Some of the questions we get are, ‘Why do we need it? What applications require

it? What does it mean?’ To this end, we are building a Gigabit Studio at DC74 Data Centers to provide space for entrepreneurs to develop the next generation of gigabit apps. This will be an extension of the GigHacks weekend event and will serve as a showcase of applications that the community can see, touch and experience. The Gigabit Studio will open summer 2015.”

DIGITAL INCLUSION Google is concerned about the impact of its network on communities and has made digital inclusion a priority. For example, in May 2015, it launched a digital inclusion fellowship program that pairs 16 fellows with local

GETTING READY FOR FIBER

Google continues to expand its roster of fiber cities. What is Google looking for, and how can communities prepare to succeed if approached to complete the checklist?

Specifically, Google is looking for:

• An agile city – Google moves fast• A fully committed city leadership team• A vision for how a gigabit will transform a community• A detailed community plan with diverse partners and stakeholders that

emphasizes digital media literacy • Excellent communication and responsiveness during the checklist

process• A streamlined permitting process• Ease of access to existing infrastructure.

Last (or perhaps first), cities are advised to become fiber ready by proactively improving existing infrastructure. “Implement a dig-once policy for construction projects,” says Jess George, Google Charlotte’s manager of community impact. “Update your building codes for fiber deployments. Provide space on poles for new attachers. These efforts will serve your city well whether you’re pursuing Google or working with any other fiber network builder.”

Charlotte’s tech community is focused on innovation and on the capacity for entrepreneurs to develop the next generation of gigabit apps.


COMMUNITY BROADBAND community organizations to build digital inclusion programs in the eight Google Fiber cities.

Charlotte had a secret weapon in place long before the city was even on Google’s radar: The James L. Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte was funded in 2010 with a $6 million endowment from the Knight Foundation to focus on digital media literacy. Under the direction of Dean Eric Freedman, the Knight School brought together a cast of players that built a digital literacy playbook.

The first step was to create a digital media literacy index to establish a baseline for the city’s existing digital literacy level. “We asked, ‘Do people have the tools they need, the access, the ability to analyze and evaluate and share and create, to work with information in a networked environment?’” explains Freedman. “From our 2012 community survey, we created the digital media literacy index to see where we stand in terms of our performance as a city, and we were able to segment our data by ZIP code, age, ethnicity, education and income to locate populations with the greatest need. Once we knew where our baseline was, we created a number of initiatives that would have an impact, move the needle along the digital media literacy spectrum, and foster citywide engagement. We’ll repeat the survey process again five years out, in 2017, measuring the impact of our initiatives and looking for changes in the digital media literacy index across the greater Charlotte area.”

All the raw data and reports are accessible on DigitalCharlotte.org, a public-facing Knight School initiative that launched in March 2013 and contains neighborhood toolkits, training programs, learning resources and community updates. However, the Knight School’s efforts lacked one critical, costly component: infrastructure.

“We knew we could do the literacy training and advocacy, but what was missing for us was the

infrastructure,” explains Freedman. “We had preliminary conversations with Time Warner Cable and other local providers, but we were not able to identify a sustainable solution. We didn’t have the resources to crack the city’s infrastructure problem, even though we had already identified those communities that were starving for infrastructure and might reap the most dramatic benefits. The data had been shared out, and other municipal agencies, including the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, were surveying their populations, so we were on the same page and could see our findings and our goals aligning. The groundwork was done. So when Google came along, it sparked that conversation about infrastructure.”

THE CONVERSATION GOES PUBLICAs part of its endowment, the Knight School sponsors an annual Best Minds conference about advocating for and advancing digital literacy, which is designed to help the Knight School develop and refine its strategies. Participants include representatives of various city agencies, Charlotte libraries and schools, Time Warner Cable, the Pew Research Center, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the NC State Board of Education, the Foundation for the Carolinas, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and others.

With the Knight School’s digital literacy work taking root, the Best Minds team considered transforming the conference into a public dialogue. The timing was fortuitous; Google had just begun considering Charlotte as a possible fiber city. In March 2014, as the Knight School began planning its fall 2014 conference, Freedman connected with Erica Swanson, Google Fiber’s head of community impact programs, to share the details of the Knight School’s mission and its developing digital literacy initiatives.

In October 2014, with the Google checklist process underway and the city looking toward fiber, Freedman invited Swanson to participate in the

next iteration of Best Minds, which was pushed to March 2015 to provide an opportunity for the Google Fiber expansion plans to unfold. Swanson accepted.

“We wanted to capture the conversation about fiber without making Best Minds a Google event per se,” Freedman explains. “We wanted the conference to be a pivotal moment, and we were already shaping Best Minds into a public-facing dialogue. Our initial approach with Google Fiber [Swanson] was, ‘This is who we are, and this is what we’re doing here in Charlotte around digital literacy and inclusion – engaged in measurable activities with a broad array of citywide partners from diverse sectors, working inside our neighborhoods, listening to the needs of our residents and our civic leaders and developing Digital Charlotte as a sustainable, connected learning laboratory to drive the work forward. It was important to us, as we were conceptualizing Best Minds 2015, to have Erica participate in what was becoming a larger public event, as Google Fiber shared our investment in digital inclusion.”

As these conversations continued throughout fall 2014 and into January 2015, Swanson saw at first hand the depth and breadth of the effort already underway in Charlotte.

The details of the Best Minds conference were being honed as the fiber checklist period came to an end on May 1, 2014. An announcement by Google was anticipated by the end of the year (and didn’t actually come until the middle of January 2015). Freedman had already pushed back the date of the 2014 conference to allow Swanson an opportunity to reconnect with him about the status of fiber in Charlotte.

In the end, the 2015 Best Minds conference was set for March 20–21, 2015, to coincide with the city’s third annual Digital Media Literacy Day (another Knight School initiative). Under the theme “Charlotte 2025: The Connected City,” the conference was able to leverage the announcement about the city’s new infrastructure plans and focus on Google Fiber’s long-term


impact. “We timed the 2015 conference around the Google Fiber announce date and pulled together those voices that would highlight the relevance of fiber throughout our community – partnering with WFAE [the local public radio station], Project L.I.F.T. [an education-focused nonprofit], Pew, the Chamber of Commerce, Kansas City Digital Drive, UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute and the city of Charlotte.”

Did Swanson’s experience with the Knight School and its partners and programs influence Google to choose Charlotte? Swanson was not available to comment, but Freedman thinks so. “As Google started to explore Charlotte, they had clearly spoken to a number of other partners who were familiar with our work and visited our classrooms. We were a Code for America city before Google came along, and they had visited our workshops, talked to our residents and asked for our data. We were an easy access point since we already had the data about our digital literacy level. Code for America could easily get a sense of Charlotte and see how well-organized the conversation had already become.

“I think the same thing happened when Google started to examine the local landscape. They asked, ‘What are the existing conversations? Is there momentum already?’ and I think they clearly saw there was conversation between the city, the county, the schools and libraries. In their fact-finding mission, Google heard the same names coming up over and over again, and a tight-knit community was in place, already vested in digital literacy.”

A GALVANIZING EVENTFreedman also opted to open up the Best Minds conference as a public event. Erica Swanson came back, along with Mary Ellen Player, Google’s Charlotte operations lead. The conference started with a full panel of key players describing their roles and followed the next day with breakout sessions that included neighborhood representatives and small-business people, all high on Google Fiber. The 2015 conference was a galvanizing event. The conversation gained momentum that has continued

in a series of bimonthly digital inclusion meetings sponsored by the city. These meetings include updates from the city and other partners, but they leave ample time for everyone to network and move forward with their own initiatives. With additional support from the Knight Foundation, the Knight School’s work is furthered by its recent hiring of a project manager for digital inclusion who will reach across organizational lines, develop a strategic plan for digital literacy and connectivity, and direct its implementation.

GOOGLE IS HERE TO STAYGoogle recently awarded the digital inclusion fellowships that it announced in May, including two in Charlotte. It also announced plans to bring Internet access to public housing residents as a part of the ConnectHome initiative.

During the long buildout period that has just begun, the community’s digital inclusion efforts will continue to mature, and when the infrastructure is finished, and the neighborhood registration process begins, Charlotte hopes to have a fiber network that will shrink its digital divide to the benefits of all rather than enlarge it to the benefit of a few.

“Google has come, but Google will not be gone,” says George. “We’re here, we’re part of the community, and once the massive infrastructure project is finished, Google will remain in the community and continue to improve, develop and expand the project.” v

Marianne Cotter, the community news editor for BroadBand Communities, is a writer based in Charlotte, N.C. You can contact her at [email protected].

THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A SECOND-WAVE GOOGLE CITY

In Kansas City, Google went boldly where it had never gone before. From trenching to customer service, everything was new. Google made mistakes; Google learned. Second-wave cities are now reaping the benefits of Google’s fast learning curve. Aaron Deacon from KC Digital Drive knows. He was there. “Google learned a lot in Kansas City,” he says. “Basically, they learned everything about the business. From a very practical standpoint, how do you build a network? When they were first deploying here, there were reports of trenching messes and how they were working with contractors, all the PR around that. Building a fiber network was a completely new business for them.”

Also new for Google was interacting with consumers and being in their homes. “They didn’t have any consumer interaction experience,” Deacon continues. “It’s not what they do. You can’t call Google when your Gmail’s not working. So they learned a lot from an engineering standpoint, a marketing standpoint – even the product itself went through a number of iterations. Also, they learned about addressing the digital divide and coming up with solutions to improve it. They weren’t very cognizant of that in the beginning. Charlotte is benefiting from all that experience.”

Charlotte leaders seem aware of the changes. “There’s one thing I will say about Google,” says Phil Reiger, the city government’s point of contact for Google. “They are nimble and agile; they learn quickly, and they will change when they need to, which has been very exciting because they have learned so much from Kansas City and Austin. They are the first to admit it when they wish they’d done [things] differently, since they’re relatively new at this. So it was good that we didn’t compete to be in that first tier of cities. The mistakes they made there, they won’t replicate here.”




COMMUNITY BROADBAND

A Fiber to Every PremisesCTgig’s public-private, open-access model aims to provide economic development and low-income support to every address in Connecticut.

By Bill Vallée / Connecticut State Broadband Office

There is ample demand for affordable, gigabit-level access across Connecticut. High-tech businesses and higher

education institutions, both well represented in the state, depend on digitally manipulating massive data sets and transferring results around the world for manufacturing, health and medical processes, and educational resources.

In spite of that demand, gigabit broadband in Connecticut is either unavailable or prohibitively expensive, a problem equally significant for small businesses, community anchor institutions and residential premises.

The state, too, has essential public policy goals that depend on access to broadband. It has the widest demographic gap of any state for student educational achievement, and, even though it has the highest per capita income in the United States, it has several of the poorest, most crime-ridden cities in the country. Supplying low-cost broadband access to every address could ameliorate these problems, at least in part.

The state’s long-term vision is one fiber line to every premises, including residences, businesses, and community anchor institutions – just as there now exists one electric line, one water line and a road to every premises.

MUNICIPALITIES GET INVOLVED To remedy the lack of affordable, reliable broadband, Connecticut municipalities want to find highly motivated, high-caliber private sector partners that will finance, build and manage communitywide, open-access, fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks.

Municipalities traditionally build infrastructure such as roads and bridges to create economic development and jobs. They have stepped up to address broadband infrastructure because they are aware of the problems their neighborhoods, businesses and community anchor institutions confront. After all, municipal leaders are the ones who get the phone calls when city systems fail.

Though the Internet is located in cyberspace, municipalities own the ground and have a central role in regulating the physical elements of the Internet located in the public rights of way (streets, utility poles and underground conduit).

In short, justice in today’s municipalities requires equal access to the Internet and other utility resources, and local leaders are responsible for making certain that all residents and businesses have a fair share of digital resources. The digital divide may be only one division among people living and companies operating in Connecticut, but in the 21st century, it is one of the most profound and potentially damaging disruptions.

For background on CTgig, see Gigabits Across Connecticut in the January-February 2015 issue of this magazine.

www.bbcmag.com/2015mags/Jan_Feb/BBC_Jan15_GigabitsConnecticut.pdf


A NEW TYPE OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPFortunately, private partners for municipalities are now available. The international private infrastructure investment sector has discovered that fiber makes an excellent long-term investment. Obtaining 30-year money from the pension and insurance money markets is feasible because warranties for fiber cable now extend for 30 years or more.

Privately borrowed investment capital for broadband is low-cost when a municipality that owns fiber can guarantee that it will pass through broadband service payments from broadband consumers to a borrower or fiber builder.

Unlike general obligation bonds, revenue bonds or other common debt structures, this type of public-private partnership structure places the debt on the private partner’s books, not on those of the municipality. A municipal guarantee lowers a private partner’s borrowing costs and thus lowers all related expenses.

These public-private partnerships involve investors, fiber network developers and managers and government entities that seek to achieve new public telecom goals and satisfy citizens who have been frustrated in their quest for faster, better, cheaper broadband. These partnerships demonstrate the power of combining local control of broadband access with global investors and fiber network developers willing to assume the risk of borrowing investment capital and the responsibility for the performance of the fiber resources.

CONNECTICUT’S RFQIn September 2014, a number of the state’s municipalities joined together to issue a request for qualifications (RFQ) for one or more private partners that could deliver a state-of-the-art, open-access, fiber optic network, using private capital to underwrite and assume the risk of the construction and performance of that network over a 30-year term. The RFQ resulted in several bona fide responses from investors

and fiber network builders. These have subsequently been vetted through a series of public vendor interviews and conferences.

One respondent, Macquarie Capital, has attracted the most attention to date and has been the focus of talks by numerous municipalities and regional groups. For example, a meeting in May 2015 at the Yale School of Management that featured Macquarie drew more than 200 attendees, representing about 80 of the state’s 169 towns.

Many readers will recognize Macquarie as the investor/developer selected for the 3,000-mile middle-mile KentuckyWired project; the company has also owned and operated the largest water utility in Connecticut, Aquarion Water, for nearly a decade.

Each Connecticut municipality will make its own decision about which vendor and partnership model (if any) to select and what process to use to reach a selection. In addition to Macquarie, several other investors and fiber builders are in discussions with Connecticut towns about a variety of proposed models. No decisions have yet been made. In the remainder of this article, however, I will discuss the Macquarie model, as it is the most fully developed and has attracted the most interest.

MUNICIPAL ROLESUnder the Macquarie model, the role of each participating municipality will be to own the fiber network, offer free access to the public rights of way and lend its good name as a financial

A NEW STATE OVERSIGHT AGENCY

To help coordinate the CTgig project and related efforts, the Connecticut General Assembly created a new Connecticut State Broadband Office (CSBO) within the public utility advocacy Office of Consumer Counsel, both of which are now under the direction of state Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz.

The CSBO is charged with facilitating “the availability of broadband access to every state citizen and increas[ing] access to and the adoption of ultra-high-speed gigabit capable broadband networks.” The statute directs the CSBO to work with public and nonprofit entities, state agencies, municipalities, local officials and private corporations to maximize “opportunities for the expansion of broadband access in the state and fostering innovative approaches to broadband in the state.”

As its first official act, the CSBO partnered with the UConn School of Business to create two surveys – one for businesses, one for residents – to find out about Internet speeds, costs, usage and satisfaction levels.

Household: https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8uBWcGF4BsJIJ1P

Business: https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2osKNfYhiQuVSRf

Connecticut’s request for qualifications produced several bona fide responses from potential funders and builders of gigabit-capable fiber networks.

https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8uBWcGF4BsJIJ1P

https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2osKNfYhiQuVSRf


COMMUNITY BROADBAND backstop to lower the cost of the private partner’s borrowings from the long-term capital markets of the world.

This model is identical to that used in the building of a road, bridge or any public infrastructure construction, in that a developer may finance and deliver title to the asset to the municipality upon commencement of its useful life, subject to repayment of the construction investment over a term, such as 30 years.

The municipalities will repay the private investment funds for CTgig using availability payments they assess from all premises passed (probably on the order of $20 per month added to property taxes for 30 years). This will provide incentives for the long-term global financial markets to invest in the project.

Though standard municipal network projects often place all risk of investment, development, marketing and maintenance in the hands of the municipality, Macquarie’s proposed public-private partnership model shifts most of the design, construction, maintenance, operations and finance risk to the private partner. Ownership and demand risk are shared by the municipality.

BENEFITS OF THE MODELUsing low-cost private infrastructure financing repaid over a 30-year period will reduce wholesale and retail broadband access costs below current levels and widen potential profit margins for ISPs. This makes possible a highly competitive retail market in which private ISPs, including existing incumbent providers, can flourish. New, competitive ISP entrants will not face the current significant hurdles to enter this market. By attracting a wide variety of general and niche ISPs, CTgig will enable the creation of new broadband services that will spark new and expanded consumer demand.

The low-cost capital that Macquarie can obtain (due to a low risk of default because of the municipal network ownership and availability fee payments) also provides an economic advantage for CTgig. Incumbent providers, by contrast, traditionally

have a two- to three-year investment perspective because of their corporate focus on quarterly net income to drive dividend generation.

Building fiber to every address in each participating municipality tackles – and hopefully solves – the problem of the digital divide. Currently, ISPs have no incentive to serve low-income or high-cost areas. Once every address is connected to a low-cost fiber network, there can be no broadband access discrimination. Each premises, residential or commercial, will receive the basic service offering by virtue of making the monthly availability payment and will have the opportunity to access higher speeds at premium prices.

The basic service will consist of a fiber connection to the network, an average Internet access service (probably 10 Mbps symmetrical) and VoIP service. This basic service package will be designed to boost interest in broadband services without cannibalizing potential upselling of more advanced service at low market costs. Upsell revenues will be shared between ISPs and the participating municipality; municipalities can use their portions at their discretion, for example, to reduce monthly availability fees or provide free services to certain demographic groups.

The wide ISP margins enabled by low wholesale fiber lease costs will provide plenty of opportunity for competitive ISPs to upsell innovative, targeted, high-speed broadband, video and phone services to residents, businesses and community anchor institutions.

Finally, as broadband participation in commercial markets is maximized,

economic and job growth will be boosted as businesses are able to attract, train and retain workers. With access to low-cost, ultra-high-speed broadband, businesses will be better able to utilize teleworking.

AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT CTgig can realize significant efficiencies only if the project is large enough –probably at least hundreds of thousands of premises. Connecticut has the fourth-highest population density in the third-smallest U.S. state, and its population is spread almost evenly across its territory, so no single participating municipality can achieve such a scale.

The participating municipalities, each with its own, sometimes cumbersome, decision-making processes, are ill-equipped to independently coordinate such a large multidistrict construction project, which will require daily decision-making capabilities and joint funding requirements for management operations. Participating municipalities must thus first organize themselves into a cohesive representative group so they can interact on a daily basis with their investment and construction partners.

Defining a governing structure based upon an interlocal agreement that details the duties, obligations and management structure of the public partners in the CTgig Project is necessary to initiate and manage the process. The state of Connecticut addressed the formation of such a multi-municipal organization through the enactment of Public Act 11-99, An Act Concerning Interlocal Agreements.

By using a regional or statewide interlocal agreement, each municipality can share responsibilities for the network while achieving efficiencies available only through greater network scale. As each city is a partner and an enabler of the network’s success, the benefit of this model far exceeds that of purely public or private projects.

An interlocal board will be empowered to act as a centralized governing body (single point of contact), authorized by state statutes


and assigned certain powers to act on behalf of each participating municipality. This board will consist of a fixed number of representative municipal officials and experts who will carry out the planning, designing, constructing, financing and managing of the statewide fiber network and other related activities.

Initial actions of the interlocal board will be to determine baseline engineering data and design criteria, demonstrate the probable costs of a fiber network deal and explore what network architecture will work best for CTgig.

CONCLUSIONDemocracy relies on transparent and free communication, not on the restriction of those rights. Only through an abundance of broadband capacity can communities enjoy the low pricing and full access to bandwidth that spawns employment and the

economic development gains that the Internet can produce.

The next-generation financial and technology broadband access architecture underpinning the CTgig Project is clearly a model for the future. The participating municipalities cooperating in CTgig are working to make Connecticut the first gigabit state.

Though there will be many challenges before the public policy goals can be fully realized, the visionary municipal leaders of today will meet their mandates to lead by overcoming those challenges.

The technologies of the past – canals, railroads, telegraph, telephone, the automobile and the highway system – faced the same massive financial and political challenges in their diffusion. Today’s telecommunications technologies and business plans are resistant to change, but the changes are inevitable and profound.

“You’ll never get it off the ground” sounds ridiculous today, when people routinely fly 6 miles in the sky at 10 miles a minute across vast oceans in comfort and safety. To those who say, “No one needs a gig,” successful municipal leaders can respond that their towns already regard ultra-high-speed Internet access as a public service utility necessary for a variety of reasons and not a luxury to be thought about sometime in the future. Leaders can act with confidence that building a fiber network today will seem prescient decades from now when towns without such networks will struggle to keep up. v

Bill Vallée is the state broadband policy coordinator in the new Connecticut State Broadband Office. He can be reached at 860-827-2905 or [email protected]. See www.ct.gov/broadband for news about CTgig’s progress.

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COMMUNITY BROADBAND

A Rural Community Thinks BigBusinesses were threatening to leave Charles City County, a rural area in Virginia. Then county officials committed to improving broadband access – and the economic picture turned around.

By Andrew M. Cohill / Design Nine Inc. and Matt Rowe / Charles City County

Charles City County is a surprisingly rural community despite being located between Richmond, Va., just

to the west, and historic Williamsburg to the northeast. Despite its name, the county has no cities, and its population of 7,256 is only 1,668 more than it was in 1790. Residents and businesses in the county have struggled with poor telephone and Internet service for years; in 2013, county officials resolved to do something about the problem.

The county’s one business and industrial park, located in Roxbury in the northwestern corner of the county, had close to 50 businesses, which employed more than 500 workers. As those businesses increasingly had to compete in the regional and global marketplaces to survive, the importance of reliable, affordable telecommunications became more apparent to the business community and local government officials. Through one-on-one business meetings between company representatives and the county’s director of economic development, local government officials were able to identify and document a regular occurrence of Internet and telecommunications outages that were ultimately linked to degraded, obsolete telecommunications infrastructure.

Worse yet, several businesses revealed that they were considering relocating because they were unsure whether the private telecommunications service providers would make the investment to upgrade needed

infrastructure and provide a higher level of service. Once this problem was identified, the county made a commitment to the business community that it would pursue all means to address the issue.

PLANNING FOR THE FUTUREThe county’s economic development department decided to create a telecommunications plan that prioritized infrastructure upgrades based upon economic development impact, number of residents and businesses served, and costs. To fund this plan, the county, along with its economic development authority (EDA), which provided a $10,000 local match, applied for a telecommunications planning grant administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

As part of its application submission process, the EDA created an online survey and solicited letters of support from government representatives and leaders, businesses and regional chambers of commerce, civic groups, churches, schools and residents. This effort resulted in more than 80 letters of support and the submission of more than 50 business and 200 residential surveys. Perhaps more important, the county gained noticeable momentum and buy-in from its businesses and residents.

DHCD awarded the grant in October 2013, and after a rigorous interview and selection process, the county hired Design Nine, a broadband planning firm well known for its work with smaller and rural communities.


Over a seven-month period, Design Nine staff worked closely with Charles County staff to create a viable plan that focused on the county as a whole while prioritizing and identifying cost-effective methods of providing improved service to the businesses concentrated in the Roxbury area. The plan was completed on schedule and under budget in September 2014.

SAVING JOBSDuring this planning process, one of the county’s largest existing employers, along with a new business planning to relocate to the county, approached the county’s economic development director to say they were questioning their future in the county. With close to 175 total job positions at stake and the real potential of the loss of considerable tax revenue, the county and its EDA immediately worked with DHCD and applied for an Economic Development Community Improvement Grant to retain and attract those job positions and their associated investment.

Design Nine developed a long-term, multiyear strategy for the county that included high-performance wireless for areas of the county still on dial-up or on poor-quality DSL. The firm also designed a gigabit fiber infrastructure

for the Roxbury business park and fiber-to-the-home designs for several smaller communities in the county.

Work completed by Design Nine also included

• A comprehensive, 10-year financial pro forma that projected customer take rates, potential revenue, sources of funding, operational and administrative expenses, growth rates for revenue and costs over time and the cost of proposed fiber and wireless infrastructure.

• An open-access, local transport provider (LTP) business model that keeps the county out of the retail broadband business, leaving that to the private sector.

• A detailed network architecture design that included several fiber rings in the county, much improved broadband connectivity to county administrative offices and buildings, and increased bandwidth and connectivity to all county schools.

• Designs for several new wireless towers located strategically around the county for improved residential, work-from-home and small-business connectivity.

• A high-bandwidth wireless backbone design to support local wireless

access and serve as a fully redundant wireless backup capability for the fiber rings in the county.

In the LTP model, the broadband infrastructure is treated much like roads. Charles City County would build and maintain the digital fiber and wireless road system but lease capacity on that digital road system to private-sector service providers. The county administrator and the county board of supervisors appreciated this model because it meant the county had a limited, well-understood role with just a few long-term maintenance responsibilities.

As part of its work, Design Nine located several service providers interested in using the proposed infrastructure, including a national Tier-1 Internet provider that was found to have fiber infrastructure just a few miles from Charles City County. Design Nine played a key role in attracting this firm by being able to converse knowledgeably with its technical staffers, who wanted to be sure the new network infrastructure would meet their carrier/business-class network requirements.

DHCD conducted a rigorous review of the broadband master plan

The new Charles City County Courthouse is the seat of county government.

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for the county, and after three months of evaluation, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade, Maurice Jones, along with DHCD’s director, Bill Shelton, personally awarded a $600,000 community development block grant to the county – the largest grant in county history – in a formal announcement ceremony on December 22, 2014.

Shortly thereafter, the county’s EDA announced that it was committed to providing a $55,000 local match. The funds were designated for the county to construct an open-access fiber network that would directly connect to businesses in the Roxbury business park and to construct two 120-foot-tall towers that would be utilized for wireless Internet services for other areas

in the county, including its courthouse village and school complex.

Since the December announcement, Design Nine has completed the engineering and procurement work needed to award a construction contract, and the first fiber and conduit work is expected to begin in late summer 2015. The wireless towers have already been purchased, and tower construction will begin at about the same time as the fiber construction. All work on the approximately 6 miles of the first phase of fiber construction is expected to be completed by October 2015. The wireless work will be completed in the same time frame.

The new network will give businesses located in the Roxbury area access to highly competitive pricing for any amount of bandwidth they need; two service providers are expected to be on the network on day one. The new wireless access will give about half the county’s residents the opportunity to purchase reliable, affordable wireless broadband Internet.

LESSONS LEARNED There are several lessons learned from this effort.

• Even very small, rural communities can have world-class fiber and wireless with the right technical design and careful business and financial planning.

• Although backhaul is an issue in any rural community, building fiber locally can attract private-sector investment in fiber backhaul.

• In rural communities, fiber and wireless are complementary technologies. A well-designed hybrid network provides business-class resiliency, redundancy and reliability.

• The local transport (open-access) business model of leasing basic broadband infrastructure to the private sector is well-suited for small local governments with limited staff and financial resources.

• Getting results does not have to take years. The planning process started in March 2014, the complete plan was finished in just seven months, and the first-phase funding was completed just three months later.

EARLY RESULTSThe county has already seen a substantial positive impact even before the first phase of the network is operational.

• More than 175 job positions and at least two companies have been retained in the county by the prospect of affordable, high-speed broadband services.

• The county has been selected for a major economic development project with an anticipated investment in excess of $300 million. The project will represent the largest single private investment in the county’s history and requires that the county have the highest level of telecommunications service and infrastructure available.

With this project’s upcoming public announcement, along with additional prospects now eyeing the county and its future telecommunications network, county officials are optimistic that Charles City County will continue to be a place where businesses can thrive with the strong support of local government and the surrounding community. v

Dr. Andrew Cohill is the president and CEO of Design Nine Inc., which has helped communities solve their broadband challenges since the early 1990s. More information is available at www.designnine.com. Matthew Rowe, the director of planning and economic development for Charles City County, led the efforts to improve broadband in the county. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Getting results does not have to take years. The county started its planning process in March 2014, and first-phase funding was completed less than a year later.

Charles City County is rich in history.


http://www.designnine.com



SandyNet Launches FTTH Services A community wireless network in Oregon takes the leap to gigabit fiber.

By Christopher Mitchell and Hannah Trostle / Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Many of the most beautiful communities in the United States are in remote areas where incumbent

cable and telephone companies have decided not to offer modern, high-quality Internet connectivity. Sandy, Ore., is one of them. Some 10,000 people live there among the lush green forests and beautiful vistas of the “Gateway to Mount Hood,” 25 miles east of Portland. But Sandy is bucking the trend by building its own gigabit fiber network, now one of the fastest, most affordable networks in the nation.

Sandy joined nearly 100 other local governments that have built municipal fiber-to-the-home networks to give residents and businesses access to world-class Internet connections. However, the overwhelming majority of municipal fiber networks were built by local governments that already owned their local electrical grids. Sandy has no power utility and instead used a successful incremental strategy to build a telecommunications utility.

The city started by reselling DSL and building a modest wireless network. Now it

offers symmetrical speeds of 100 Mbps for $39.95 or 1 Gbps for $59.95. Sandy’s experience offers lessons for local governments across the country.

ORIGINS OF SANDYNETIn 2001, when the local telephone company couldn’t provide a DSL connection to city hall, city officials began to worry about broadband availability for local businesses and residents. To get the connectivity it needed to perform basic government functions, Sandy formed its own municipal Internet utility. The city began providing DSL to residents and businesses over the phone company’s infrastructure before beginning to invest in a wireless system that would ultimately stretch across and beyond city limits. In 2003, it named the Internet utility SandyNet.

City government eventually came to the conclusion that the citywide Wi-Fi network was insufficiently reliable and could not provide the high-capacity connections that were already becoming necessary in 2008. While investigating a fiber network option to connect the five municipal buildings, it realized the route for the fiber should go through the downtown corridor.

Recognizing the economic development potential of a fiber network, city leaders developed a plan to provide fast, affordable, reliable broadband to businesses via municipal fiber. By 2012, most of the larger companies in the downtown area had connected to the network. According to Joel Brache, program manager at AEC Inc., which produces technical manuals for the aerospace industry, the decision to switch to SandyNet was easy:

FAST FACTS: SANDY, ORE.• Population: 10,000• County: Clackamas• Network: SandyNet Fiber• Take rate: 60%• Symmetrical gigabit pricing: $59.95• Financing: $7.5 million revenue bond• Design/build contractor: OFS

SERVICE PROVIDER STRATEGIES


SERVICE PROVIDER STRATEGIES

“I think at that time it was a 100 Mbps connection for probably an eighth of the cost of what we were getting [from the prior service provider]. So we were going to get 10 times faster than what we could have gotten before for a fraction of the cost. It was a no-brainer. It was a win for us.”

AEC Inc. uses high-speed Internet access to communicate better with its facilities and offices around the world. It serves global companies such as Lufthansa Technik, LifePort and BizJet International.

In 2010, after Google announced its Google Fiber contest, city officials held a “Why Wait for Google?” contest that invited residents to demonstrate demand for fiber to the home. The city intended to build an FTTH pilot project in the neighborhood that had the highest response rate. However, the contest demonstrated strong demand everywhere in the city. After comparing the cost of the pilot project with the level of demand, the city decided to pursue a citywide fiber network.

BUILDING THE CITYWIDE FIBER NETWORKSandyNet uses its net income to improve equipment, fund capital

investments and service debt. Unlike some cities, such as Santa Monica, Calif., that retained earnings from early fiber buildout phases to help pay for subsequent phases, Sandy needed to find a means of financing its full citywide build. However, using an incremental approach was still valuable because it allowed Sandy to develop the expertise it needed to offer fiber services citywide despite not already having a municipal electric utility.

Sandy has a particularly sharp IT director in Joe Knapp – a reminder that the success of projects like this one can turn on the staff in charge. Knapp is not only well-qualified but also motivated by the idea of building something that will “impact this city for the next 30, 40, 50 years.”

He adds, “When I started with the city, we had about 175 customers on

our wireless system with some DSL. To take it from that and grow it into a citywide network with over 1,500 customers now and building a fiber network that is going to have 2,000-plus subscribers at the end of the day was just intrinsically motivating for me. I just wanted to do it. … It’s different from working for a large telephone company or any communications company in the sense that you have your hands in a lot of different areas that you maybe would be more siloed in, in a larger company.”

Sandy first sought a public-private partnership, but the original potential partner changed hands in the midst of negotiations, and the two parties were unable to come to mutually agreeable terms. However, as the city again examined its options, it developed a plan to finance the network itself and

Joe Knapp, Sandy’s IT director, explains the network architecture to author Christopher Mitchell.

Building out fiber in an incremental fashion allowed Sandy to develop in-house expertise – an important consideration, given that the city had no municipal electric utility.


build it with a contractor experienced in fiber networks.

In December 2013, SandyNet contracted with OFS to deploy the fiber, and the Sandy City Council issued a revenue bond of $7.5 million in February 2014 to cover the construction costs. Revenue bonds are a common way to finance municipal fiber networks because the revenue to repay the debt is generated by those who choose to subscribe.

Sandy has high praise for OFS. As Knapp explains its role, “OFS has been a great partner for us. They really handled the entire design of the network, and we’ve really leaned on their expertise for how things should be laid out, how to do the home connections. They pretty much handle all that. The [input] that we’ve had was in more overarching design decisions. ‘Do you want a distributed split network or you want a consolidated split network? Here’s the cost impact of that. Do you want this type of fiber or that type of fiber? Here’s the cost impact of that.’”

Knapp recalls that Seth Atkinson, then the city finance director and now the city manager, did extensive spreadsheet modeling of budgets over the next 10 to 20 years to test assumptions before committing to the project. SandyNet calculated that the network would need a 35 percent take rate to pay off the bond. Even before finishing the network, SandyNet has achieved a take rate of 60 percent, almost double what it requires.

Network construction is scheduled for completion by the end of summer 2015. The current plan extends fiber only to the city limits, but with the fiber network in place, the previously built wireless network will perform better, and people living just outside town can continue using it. At this point, there is no plan to extend the fiber outside town.

Building a great local fiber network is one thing, but finding high-capacity, reliable, affordable connections to the rest of the Internet can be a challenge outside major metropolitan

areas. Fortunately, Sandy is located in Clackamas County, which had built a middle-mile fiber ring, using a broadband stimulus grant, to connect area community anchor institutions. The county needed some conduit and space in Sandy’s data center. In exchange, it gave the city dark fiber into Portland’s Northwest Access Exchange, where the city now interconnects for access to the wider Internet.

Sandy City Council President Jeremy Pietzold, an elected official with a deeply technical background, has long

been a strong supporter of the project. While attending the 2015 BroadBand Communities Summit in Austin, he bumped into an engineer from Google who noted that Google is watching Sandy. Pietzold was surprised enough to clarify, “Sandy, Oregon?” Sure enough, Sandy’s success is attracting attention.

BENEFITS OF SANDYNETThe internal cost savings of the fiber network have been substantial. For instance, the city replaced its

SandyNet caculated that it would need a take rate of 35 percent to pay off the revenue bond. Even before completing the network build, it achieved a 60 percent take rate.

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SERVICE PROVIDER STRATEGIESaging phone systems with VoIP. Other savings, however, are less obvious. Sandy police officers now use high-speed connections to deliver grand jury testimony. What would have taken added fuel costs and extra time to travel to the grand jury location many miles away now takes only an hour at the local police station.

Having reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet gives people greater opportunities to work from home. This has even changed the real estate market in Sandy. Kyle Ball, principal broker for Mal & Seitz Real Estate, explains:

“Being in real estate, I encounter a lot of people who have very specific Internet needs – people who do work from home, primarily. And in the outskirts of Sandy, where Internet is not as available, that’s a big concern for a lot of people. And some people even choose to live closer to town because of it.”

Residential speeds are symmetrical, with two tiers available – 100 Mbps for $39.95 and 1 Gbps for $59.95, with no caps or contracts. Phone services can be bundled with Internet access, but digital TV packages are still being negotiated.

Incumbent providers have shown little reaction to SandyNet’s citywide fiber program. Frontier and Wave Broadband have been offering DSL and cable respectively in Sandy for many years, but they have done little to improve

their services. Instead, they have lowered their promotional rates, which has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the new fiber network. But now, Sandy residents have options.

For many businesses, the fast speeds and responsive customer service of SandyNet are essential. The car dealership Suburban Chevrolet depended on SandyNet even before fiber was available. For selling parts, looking up customer information or upgrading vehicle software, the dealership needs Internet connectivity. When the city deployed the original wireless network, it partnered with the dealership to gain access to its roof. According to service manager Ron King, SandyNet and the dealership have maintained a good partnership:

“Quite honestly, that was a win-win for everybody. It worked well for us, and it was good for the city, and then we were able to transition into the fiber optics. … I know we are close with the people at SandyNet, I know they bring their vehicles in here for service, so it’s good to have those close relationships. It’s not something you’d get from your local Qwest, or your local Comcast. That’s not something you see, typically.”

More businesses will soon experience the same level of service and reliability the car dealership has long enjoyed. Sandy is using an urban renewal district (often called a tax increment financing, or TIF, district) to add a business fiber loop to the almost-completed network. Until recently, individual businesses paid to connect to the fiber network because utilities in the downtown area were underground, and each new fiber path required significant construction. However, businesses that take advantage of the network expansion during this window enabled by some $650,000 in funds from the urban renewal district will have no connection fee and will be able to take advantage of the new business rates from SandyNet.

The city will use the urban renewal district funds to connect businesses and offer commercial services at prices seen nowhere else in the country: $39.95 for 100 Mbps and $59.95 for 1 Gbps – the same as residential pricing. The usual $350 installation fee will be waived for businesses previously connected to the wireless network. If a business wants a dedicated line, pricing will still be on a case-by-case basis. SandyNet is succeeding in its goal of offering ultra-high speeds at very affordable prices for both homes and businesses. v

Christopher Mitchell is director of community broadband networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit that supports environmentally sound and equitable community development. Hannah Trostle is a writer for MuniNetworks.org, a publication of ILSR. Quotations in the article are from interviews conducted for the recently released video about SandyNet by ILSR and Next Century Cities. Watch the video at http://muninetworks.org/content/gig-city-sandy-home-60-gig.


http://muninetworks.org/content/gig-city-sandy-home-60-gig

http://muninetworks.org/content/gig-city-sandy-home-60-gig



Show Me the MoneyHow should cities ask for loans, grants or investments to improve broadband? Short answer: Show funders how broadband will help them achieve their objectives.

By Craig Settles / Gigabit Nation

Many a plan for building a community broadband network has snagged on the shoals of financial uncertainty.

However, there’s actually much more money available for broadband than many communities realize.

Typically, local businesspeople, educators or visionary political leaders start agitating at city council meetings, saying that the town should have its own broadband, just like Chattanooga. Citizens get excited as they recognize the possibilities. Then someone asks, “How can we afford it?”

People discuss passing a bond measure, but these aren’t popular everywhere. Traditional loans are another possibility, but these may not be popular, either. Finding a Google Fiber to be a broadband sugar daddy has a lot of cachet – except for such nagging issues as communities’ lack of say in key decisions (such as where the profits go). A public-private partnership is only as good to the community as the lawyers who craft the deal. Federal grants offer hope, but there isn’t enough broadband money to go around.

After exhausting this list, broadband planners hit the brick wall.

Communities need to step back and consider the problem from different angles. Rather than limiting themselves to the usual funding suspects and then despairing when these sources don’t work out, they should cast their nets wider, looking beyond the institutions and partners that aim to fund broadband networks. They need to find people who pay for results, not for technology. These funders may not know the difference between a gigabit and a giraffe.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is not in the business of funding broadband networks. It is, however, in the business of helping cities build, manage, use and maintain better streets and freeways. Bring them plans to better use streets and freeways, and DOT will listen.

The city of Columbus, Ohio, got a grant from DOT for almost $8 million to replace its aging, proprietary traffic signal systems with a more flexible system built on the backbone of fiber optic cable and wireless communications technologies. The city contributed $750,000. That means its IT department has fiber running to every traffic light in the city – fiber it couldn’t otherwise have afforded. Besides having the Cadillac of traffic management systems, the city can now invite competitive providers to offer broadband to homes and businesses.

Communities build broadband networks to solve specific problems. They should identify government agencies, nonprofits, foundations, local businesses with spare capital, wealthy individuals and others that have available funds to help solve similar problems. Bits, bytes, conduits and fiber wires are just concepts. A lot of funding organizations don’t care what the technology does; all they care about is whether it answers the need – and whose name is on the check they’re about to write.

WHAT PEOPLE DO WITH THE NETWORK IS KEYRaising all the funding from a single entity creates less heartburn, but it’s unlikely to occur. A community must be adept at developing

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a logical fundraising game plan. Columbus has been executing its broadband plan in stages since 2008.

Suppose a city has a large Hispanic population that is not currently using the Internet in large numbers. One approach might be for it to formulate a five-year research trial to definitively demonstrate that high-tech adoption affects employment in Hispanic populations. It could include in the proposal a budget for building a network that covers the Hispanic population and a control group and then present this research proposal to foundations that focus on advancing employment for Hispanic youth.

Getting the grant funded will enable the city to pay for a portion of its network and may make additional grant funds easier to obtain. Financial institutions, too, are more inclined to make loans when recipients have several sources, such as the foundations, to bring to the table.

The needs assessment process helps cities identify groups of constituents that want or need a product or service and determine how many of them there are and where they are located. To build a network or another mechanism for delivering services, a community must raise its own funds, find lenders, find investors or use some combination thereof. The fundraising game plan is about finding the lenders and investors. First, the needs assessment.

EXECUTING A GOOD NEEDS ASSESSMENTIf you are reading this article, chances are that informal groups and individuals in your community are already expressing the need for a broadband network. A needs assessment moves this process from informal discussions to a collection of statements and questions from various

parts of the community that express specific needs and expected benefits for a high-speed network.

To set the stage for a broad-based information-gathering phase, a self-described local broadband champion or a city-appointed leader of the effort should conduct telephone and in-person interviews with leaders from key stakeholder groups. This should include people who have a vested interest in the success of a broadband network, such as

• Managers of the city and county economic development agencies

• A senior member of the chamber of commerce

• Leaders (CEO, COO) of two or three of the largest companies

• Commercial real estate agents• Local government officials and

administrators• A representative from a medical

facility or health care agency• An administrator from the school

district.

The interviewer should schedule enough time to ask questions that will develop the initial sketch of the state of broadband in the community. This can be filled in later with a more detailed portrait of the town and how it will be transformed by meeting its needs.

This is the time to begin building a database of potential lenders and investors. As the interviewer starts to gather information on community needs, the extent of the network and the type of technology required begin to become clear, as does the amount of funding needed. The community leaders interviewed should be able to suggest entities that could be targeted for fundraising efforts.

Next comes the effort to fill in the sketch by gathering as much useful data from as many constituents as possible. The primary questions are

1 What kind of broadband service is currently available to them?

2 Are these services meeting their needs?

3 What would they do with better broadband?

4 What are their expected broadband needs in the next three to five years?

Every meeting should end with a question about which entity or individual could potentially make funds available to help build the network. A great idea could spring from anyone.

This research is vital to building the case for any funding entities the community plans to approach. Potential funders want to know whom the network will benefit, how broadband will benefit them, what will happen to constituents if the network isn’t built, how much the network will cost and how much other people and entities are investing. It’s good to have as much quantitative and qualitative data and as many impact statements as possible.

THE FUNDRAISING GAME PLANOnce the needs assessment is complete, a much clearer picture of how to improve the community, as well as a clearer understanding of the cost, should emerge. In addition to data on constituents’ needs, an assessment report should contain details on infrastructure, technology and policy recommendations.

Though funders may be nontechnical, they rely on techie friends for advice. They want assurances that the proposed technologies are sufficient to address the community’s current and future needs. Lenders, in particular, want to feel comfortable that the estimated infrastructure buildout costs are accurate and that the business model is built on reality. All potential funders want to have confidence that the project team, partners and vendors are competent.

Now it’s time to let the creative juices flow. I tell audiences that the logical business case for “broadband

Assessing the need for broadband in a community will lay the groundwork for a fundraising plan.


that works” focuses on four categories of use: improving local government operations, boosting economic development, transforming education and improving health care delivery.

The first category obviously resonates within government circles, though the public may not be aware of this benefit. Broadband as an economic development tool is increasingly easy to sell because so many journalists and the federal government are reinforcing the image. Broadband-assisted education and health care are viewed in some circles as just another side of the economic development game. However, the impact of both is substantial and beneficial enough that each deserves its own place within the funding game plan.

For each of these categories, broadband can achieve important objectives. Who has an interest in seeing each objective come to fruition? A nonprofit that has no particular interest in broadband may have a definite interest in transforming education in underserved communities. A foundation may have significant funding for programs that reverse offshoring, so it may consider funding community networks that achieve this goal.

Certain funding entities might consider only a one-off broadband project. Three counties in upstate New York wanted a backbone of fiber optic cable that businesses could use to tap in to the global economy. Corning Incorporated, a manufacturer of high-tech glass (including optical fiber), came though for the community, picking up $10 million of the project’s $12 million tab. “We saw this as an investment not only in the community’s future but in the company’s future,” said Dan Collins, a spokesperson for the company. Collins says backing a project that helps Corning (the company) and Corning (the town) was a no-brainer, especially as the company employs about a fifth of the surrounding community.

Bob Whitman, VP of market development for Corning, added, “This was a good decision that made a lot of sense for that particular community.

Other cities need to determine if there are companies willing to enter into similar arrangements. We’ve seen several communities initially plan on building their own networks but change direction when a business shows interest in helping with the funding.”

Broadband project teams, stakeholders, community leaders and others must collectively open their minds and aggressively push out-of-the-box thinking. There is no such thing as a bad idea when exploring who might be interested in funding broadband

project. Be clear with potential funders about the link between broadband and the missions they hold dear. Never be afraid to ask for funding support. You might be pleasantly surprised. v

Craig Settles is a community broadband industry analyst, a strategy consultant and the host of the Gigabit Nation radio talk show. Reach him at [email protected], and read his full report, “Finding the Hidden Money for Broadband,” at www.cjspeaks.com.

A business case for “broadband that works” focuses on using broadband for local government operations, economic development, education and health care.


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Tapping Hidden Sources of Broadband FundingBroadband is more than just Internet access. Focusing on other broadband services first may attract the funding to improve Internet access as well.

By Misty Stine and Joel Mulder / EX2 Technology LLC

Look around your community. What do you see? A meandering river flowing through it? A reservoir tucked in the

valley? Commuter planes landing in the distance? Power poles marching along the roadway? Wind turbines piercing the sky? What seem to be common everyday images dotting the landscape, may, in fact, be the keys to helping unlock a community’s potential for broadband project funding. They reveal assets that will allow the community to market and build a network.

Communities that discover, embrace and cultivate these hidden gems will open up new funding possibilities and differentiate themselves by leveraging all their potential assets to attract the right public-private partnerships. To attract additional funding, public agencies or communities must learn how to effectively evaluate, leverage and market their unique assets to draw a broader funding audience. Essentially, each community must find its own set of keys to unlock its true project financing potential.

So how does a meandering river or a line of power poles along a roadway help get a broadband network built? To appreciate the importance of these assets, communities must first understand that a broadband network is more than just a fast Internet connection.

PORT SECURITY The city of Nashville, Tenn., discovered that the presence of the Cumberland River qualified it to apply for and receive a $2 million port security grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The city used these funds to improve and expand its network infrastructure to support video surveillance across bridges and along the riverfront.

An unexpected benefit of the grant was that it allowed Nashville to construct a network backbone that dramatically improved its bandwidth for multiple agency facilities and for citywide surveillance and first responder communications. Obtaining this grant jump-started its communications infrastructure improvement programs.

A UNIQUE FUNDING SOURCEIn rural southern Virginia, the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC) got its start by utilizing funds from the Virginia Tobacco Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce. This initiative was proclaimed a national model for rural economic development and touted as a unique use of funds from

A grant to improve port security allowed Nashville to jump-start improvements to its communications infrastructure.


the national tobacco settlement. To expand its network, MBC partnered with regional private-sector telecom providers to trade conduit routes. It also sold excess capacity dark fiber assets to third-party carriers, which generated additional revenue to support the operations and maintenance of the broadband infrastructure.

The $70-plus million, 800-mile, open-access fiber optic network now connects industrial parks, community anchor institutions, K-12 schools, community colleges and hospitals. MBC was able to bridge the digital divide and revitalize rural communities by leveraging its assets to create unique partnerships with local and regional fiber optic operators and public agencies.

LEVERAGING THE SMART GRIDThe Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga received a $115 million grant from the Department of Energy to support smart-grid applications. EPB was one of the first municipally owned utilities that constructed a 100 percent fiber optic network to provide automated meter reading, reduce power generation costs and offer triple-play services (high-speed internet, video services and telephone) to customers.

EPB searched for ways to benefit its community by building a dual-purpose network that would improve quality of life and cultivate economic development. The network now serves about 75,000 customers and has helped attract new business to the area, including Volkswagen’s North American manufacturing headquarters and a new Amazon distribution center.

In southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, Powell Valley Electric Cooperative (PVEC) has served its customers with reliable, economical power since 1938. Its territory is rural, rugged and remote, which often hinders field crews’ ability to serve their 30,000 consumers. PVEC saw the need to connect its electrical components with a 24/7 network to manage the power load on its system. It partnered with Sunset Digital of Duffield, Va., and received a $24 million Broadband Initiative Program stimulus award in

2010. The fiber network enables PVEC to increase safety, save money and reduce electrical outages. Sunset Digital provides triple play (voice, video, Internet) services within the PVEC service area. Thanks to a win-win partnership, PVEC customers receive the same reliable electric service they have come to depend on and the most modern connectivity options available.

MULTIPURPOSE NETWORKS OPEN DOORSA number of communities are working with their rural electrical co-ops, local airport authorities, intermodal facilities or even federal agencies to fund and build broadband networks to enhance the overall viability of their areas. Cities, rural communities and other public agencies that look at their planned broadband infrastructures as multipurpose networks attract broader audiences and open more doors for government grants or loans, third-party dark fiber buyers, service providers and private equity and vendor financing.

Building a new broadband network or improving upon an existing communications network infrastructure will provide the high-capacity bandwidth required to support a myriad of other applications that attract funding. Cybersecurity, city surveillance, critical asset protection and public safety interoperability are just a few applications that can coexist on a broadband network. The ability to offer these services not only makes government agencies more efficient and connected but also creates safer, more connected communities – which attracts additional public and private partnerships.

These partnerships can be used to transfer some of the risks of network

building, operations and maintenance to the private sector and introduce ways to reduce the barriers involved with beginning and completing a new network project. For example, a private-sector partner that supports a project by bringing interested third parties to the table can help make a broadband network a revenue-producing asset, often without competing with current service providers. One just has to look at several models from the 1990s (then called “resource sharing projects”), such as the New York State Thruway Authority, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, to find examples of creative ways to build a business case. These agencies’ fiber optic networks support internal voice, video and data services, including intelligent transportation, tolling and public safety. In addition, each has many other public and private customers that use their backbone networks.

In an era of limited public-sector funding, finding atypical ways to unlock a community’s potential can make the difference between a viable, connected community and one that gets passed by. Look around. The keys to open up new partnering and financing opportunities may be more obvious than you think. v

Misty Stine is executive vice president of business development for EX2 Technology, which finances, designs, installs and maintains networks for public agencies, consortiums and public-private partnerships. Joel Mulder is vice president of sales for EX2. Both have decades of experience in communications and security. Contact Misty at [email protected].

Electric companies are leveraging their smart grids to provide triple-play services to residents, either directly or with the help of service provider partners.




BROADBAND POLICY

A Broadband Policy Agenda From Next Century CitiesGovernment at all levels, as well as philanthropies and private citizens, can contribute to making broadband accessible to all.

Next Century Cities (NCC), a nonpartisan, city-to-city collaborative with more than 100 members, is

dedicated to elevating the voices of communities in the broadband policy discussion and sharing resources and knowledge among members.

This policy agenda offers policies that will move communities in the direction of fast, affordable, reliable Internet access available to all. Expanding high-quality Internet access in a community, whether large or small, can yield a multitude of benefits for residents – from improved health services to new opportunities for small businesses, higher property values and a stronger local economy.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Local governments occupy a critical role in the success of broadband projects and are ideally equipped to identify and address a community’s specific Internet access needs. Local governments are better equipped than any other level of government to decide whether the community is well served and the needs of residents, businesses, and anchor institutions are being met. They are also best poised to understand community challenges and assets that will impact the success of any project. Some policies for effective local government engagement include

Promoting “dig once” for efficient building. This is a collection of approaches that collectively aim to get conduit, fiber and other assets placed at a very low cost as part of other projects – for instance, by installing conduit underground as part of a sewer main replacement or requiring that a new housing development include multichannel conduit when it is being built. The conduit and fiber may later be used by the local government or leased to other providers. Over a period of 10 years or more, this policy could result in fiber throughout the majority of a community.

Creating broadband-ready buildings. New providers may find it all but impossible to serve potential subscribers in existing multitenant residential and commercial buildings. Requiring buildings to have wiring or ducts that facilitate multiple providers can go a long way toward facilitating more investment in higher-quality networks.

Streamlining permitting and rights-of-way management. Local governments should make permitting as easy as possible for building these essential networks. By streamlining permit processes, local governments can reduce the cost of a potential deployment and ensure that a network owner will begin to collect

The following is adapted from “Connecting 21st Century Communities: A Policy Agenda for Broadband Stakeholders,” published by Next Century Cities in July 2015. Access the full report at http://nextcenturycities.org/connecting-21st-century-communities-a-policy-agenda-for-broadband-stakeholders. The full report has examples for each policy suggestion.

http://nextcenturycities.org/connecting-21st-century-communities-a-policy-agenda-for-broadband-stakeholders

http://nextcenturycities.org/connecting-21st-century-communities-a-policy-agenda-for-broadband-stakeholders


revenue more rapidly, both of which make a community a much better prospect for investment (whether external or internal). In many cases, local governments do not own the utility poles. Without owning the poles, there is little a local government can do to force a pole owner (often the incumbent telephone company) to “play nice” with a planned network.

Connecting government offices and anchor institutions with institutional fiber networks. Hundreds of local governments have decided to own and/or operate networks that serve only public facilities. In other cases, school districts have begun to build fiber networks or lease dark fiber to operate internal networks. They have found that self-provisioning can ensure higher reliability, greater capacity and more flexibility at a lower total cost than other solutions. This approach results in greater efficiency and can create the expertise needed to later begin offering services to businesses and residents if necessary.

Serving citizens with a public network. Some of the best places in the United States to get Internet access are communities in which local governments directly provide services. In most cases, the local government offers the triple play of telephone, Internet access and cable television in competition with national cable and telephone companies. Offering the three services has been seen as the safest way to ensure the private investors that financed each project will be repaid because these communities have often chosen not to use taxpayer dollars to finance the network.

Most of these communities have built networks via already existing municipal electrical companies. Recently, however, more communities without public power are adopting this approach.

Teaming up with private partners. Some local governments have chosen to expand services with a partnership in which they share risks and rewards with a trusted partner. The

local government often focuses on core infrastructure or funding while relying on its partner to provide the services, which tend to evolve more rapidly and require more marketing savvy. This is an area with a lot of active interest and new models but only a few long-standing examples.

Exchanging successes and best practices with peers. Communities can help their peers across the country by creating channels to share best practices and lessons learned from their broadband projects. This knowledge sharing can occur through institutionalized and informal forums alike. Many local governments have made it a priority to share their knowledge, whether by presenting at conferences, joining Next Century Cities, doing interviews on Gigabit Nation or the Community Broadband Bits podcast or writing articles to explain what they did and why. These lessons are very important to inform other local governments because local governments have more challenges than, and different assets from, the typical small ISP building a fiber network. If local governments do not share their experiences, others will have to reinvent the wheel.

Collecting data to prove the case. Data about broadband networks and their impacts can provide a powerful tool for advocates in other communities seeking similar infrastructure. Local governments are ideally positioned to gather important information that demonstrates the positive impacts of ubiquitous broadband access. Unlike private-sector companies, which are focused on maximizing revenue, local governments

should be focused on ensuring that businesses and residents can maximize the benefits of connectivity.

STATE GOVERNMENTState governments can play critical roles in facilitating and empowering community-led broadband initiatives. These include

Empowering communities through resources. Through funding initiatives, state governments can play a critical role in assisting community-led efforts. For instance, state governments can create grant or loan approaches to encourage projects. Minnesota spent $20 million on grant funding for 19 projects to expand Internet access in the most rural areas. New York has established a $500 million fund for matching grants to build high-capacity networks. States may also establish an effort to aid local governments in accessing capital markets by combining multiple offerings into one and offering a backstop to ensure a low interest rate.

States should be aware that requiring networks to serve only underserved or unserved populations makes long-term financial sustainability questionable. Allowing networks that serve largely unserved or underserved areas to overlap some areas with existing service may be preferable.

Convening partners. State governments can bring together stakeholders and communities to discuss the importance of broadband and share best practices to facilitate further network development. These are key opportunities to shine a light on successful examples. States must be careful not to be captured by incumbent interests that may want to restrict the types of approaches available.

Building and operating an institutional fiber network can save costs for local government and develop the expertise needed to operate a network that serves businesses and residents.


BROADBAND POLICYModernizing state-level

regulations. Approximately 20 states have limited local government capacity to invest in broadband. States should remove any barriers to local choice – communities will have to take responsibility for the consequences of any action or inaction. Some have justified states’ preempting local authority as a measure to protect taxpayers. To date, NCC is unaware of a single instance in which a state had to deal with any debt created by a community network. When authority is unclear, the state should make it clear that local governments have the authority to build or partner for new networks.

Creating representative task forces. Task forces or committees focused on Internet access have been created in many states but have not often resulted in substantive new investment or changes to the status quo. States that have task forces should consider increasing representation from local businesses, residents and local governments to ensure incumbent voices do not dominate the agenda. Particularly in rural areas, the voices of cooperatives and other locally rooted entities should be elevated rather than those of service providers that are not locally based.

Building out the middle mile. Ensuring that communities have robust backhaul to connect to the rest of the Internet is important for financially viable business plans for next-generation networks. In many regions, a small number of ISPs dominate the backhaul market. Building middle-mile connections, most notably open-access networks in which multiple providers can use the infrastructure, will allow ISPs (particularly small private and community networks) to offer high-capacity connections at reasonable prices. ISPs may even be able to offer their services anywhere the middle mile can connect them to open last-mile networks.

Elevating the issue and stakes. Elected officials, from the governor to state legislators, can use their positions to call for local choice and block any actions by incumbents to use their

power to restrict competition in the telecommunications market. Speaking out in favor of smart local approaches will result in more attention and media coverage, which will inspire other communities to work toward better Internet access.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENTThe federal government was essential in ensuring all Americans were connected to the electrical grid, which it accomplished by encouraging investments by municipalities, cooperatives and the private sector. This lesson is directly applicable to efforts to connect everyone with high-quality Internet access. The federal government can take the following actions:

Protecting market competition through antitrust and antimonopoly action. The federal government has the authority to prevent market consolidation and mergers that are not in the public interest. In recent years, the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission have stopped mergers between AT&T and T-Mobile and between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The federal government should take a stronger role in limiting the power of the largest firms to ensure small firms are able to enter the market and compete.

Removing barriers and breaking down silos. In some cases, the federal government can act as a bulwark against state barriers regarding broadband infrastructure projects. By exercising preemptive powers, federal policymakers can remove barriers to broadband deployment as well as break down bureaucratic silos.

For instance, one agency may refuse to allow grants for one kind of infrastructure to be used for multiple purposes, meaning that conduit for traffic signaling may not be used to improve Internet access for businesses or anchor institutions. Though these rules may make sense narrowly in the silo, they raise the cost of investment in needed infrastructure when viewed more holistically. The executive branch should review such rules to lower the cost of infrastructure investment and

remove any uncertainty in how valuable assets may be used.

Strengthening the case through nationwide data collection. Collecting high-quality data at the national level can help inform community decisions by providing a wealth of information about approaches and tools to meet unique needs. Current data collection is insufficient, leading to numerous examples of people buying homes after being promised they have broadband Internet access only to find out they do not. In collecting this data, agencies should develop reasonable processes for small ISPs, recognizing that they are often already responsive at the local level.

Filling the funding gaps. Funding for broadband infrastructure is often difficult to find despite its critical importance to a thriving future. The federal government can assist communities through grant and loan opportunities. Rural electrification depended on the federal government’s loaning funds to newly created rural cooperatives. The history of success of municipal and cooperative approaches in providing infrastructure to rural America suggests that these efforts should be prioritized for grant and loan funding. Grants and loans should cover capital costs for projects that have financially sustainable plans without requiring future federal subsidies. The federal government should ensure paperwork requirements are suited to small, rural operations.

Using the national platform. National elected leaders are powerful actors in any policy debate. National officials can influence policymakers at the state and local levels by taking stands for local Internet choice and improved access while highlighting good examples that should be emulated.

PHILANTHROPYPhilanthropic partners can be critical advocates for successful broadband projects, offering communities tools to facilitate the development of fast, affordable, reliable Internet. In many cases, philanthropies have begun to


engage productively in developing broadband networks, with room to further expand these efforts.

Some of these activities include:

Supporting advocacy. Philanthropic support has been crucial in helping to establish key advocacy groups for broadband. With funding from large foundations, organizations such as Next Century Cities are able to develop effective platforms for engaging key stakeholders and decision-makers in the larger broadband policy debate.

Funding high-impact research. Knowledge production and dissemination helps bolster community campaigns for broadband Internet, providing a sense of current gaps and suggesting possible solutions and benefits. Funding from philanthropic organizations can support high-quality research.

Creating forums for knowledge sharing. Communities and stakeholder groups often learn best when they share experiences with one another. Mutual learning forums, supported by philanthropies and foundations, can be effective tools for advancing access to fast, affordable, reliable broadband Internet.

Improving civil society and empowering communities. Other philanthropy-supported groups work in the community at large to ensure that all members of a town or city can reap the benefits of broadband Internet.

Other avenues for philanthropic engagement remain largely untapped, though they offer significant benefits to broadband deployment projects. Some of these new programs include

Working collectively with peer funders. By collaborating among partner and peer organizations, philanthropic funders can amplify the impact of individual investments and develop a shared broadband strategy.

Leveraging community foundation assets. Though smaller than major philanthropies, community foundations possess valuable local knowledge that can effectively direct resources to important players in local broadband Internet projects.

Supporting core costs through funding and investment. Philanthropies can draw upon significant funds to assist in broadband projects. Supporting broadband can include large-scale, program-related investments and instruments such as social impact bonds to support capital costs. Some challenges of connecting low-income populations are one-time capital expenditures that may be smart investments if a local service provider is willing to partner and ensure services are then available. Smaller-scale investments include matching funding to support feasibility studies.

COMMUNITYSuccessful broadband projects need engagement from all members of the community to maximize networks’ social benefits. This includes involvement from the private sector, key pillars of civil society and individual citizens.

Some tools for effective community engagement might include

Engaging with anchor institutions. Organizations such as libraries, schools and communities of faith often play critical roles in community projects. Identifying and engaging respected leaders of these anchor institutions can help solidify social and political support for broadband projects. These institutions are already hubs of information for many in the community and may already serve a substantial portion of the people who lack access at home or are in need of digital literacy training.

Educating communities about the benefits of broadband. High-quality Internet access creates a tremendous variety of indirect benefits

for a community, including enhanced educational opportunities, avenues for civic growth and participation, improved health care outcomes and even higher property values relative to areas without high-quality Internet access. However, these benefits are accrued generally by the community rather than specifically by the network owner, not unlike the benefits from roads.

Roads themselves have tremendous maintenance costs, but they enable commerce and travel, which is why building and maintaining streets is an important function of government. The many indirect benefits from improved Internet access are not immediately apparent without an effort to engage and educate the community.

Lifting up citizen voices. Citizen testimonials about broadband offer useful tools for advocates. By putting a human face to these technological issues, citizen-centered media campaigns can help garner further community support.

Engaging the whole community. Successful broadband efforts require input from all segments of the community. Advocates should seek to engage less-advantaged communities while recognizing existing gaps in access to fast, affordable and reliable Internet.

Organizing neighborhood conversations. Conversation among residents of a community can help galvanize support for broadband infrastructure and educate community members about the importance and potential of high-speed Internet. Community members are encouraged to talk to their friends and neighbors about the need for fast, affordable, reliable Internet. v

Individual citizens can play important roles in communicating the benefits of broadband and building support within their communities for fast, affordable, reliable Internet access.




COMMUNITY BROADBAND

Key Issues in Public-Private PartnershipsWhen a city negotiates a broadband contract with a private-sector partner, what should it ask for? And what is it likely to get?

By Blair Levin and Denise Linn / Gig.U

For cities that choose public-private partnership models, diverse issues arise in network negotiations. Every municipality

will have unique challenges, but it helps to know how others have approached these arrangements.

NEGOTIATING WITH PARTNERSThe Kansas City–Google Fiber negotiations created a new model for how cities can facilitate upgrades to next-generation networks – a model that later Google Fiber negotiations advanced, as did negotiations involving other cities and providers. These negotiations – over provisions that affect city operations, personnel, property and finances – can become very complex.

There are assets and levers that city officials can use at little or no cost to improve network construction economics for providers. Understanding these helps parties reach win-win positions more efficiently.

WHERE TO BUILDOne primary concern is the geographic areas that the network will cover. The network builder’s construction costs and risk of recouping those costs must be balanced against the community’s economic development and spillovers. The builder will naturally lean toward deploying first (or exclusively, if the

municipality will allow that) to areas in which the risk of recovering upfront costs is lowest and the potential for profitability is highest. The municipality likely will want to bring access to as many residents and businesses as possible, perhaps even prioritizing certain areas in which the city believes the economic and social benefits to the entire city are the greatest. The parties can resolve these divergent interests in a number of ways.

The following was adapted from “The Next Generation Network Connectivity Handbook: A Guide for Community Leaders Seeking Affordable, Abundant Bandwidth,” published by Gig.U in association with the Benton Foundation. Read the full report at www.gig-u.org.

WHERE TO BUILD: KEY CONSIDERATIONS

FOR COMMUNITIES

• Are there areas of the city that the provider must connect and, if so, on what timetable?

• Are there public facilities the provider must connect? How many and on what timetable?

• Is there a minimum coverage area that the provider must commit to as part of the agreement?


CITIES HAVE REQUESTED ... EXAMPLES

Universal coverage Los Angeles RFI

Open-access, wholesale network Macquarie-UTOPIA, iTV3-UC2B, Los Angeles RFI

Connections for anchor institutions Los Angeles RFI

A free basic service tier Los Angeles RFI, Google Fiber–Kansas City, Macquarie-UTOPIA, NCNGN RFP, Portland-Google franchise agreement

Free public Wi-Fi hot spots Portland-Google franchise agreement, Los Angeles RFI

Subsidized connections for public housing

Austin, Texas

Ownership of the network Macquarie-UTOPIA, SiFi-Louisville franchise agreement

A designated franchise fee Portland-Google franchise agreement

Funding/program support for digital literacy

Google Fiber–Kansas City

Geographic priorities/schedules for buildout

NCNGN RFP

A flexible menu of service options NCNGN RFP

Figure 1: City requests in negotiations with ISPs

CITIES HAVE OFFERED TO … EXAMPLES

Be an anchor tenant of the service Los Angeles RFI

Provide space and power Google Fiber–Kansas City, Los Angeles RFI, NCNGN RFP

Provide data and asset inventory Los Angeles RFI, NCNGN RFP

House fiber huts on city property San Antonio–AT&T lease agreement, San Antonio–Google Fiber lease agreement

Provide a single point of contact Google Fiber–Kansas City, NCNGN RFP

Streamline communication and permitting

Google Fiber–Kansas City, Los Angeles RFI, NCNGN RFP

Give access to city dark fiber and/or conduit

Los Angeles RFI

Designate a team within local government to work with the partner


Conduct a consumer outreach and marketing campaign


Provide funding through a utility fee Macquarie-UTOPIA

Give partner sole discretion over buildout plan and schedule

Google Fiber–Kansas City, Portland-Google franchise agreement

Figure 2: City offers in negotiations with ISPs


COMMUNITY BROADBAND

Mutual consultation. Google and Kansas City left the question of initial build sites open to continuing negotiation; Google retained the right to base future build locations on purely economic calculations.

As a matter of practice, Google agrees to build out in the entire city, but the actual construction obligation kicks in only when a certain percentage of a “fiberhood” signs up for service. Google sets the boundaries of the fiberhood and the minimum percentage at its sole discretion. This approach can be viewed as a win-win in that the city has a voice in negotiating initial build locations and the ISP retains control over expansion locations thereafter. However, if the city falls short of getting agreement on its planned network sites during initial negotiations, turning over control of expansion planning to the ISP can end up resulting in a buildout to fewer areas than the city may have wished.

Need-based quotas. Raleigh agreed upfront to let AT&T base its build locations purely on cost-recovery calculations in return for a quota of additional locations that the city could choose based on need. The city may not reach all its need-based sites initially, but it can ensure that the network eventually expands to cover some of its highest-priority areas.

Competitive response. So long as the new network reaches a critical mass of the city, it is likely to drive a competitive response. For example, the deployment of fiber by the incumbent telco or a new entrant with significant resources, such as Google, will likely compel responses by a cable provider. Because a cable upgrade will be done system by system, rather than

neighborhood by neighborhood, facilitating an upgrade or a new entrant can result in a geographically broader upgrade through third-party providers not involved in the initial agreement. Further, as pricing is generally consistent throughout an entire jurisdiction, the competitive response will likely mean that all residents receive the benefits of price competition even if the new network does not extend to every area.

HOW TO BUILDNetwork construction methods are largely standardized, so the primary decision is whether to build above or below ground (or whether to use a combination of both approaches). Making this determination can involve considerable cost calculations and complex policy issues, such as pole attachment rights and equipment placement.

Aboveground vs. underground construction. Aboveground network construction tends to be less expensive from a labor and equipment cost perspective, so it is most commonly used. Aboveground construction also minimizes the digging up of roadways and the consequent impact on traffic.

The main benefit of underground construction is weatherproofing the

network – protecting it from wind and ice, which topple utility lines and poles. It is in the city’s interest to assess these costs and risks while planning and negotiating a network construction partnership.

Pole attachment access and costs. Labor and equipment costs are not the only costs to consider – pole attachment costs can potentially dominate the calculation. For municipalities that lack a public utility or other means for easily accessing poles, the costs of negotiating and accessing privately owned poles can quickly make aboveground construction more costly than running fiber underground. This was the situation with Champaign-Urbana, which decided to build completely underground to avoid pole attachment costs and headaches.

The FCC’s recent order on the classification of broadband addressed this issue in part. The commission held that ISPs should be entitled to fair access to poles and conduits under Section 224 of the federal communications law. The long-term value of that decision depends, in part, on how court challenges and potential congressional legislation play out. Another way of addressing this issue is by having a single pole administrator. Connecticut recently implemented a single administrator through state legislation. Google addressed the issue in its first project by initially going to Kansas City, Kan., which had a municipal electric company, and then leveraging the public reaction to strike a deal with private pole providers in Kansas City, Mo., which did not want

HOW TO BUILD: KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR COMMUNITIES

• If there is no municipal pole ownership, do the private pole owners support the project?

• How many different parties must the city negotiate with to gain access to the pole space needed for this project? Does the city have a history of negotiating with them?

A city has some leverage to ensure that a private partner doesn’t cherry-pick – but the buildout may be less complete, and slower, than the city would like.


to be seen as obstacles to Google Fiber expansion in their city.

ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE AND RIGHTS OF WAY (ROW)Access to infrastructure and ROW is a big lever for a city but must be used with great care and diplomacy. Though cities have the economic leverage to charge fees beyond their costs for the use of ROWs and existing ducting or conduit, they must compare the value of such fees to the value of the economic benefits that a next-generation network is likely to deliver.

Use a fee schedule. Google’s contract with Kansas City includes a separate fee schedule that details which infrastructure and ROW activities require fees. Activities that do not require a fee include use of collocation space, office space, pole attachments in utility/power space, conduit, existing fiber, geographic information systems data, computer tools, permit processing and inspections. Activities that do require a fee are use of pole attachments in telecom space, traffic control, and access to city rights of way for construction and installation of outdoor network equipment.

Though a city has considerable discretion to impose or forbear from imposing a fee, the key consideration is whether a reduction in fees can lead to a network that will increase the economic activity within, and attractiveness of, the city.

Ensure equal treatment of all providers. AT&T’s contract with Raleigh contains language that generally ensures AT&T is treated like any other party seeking access to such

infrastructure and rights-of-way. It states: “Such access will be provided in accordance with all applicable regulations and ordinances and the City’s standard processes and practices generally made available to all third parties.” In addition, the contract contains a most-favored-nation (MFN) clause that provides “the City will … license AT&T to utilize such space for those purposes at rates or fees and other terms no less favorable than those granted to any other similar commercial service provider.” Incumbents and new entrants alike frequently request MFN clauses to guarantee a level playing field on fees and rates.

PERMIT APPROVALSAny network builder will need to obtain permits for construction tasks as the project progresses over months and years. Cities should work with network partners to ensure these permits are processed as efficiently and quickly as possible to reduce construction costs and time.

Setting timelines. Though permitting approval timelines benefit the network builder by providing certainty and expediency, the city should retain flexibility so it is not on the hook for every permitting delay. For example, the AT&T-Raleigh contract reads:

“The City will provide diligent and expeditious review and determinations of all applications for permits submitted by AT&T and will attempt … to approve or respond within one week from the date of the submission of the request.”

Waiving permit fees. Another way to streamline the permitting process is to waive fees, although financial implications should not be overlooked. The Google contract reflects this approach. Before adopting this approach, city officials should review how payment processing affects permit process timing. If the effect is negligible, so will be the benefit.

PERSONNEL COMMITMENTS Identifying specific city personnel who can focus partially or primarily on network-related issues will speed up not only permit processing but also the resolution of issues that come up throughout long, complex construction projects. The level of specificity in personnel provisions can vary.

The contract between AT&T and Raleigh uses general language; in contrast, Google’s contract with Kansas City spells out personnel requirements in more detail, going as far as creating new job roles. For example, Google’s contract requires the creation of an “Executive Sponsor for the Project at the most senior level of City” and a “Single Point of Contact (SPOC) ... responsible for addressing all issues related to the Project.”

OPEN ACCESSThe term “open access” refers to a network management policy that permits multiple service providers to offer services over the same physical

INFRASTRUCTURE AND RIGHT-OF-WAY ACCESS: KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR COMMUNITIES

• What parts of the fees reflect actual costs to the city, and what parts reflect an implicit charge for scarcity value of the use?

• What is the impact on prior agreements with others of changing the fee schedule for one provider?

PERMIT APPROVALS: KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR COMMUNITIES

• Has the city internally reviewed its permitting process? • Can the city’s permitting be improved or streamlined through digital

processing?


COMMUNITY BROADBAND

network. The network owner offers access to its physical network on nondiscriminatory terms to any requesting service provider that can plug its equipment into the network and offer services. South Portland, Maine, and Champaign-Urbana, Ill., require their private partners to offer open access to service providers.

From the city’s perspective, an open-access policy has the advantage of promoting service competition because it prevents the owner of the physical network from dominating the market for network services. From the network builder/owner’s perspective, open access may reduce profits because competition will likely lower market prices for network services. This means the network owner will take longer to recover its costs and turn a profit, which could mean no new buildout ever occurs.

But if a party is willing to invest in a next-generation network with an open-access requirement, such a policy could, in the long run, result in more innovative services, lower prices and greater access for residents and businesses.

When Google announced its Kansas City fiber deployment, it initially suggested the network would be open-access. Later, however, it reversed its position, saying that, after the company had studied the economics of deployment and consumer behavior, the advantages of open access were not sufficient to justify the increased costs and risks of that business model. Google has said the costs of obtaining traditional programming packages and the need to offer a multichannel video package make open access economically nonviable.

In contrast, Champaign-Urbana’s fiber network embraces the open-access

ideal. Champaign-Urbana’s network originated under a federal BTOP grant that came with an open-access requirement. As the network operator evolved into a nonprofit (UC2B) and then a partnership between UC2B and private service provider iTV-3, open access remained a core principle. The BTOP grant made open access a precondition when UC2B went looking for an expansion partner.

One potential (but untried) compromise is to allow the network builder a limited grace period during which it can be the sole service provider – which would allow it to recoup upfront costs more quickly – followed by an open-access policy thereafter. This grace period can be negotiated as a number of years or pegged directly to cost recoupment.

FREE NETWORK SERVICES Every contract analyzed mandates the ISP to provide free services for the city and/or other public facilities. This is often an important negotiating point for city officials because free network services can save costs for the city or serve some other policy objective. City officials should examine their existing IT costs and either try to minimize them by procuring as many free services as possible or leverage them to stimulate the buildout of the network.

Google’s contract with Kansas City allots free Internet connection service, of the same kind offered to the general public, to 130 locations, including city facilities, public utility sites and school districts. One caveat is that such free service facilities will be connected only as they are passed by the natural progression of the network’s construction. Another caveat is that Google will cover the cost of connection only if it is “commercially reasonable.” Otherwise, “Google and Kansas City will discuss options to address that issue.” Most important, following such connection, these locations will receive Internet services free of charge.

AT&T’s contract with Raleigh similarly uses a quota to provide service to “public or non-profit facilities that provide access and services directly to citizens.” The agreement specifies that 100 sites can be chosen across the six municipalities that form the North Carolina Next Generation Network. The relevant city must pay for the cost of connection (estimated to be $300–$500), and schools and libraries are not included unless they qualify for funding through E-Rate, the federal program that subsidizes broadband connections for low-income schools and libraries.

Another free service that can be negotiated, particularly in the case of a dark fiber network such as the one GWI provides in South Portland, Maine, is an Internet point of presence. Without this, the city could still pay a significant sum of money to connect its facilities to the Internet despite having high-speed fiber connections internally. GWI’s contract stipulates that it will provide an Internet connection at a termination point designated by the city, capable of at least 100 Mbps

PERSONNEL COMMITMENTS: KEY CONSIDERATION FOR COMMUNITIES

• How will dedicating such a team affect city resources and other high-priority construction processes?

OPEN ACCESS: KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR COMMUNITIES

• Does the city want to try an open-access model?• Have ISPs expressed initial interest in working with the city to

implement an open-access network policy?


symmetrical, free of charge for the remainder of the contract term. Thus, although the South Portland model does not focus on free services, it does enable the city to enjoy lower costs over time while accelerating the deployment of a next-generation network.

REVENUE SHARINGDepending on the financial model or models under consideration, revenue sharing is worth exploring during negotiations. Some network models do not make room for such provisions; other models make revenue sharing a central provision. In return for becoming an anchor tenant of the new network and paying for 20 years of service up front (approximately $150,000), South Portland is entitled to a share of revenues generated from retail services provided by GWI.

The important note here is how to define the profits from which to calculate the city’s share because the network provider must account for numerous costs.

OTHER PROVISIONSOther topics that have been the subject of negotiations include the following:

• Make-ready work: The network builder will want the city to commit to doing most or all of the make-ready work on city facilities (such as on poles) to lower the cost of the buildout.

• Access to city facilities for network node equipment: The network builder will want access to city facilities for locating network equipment. This is particularly valuable in areas where appropriate facilities are scarce.

• Service to city, schools and other anchor institutions: In both the Kansas City–Google Fiber and the North Carolina–AT&T agreements, the cities were able to negotiate for fiber connections to certain public facilities.

• Service to low-income housing: Cities can ask for a minimum number of connections to low-income housing facilities.

• Service to small and medium businesses: In the same way, cities can ask for a minimum number of connections or geographic coverage in areas with small and medium-sized businesses.

• Public Wi-Fi: A fiber buildout improves the economics for deploying a robust, cost-effective Wi-Fi network. Cities can negotiate for some Wi-Fi hot spots to be available for public use instead of just for service providers.

• Education/marketing: Service providers have asked for certain kinds of assistance in making educational and marketing materials available to relevant segments of the public.

• Digital literacy: Cities have asked for assistance with digital literacy efforts.

• Interconnections: Service providers have requested settlement-

free interconnections with anchor institutions within cities that have existing fiber connections.

• Smart-grid support: Cities have asked service providers to make efforts to ensure that the new network supports the city’s smart-grid program.

Additional provisions might request that the parties negotiate an agreement in which the city agrees to reinvest any resulting cost savings back into the network. v

Blair Levin is the executive director of Gig.U, a coalition of universities and community leaders that works to advance the deployment of next-generation networks, and serves as a senior fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Project of the Brookings Institute. Denise Linn is a program analyst for the Smart Chicago Collaborative. Contact Blair at [email protected].




Broadband Communities MagazineCongratulatesthe newest sponsors and exhibitors joining the

2016 Broadband Communities Summit.

Alcatel-LucentAdvanced Media Technologies

BHC RhodesBTI Systems

CalixClearfieldComcast

Core Telecom SystemsDISH

Finley Engineering Company, Inc.Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc.

GenexisGLDS

IPiFony SystemsMesh Networks

NEPTCO, Inc.National Information Solutions Cooperative

Pavlov MediaPower & Tel

Preformed Line ProductsPrimex Manufacturing Ltd.

SiFi NetworksSynergy Broadband

Vantage Point SolutionsWave Broadband




COMMUNITY BROADBAND SPOTLIGHT

Companies Whose Offerings Support Fiber for the New Economy

Calix W: www.calix.com

Calix is a global leader in access innovation and North America’s leading provider of fiber access solutions, systems, software and services. Municipalities and utilities worldwide leverage Calix fiber access expertise to become the broadband service providers of choice to their subscribers. Visit www.calix.com for more information.

Charles IndustriesP: 847-806-8300W: www.charlesindustries.com

Charles Industries’ “Innovative Enclosed Solutions” play a vital role in protecting the infrastructure assets of the fiber networks that form the backbone of the new economy. Service providers rely on Charles fiber pedestals, terminals, enclosures, interconnects and cross-connects to house and protect fiber splice and drop points along the entire distribution network. With a wide array of both indoor and outdoor solutions, Charles’ fiber enclosures protect the routers, multiplexers, radios, smart meters, battery backup systems and other essential wireline and wireless network elements of new economy communications systems.

Charles CUBE metallic enclosures, CFBT/CFIT building terminals, CFRS rack solutions, nonmetallic CDFP/BDO distribution

pedestals, CFXC cross-connects and CFIT-Flex universal enclosures together provide a full line of environmentally protected solutions for deploying fiber in both outside plant and in-building environments. Charles designs each solution for compactness, flexibility in fiber splicing methods and materials, reliability, ease of deployment and lowest life cycle cost.

ClearfieldP: 800-422-2537W: www.SeeClearfield.com

Looking for a better way to consolidate, protect and distribute fiber? Clearfield’s approach to fiber management promises scalable deployment, craft-friendly operation and unsurpassed performance.

Plug-and-play solutions are called upon to reduce labor at the time of installation. But traditional plug-and-play solutions put an added burden on network design, requiring extensive site engineering to ensure proper lengths are called out. The new frontier in plug-and-play is Clearfield’s labor-lite technologies that are more forgiving in the required pre-engineering. Labor-lite products take the reduced need for labor and skill level needed all the way back to the pre-engineering stage.

Laying out the backbone of the network with Clearfield’s FieldShield Pushable Fiber, FieldShield StrongFiber (the industry’s first

http://www.calix.com

http://www.calix.com

http://www.charlesindustries.com

http://www.SeeClearfield.com


900um OSP drop cable) and with preterminated, field-assembled (not spliced) connectors, simplifies and speeds up fiber installations and maintenance. The need for slack storage, the nemesis of traditional plug-and-play technology, is minimized. Instead of taking a week or more, services can now be turned up very quickly, often in a few days, using unspecialized labor. This means service providers can start generating revenue immediately instead of waiting for the traditionally long installation cycle to be completed

CorningP: 607-974-9000W: www.corning.com

Drawing on more than 160 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Corning Optical Communications, part of Corning’s telecommunications segment, is a leading manufacturer of fiber optic communications system solutions for voice, data and video network applications worldwide. We offer the broadest range of end-to-end fiber optic and copper product solutions for telecommunications networks while also providing network design and installation services.

COS SystemsP: 800-562-1730W: www.cossystems.com

COS Systems’ cloud-hosted software helps deployers plan, deploy and manage modern broadband networks that deliver services from one or more providers. COS Service Zones is a demand aggregation tool that enables network builders to identify grassroots interest in better broadband, spread awareness of their projects and presell Internet connections using a fiberhood approach. COS Business Engine is a BSS/OSS suite for managing and operating gigabit fiber networks. It enables network operators to easily market and offer services from multiple providers in an online marketplace. COS clients include private Internet service providers and

operators, public-private partnerships, municipalities, utilities and housing cooperatives in the United States, Sweden and South Africa. In the last year, COS Systems has rapidly expanded its customer base, mainly in the United States, where multiple customers are now running or preparing to launch COS Service Zones campaigns. Privately held COS Systems is headquartered in Umea, Sweden, and has U.S. headquarters in New York City.

DrayTekP: 1-214-461-0149W: www.draytek.comW: www.draytekusa.com

DrayTek provides unified management software for managed service providers that deploy Vigor routers for offices and professionals using FTTx. The versatile management software can help assure business continuity.

ex2 Technology, LLCP: 844-392-2872W: ex2technology.com

Our company delivers multifaceted solutions and services to your network project with greater efficiency, less cost and a streamlined acquisition process. We specialize in financing, designing, installing and maintaining robust broadband, intelligent transportation and critical infrastructure networks for government agencies, consortiums and public/private partnerships (P3). Our business is a single-source solutions provider for communities and public agencies seeking to build or enhance their intelligent infrastructure.

Simply put, we’re a network design/build firm that brings financing options and creative funding alternatives to the partnership. Our philosophy is that completing your project and maintaining it for the long haul is just as important as finding a way to fund it.

By connecting public agencies and communities to the gigabit world, we foster economic development, advanced communications, improved interoperability and public safety, innovative telehealth and enriched education. Our team has the extensive knowledge, ability and industry expertise to provide an unprecedented single-source solution. We’ll deliver tomorrow’s next-generation networks.

http://www.corning.com

http://www.cossystems.com


COMMUNITY BROADBAND SPOTLIGHTGLDSP: 800-882-7950W: www.glds.com

A BroadBand Communities Top 100 Company, GLDS sets the standard for best-of-suite broadband billing, customer management and provisioning. Stand-alone or cloud-based solutions, attractive Windows-based interface and robust SQL database provide Tier-1 features without the Tier-1 price.

FTTH, IPTV, digital and analog set-top boxes, conditional access satellite receivers, cable modems, VoD and VoIP can all be managed directly from the WinCable and BroadHub billing systems. GLDS also offers a mobile app for field-based workforce management, as well as telephone and Web-based customer self-care.

• Designed for anyone offering broadband, or services over broadband

• Billing and provisioning support for FTTH, Digital, IPTV, Interdiction, VoIP and more

• Landlord/tenant billing options• Low-cost stand-alone or cloud-based solutions

Serving small and midsized operators, GLDS has implemented its solutions for more than 400 broadband operators in 49 U.S. states and 45 countries worldwide. For more information, contact GLDS Sales at 800.882.7950 or visit www.glds.com.

MaxCellP: 888-387-3828W: www.maxcell.us

MaxCell is the only flexible fabric innerduct system designed specifically for the fiber and network construction industries. The unique fabric construction allows MaxCell to conform to the shape of cables placed within, greatly reducing the wasted space associated with rigid innerduct. Network operators that use MaxCell can increase their fiber cable density by as much as 300 percent.

MaxSpace is a new, patent-pending, no-dig technology and construction method that safely removes existing innerduct from around active fiber optic cables with virtually no load on the cables and no interruption of service. As the innerducts are removed, cables migrate to bottom of the outer conduit. Once all innerducts are removed, up to 90 percent of conduit space is recovered, allowing up to nine more fiber cables to be placed in the reclaimed space of a conduit that was once considered full.

Visit www.maxcell.us for more information on how MaxCell and MaxSpace can greatly increase fiber density in communications networks.

S&N CommunicationsP: 336-992-5420W: www.sncomm.com

More jobs. Increased revenues. Safety. Continuity of service. When it comes to fiber for the new economy, no other company contributes more than S&N. In the last five years, we’ve buried more than 60 million feet of fiber, resulting in economic gains for the states in which we work. And we’re not stopping. S&N expects exponential growth in the next several years from our buried fiber and complete backbone-to-tower capabilities, including professional services, site analysis, site acquisition, site development, zoning, permitting, utility locating, and tower construction and maintenance. Toss in fewer service outages and better service continuity thanks to buried fiber that isn’t impacted by storms and environmental factors, and you have a company leading our nation into the fiber-filled world of the future. And as always, safety comes first.

We’re S&N. We’ve got this.

Smart Communication Systems, LLCP: 813-620-3192P: 336-706-1605P: 813-325-3257W: www.smartcommsys.com

Since our founding in early 2007, we have been a recognized premier service provider of OSP construction services nationwide. We specialize in the installation of HDPE and fiber optic cable by trenching, plowing, directional drilling (dirt or rock), microtrenching, rock trenching/sawing and aerial installation of strand/fiber, including ADSS, handholes, manholes, splicing and testing, bridge attachments, and fiber blowing and pulling. In addition, we offer OSP design/engineering, route development, feasibility studies, project management and construction inspection. The company is fully insured and licensed as required with bonding capacity to $25 million. It has all company-owned, late-model vehicles and equipment, and the staff of 157 average 10 to 40 years of experience. Our top-quality work and high daily production affords clients speed to market. Our safety record, customer satisfaction, respect for property owners both private as well as public, and ability to continually meet project target completion dates within budget constraints are second to none.

We’re open and receptive to all types of contracts. Our client base includes an impressive list of demanding carriers and contractors requiring long-haul fiber builds, FTTH, FTTT, FTTP, fiber rings for network redundancy and fiber backhauls in all types of environments and geographic conditions. v


http://www.glds.com/

http://www.glds.com/

http://www.maxcell.us

http://www.maxcell.us

http://www.sncomm.com

http://www.smartcommsys.com


See Clearfield for a modular and space maximizing frame solution designed with the user in mind. Achieving industry-leading density while utilizing industry-standard jumpers, these intuitive routing paths ensure ease of access. No moving parts and the self-contained fiber management of the Clearview Blue Cassette, ensure your fiber is Clearview Blue Cassette, ensure your fiber is protected in every application for which it’s deployed. Look to Clearfield for fiber without compromise.

See Clearfield at the BBC Economic Development Conference in booth #34.


FIBER DEPLOYMENT

Texas Agency Saves With Fiber LANA state agency found that replacing its copper Ethernet LAN with a passive optical LAN reduced costs for equipment, real estate, power and maintenance – and, of course, provided more bandwidth.

By Ryland Marek / 3M Communication Markets Division

With the ever-rising use of Internet-based apps, videoconferencing and wireless LANs, the demand for

enterprise broadband shows no sign of slowing anytime soon.

To keep up with this growth, IT departments need solutions that offer better network performance. In government agencies, IT departments need more enterprise broadband from fewer parts that use less energy in more compact spaces at a competitive price.

Impossible? The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners (TSBPE) found a way.

The state agency became one of the first in central Texas to consolidate and better organize its information technology by choosing to install a passive optical local area network instead of a traditional, copper-based network. Passive optical LANs are cost-effective, fiber-to-the-desktop enterprise solutions that are changing IT directors’ minds about how to design, install and maintain networks.

Large government and enterprise LAN customers attracted to the benefits of significant cost savings are adopting passive optical LANs at a fast pace. Depending on network design, a passive optical LAN can offer up to 70 percent reduction of equipment and infrastructure costs, up to 80 percent reduction in power costs because there is no active component required on every floor in a telecom room, and up to 90 percent reduction in space and material requirements.

AN OFFICE MAKEOVER LEADS TO A NETWORK UPGRADEThe work the TSBPE does is important. The agency helps protect the health and safety of the citizens of the state of Texas by ensuring that drinking water, air and medical gases are not contaminated and that Texans live and work in safe conditions with properly installed plumbing systems.

When the TSBPE began retrofitting its headquarters in March 2015, plans called for moving a data closet that housed communications and data equipment to a smaller space. The building’s entire network also needed to be recabled, and that was going to be very expensive. Traditional networks, or Ethernet LANs, typically require a core switch/router, a distribution switch in each building and multiple stacked workgroup switches on every floor – not to mention a lot of copper cable.

The TSBPE needed an IT solution that would be affordable, more efficient and flexible and would work as reliably as plumbing.

A BETTER WAYAWS Communications, a 3M-qualified installer of passive optical LANs based in Austin, Texas, suggested a better way: a passive optical LAN solution, or POLS, which is manufactured by 3M. AWS devised a plan to deliver a flexible, expandable IT solution at a fraction of the cost of a typical copper-based Ethernet LAN configuration.

“We determined that for the same cost and


a lot less labor, we could upgrade them to a 3M passive optical network,” says Bobby Mack McClung, chief executive officer of AWS Communications. “The 3M solution would also save them energy and maintenance costs and give them a lot more capacity for future bandwidth.”

Passive optical LANs are called passive because a single fiber supports miles of connectivity. Passive optical splitters distribute converged services directly from a main switch to the terminals without using electricity. There’s no need for active electronics between the main equipment room and the work-area terminals – in other words, no more distribution and workgroup switches that are costly to install and operate. In fact, depending upon the network design, as much as a 70 percent reduction in equipment and infrastructure can be achieved.

So instead of recabling the entire building with copper twisted pair, AWS used a passive optical LAN with a single fiber to support miles of connectivity and to deliver voice, video and data at gigabit speeds to Ethernet end points, such as user devices, access points, wireless controllers, application servers and printers. TSBPE would get high-performance (gigabit) broadband to the desktop at a fraction of the cost of typical copper-based Ethernet LAN configurations.

Passive optical LANs offer many benefits beyond budget considerations. When it comes to power consumption, a passive optical LAN is a more efficient option than a traditional LAN in more ways than one. Power consumption is much less with passive optical LANs. A passive optical LAN requires less equipment and uses less energy than structured cabling, which translates into less energy consumption and lower deployment and operating expenses.

By eliminating the need for layers of aggregation switches, which cuts the thousands of kilowatt-hours used by the power and cooling systems that go along with them, an enterprise can achieve, depending upon the network design, as much as an 80 percent reduction in power costs. At the end of the day, a passive optical LAN might

use only 1 kWh for every 5 kWh a traditional LAN uses. Multiply that by thousands of users and the cost per kWh, and the difference is substantial.

Let’s look at a larger enterprise situation. Consider an office building with 2,000 employees. A traditional LAN would require 18 7-foot-tall equipment racks with 90 rack units of space. A passive optical LAN, on the other hand, can accommodate up to 7,000 employees using only one equipment rack with nine rack units. In other words, what used to fill up multiple communications closets may now require none at all, allowing enterprises to reduce operating expenses by cutting overhead costs such as rent and HVAC. It also equates to fewer things to manage, maintain and worry about.

Security is also better with a passive optical LAN. A typical copper Ethernet LAN emits electromagnetic signals that can be intercepted by hackers. A

passive optical LAN does not, and it also supports security mechanisms such as AES (advanced encryption standard) 128-bit encryption.

“We had to move our data closet to a different location in the building. AWS Communications and 3M worked together to help us upgrade our network using passive fiber optic networking. We gained much more capacity for future use at about the same cost as replacing the old copper cabling. We are very happy with the results,” says Lisa Hill, executive director of the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. v

As the business development manager for premises networks in the 3M Communication Markets Division, Ryland Marek drives the global business development efforts for 3M’s passive optical LAN solutions portfolio. Find out more at www.3M.com/telecom.

Mark Your Calendars!

April 5 – 7, 2016Renaissance Hotel – Austin, Texas





http://www.3m.com/telecom



TECHNOLOGY

Powered Fiber Cable Adds Value to FTTH Networks Powered fiber cables and PoE Extender technology open up new revenue streams for FTTH providers by enabling them to support such outdoor devices as surveillance cameras and Wi-Fi access points.

By Ryan Chappell / TE Connectivity

Operators of FTTH networks are looking beyond adding broadband subscribers to find new sources of

revenue to better monetize their investments. One promising way to add revenue to an FTTH network is by deploying an outdoor network of Wi-Fi access points (APs) or HD video cameras and leasing access to these assets to entities such as municipalities, police departments, fire departments, homeowners associations or security firms. A powered fiber cable system, along with Power over Ethernet (PoE) Extender technology, can overcome power and protocol challenges to simplify the addition of Wi-Fi APs and HD video cameras to an FTTH network.

WI-FI AND VIDEO SURVEILLANCE ARE HOTVideo surveillance and Wi-Fi hotspots are both rapidly growing applications. According to Transparency Market Research, the global video surveillance market is slated to grow at an 18.1 percent CAGR from 2014 to 2020, and sales will increase from $14.98 billion in 2013 to $43.82 billion by the end of 2020. The drivers for this growth are an increased desire for security as well as rapidly declining costs for video cameras, which can now be purchased for as little as $80 each.

In the Wi-Fi space, municipalities’ desire for ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage as well as cellular carriers’ need to offload mobile network traffic

is driving growth. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global Wi-Fi market to grow from $12.89 billion in 2014 to $26.19 billion by 2019. In terms of regions, North America is expected to be the largest market; Asia Pacific and Latin America are expected to experience increased market traction during the forecast period.

Though leasing access to FTTH networks for Wi-Fi and video surveillance is a good strategy for FTTH network operators, it poses challenges. Wi-Fi APs and HD video cameras require power as well as data connections, and these are not easy to establish in outdoor networks based on GPON technology.

THE CHALLENGES: POWER AND PROTOCOL Access to power is the first challenge in adding devices to an FTTH network. The traditional method of getting power is to tie into local 120VAC power at the device location or to use PoE fed by the optical network terminal (ONT) inside a customer’s office or residence (assuming the installed ONT offers PoE output and has this port available). Video cameras and Wi-Fi APs, however, are placed in outdoor areas, so it’s not always feasible to use power from customer ONTs. That leaves local power as the primary option.

In any setting, HD video cameras or Wi-Fi APs must be placed in specific locations to perform as needed, but there may be no power


source near these locations, or accessing that power may be problematic. For example, a network operator that seeks to mount cameras or APs on powered light poles would have to negotiate with the utility company to get access to that power – a process that can take months and eat into the revenue the operator expects to receive from implementing the service. Some utilities may require operators to install expensive power meters to track power consumption and then require periodic payments based on individual meter readings. Alternatively, an operator may want to put a camera on the side of a building but then would have to negotiate with the building owner for power.

In any case, connecting to AC power requires an electrician to make the connection, which complicates the installation and adds time. 120VAC circuits may generally not be installed in the same conduits as communications cables because of electrical safety issues, so typically an AC connection must be installed in a separate conduit, adding expense and right-of-way issues into the mix.

A configuration must usually then be custom engineered for converting AC to DC power, providing proper electrical protection for the outdoor environment, converting media properly (to GPON for most FTTx networks), connecting to the optical fiber network and building ruggedized housing to install this equipment.

PoE is a highly useful way of connecting and powering network devices such as HD video cameras and Wi-Fi APs. Because PoE functions within the low-voltage NEC Class 2 electrical code, PoE cables may be routed with other communications cables. However, the 100-meter maximum reach of PoE limits its applications. Some solutions exist to extend PoE marginally, but any real solution must bring power precisely where it is needed, even over considerable distances (up to a mile or more).

Converting the GPON protocol to PoE is the second challenge. Even if local power is available, the FTTH network’s optical signal must be

converted to an electrical PoE signal to power and communicate with cameras and Wi-Fi hotspots. A media converter usually handles this function, but media converters are bulky and not typically ruggedized for outdoor use.

POWERED FIBER CABLE AND POE EXTENDERSA powered fiber cable combines single- or multimode fiber with copper power conductors. The cable system includes a rack-mounted power and optical fiber termination point, the cable and a remote termination node for each device that plugs into the cable. (See Figure 1.)

The system functions on low-voltage DC within the NEC Class 2 electrical code, so the network operator needn’t have an electrician install connections at the remote sites. Staying within NEC Class 2 also allows the cables to be routed as any communications cable – no extra conduit runs are required as needed in typical Class 1 (120VAC) circuits. In short, a powered fiber cable system allows a network operator to

Figure 1: A powered fiber cable system


TECHNOLOGY

find a single power source and network connection and then extend that power and communication safely via hybrid optical/copper cable to all devices that need it.

The other part of the solution is called a PoE Extender. This small device connects to the end of a GPON network fiber and converts the signal to PoE for use with a video camera or an AP (Figure 2). Vendors that make optoelectronics for GPON networks have developed and offer GPON small form factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver modules, which an operator can plug into PoE Extenders to convert signals from GPON to Ethernet.

In the past, for low-voltage DC power transmission systems, electrical engineers and electricians had to calculate the voltage drop based on the power that devices drew and then size electrical conductors in cables based on that voltage drop. A PoE Extender eliminates this task because it automatically regulates voltage to a proper output at all distances up to its maximum range.

PoE Extenders include electrical protection against lightning strikes (gas discharge tubes handle up to 40k amp surges), accidental grounding (metal oxide varistors handle up to 4.5k amp surges), cable cuts, voltage surges due to AC line cross and other sources of interference. The electrical smoothing circuit “cleans” the power signal to correct for electromagnetic interference from sources such as nearby AC transformers, cell phone towers and radio towers over the long distance of the hybrid cable so that the power output to the camera or Wi-Fi AP is very stable. This power conditioning should improve device performance and add to device longevity by reducing heat due to electrical noise. Clean power input helps network devices perform more efficiently.

Together, a PoE Extender and a powered fiber cable make it possible to carry PoE for distances up to 3,000 meters. This capability overcomes the standard PoE distance limitation and makes it possible to power outdoor devices at an office park, a multifamily development or another venue.

DEPLOYMENTPowered fiber cable does not replace the fiber in an FTTH deployment. Rather, it is used to tie into the FTTH network at a location where there is a power source (such as at the optical line terminal, or OLT) and extend power and connectivity to HD cameras and Wi-Fi APs. This allows an installer to tap into just one power source to power dozens of PoE devices.

At a golf course in south Florida, for example, the owners wanted to deploy 36 video cameras to cover the holes on the course. The farthest camera was 10,700 feet from the power source. Using powered fiber cable, the contractor was able to design a system that was $142,000 (14.5 percent) less expensive than running individual power and connectivity cables to each camera.

CONCLUSIONFTTH providers want to get more financial leverage out of their networks, and leasing access to HD video cameras or Wi-Fi APs is a good way to do that. Powered fiber cable and PoE extenders enable this monetization strategy by

• Extending PoE and connectivity to the precise location of each HD camera or Wi-Fi AP, wherever it needs to be for optimum performance

• Simplifying up-front network planning

• Converting GPON to PoE• Eliminating the need for complex,

time-consuming negotiations over local power sources

• Enabling low-cost labor by reducing the need for qualified electricians to install the system

• Reducing the cost to deploy PoE devices, thereby improving the business model. v

Ryan Chappell is global business development manager, optical cabling, at TE Connectivity. He has experience in research and development, engineering, marketing, and sales of optical cable, optical fiber and other components of optical cable systems. Figure 2: A PoE Extender converts GPON signals to PoE and can extend PoE up to 3,000 meters.

Powered fiber cable extends, rather than replaces, network fiber.




Supercharge ROI With GISGeographic information systems aren’t just for network design anymore. Fiber-to-the-home deployers are using GIS to derive important insights and maximize return on investment.

By Tom Brooks / Mapcom Systems

How can you achieve a greater return on investment (ROI) from your FTTH network? One way is to use geographic

information system (GIS) software – specifically an integrated visual operations system – to combine demographic data and automated design tools. Using GIS software consolidates data and streamlines operations, improving response times for communications service providers (CSPs) and ensuring consistent service delivery.

A key to increasing ROI while limiting risk is to combine tactical sales strategies with smart engineering. Both sales and engineering depend on accurate, reusable data, which GIS software can help provide.

Sales and marketing teams use three steps to efficiently target customers:

1. Collect demographic data.2. Qualify locations by consulting a GIS map.3. For any location, determine whether a drop

is present and the FTTH system has enough capacity to support a potential customer.

This process is much simpler when sales engineers can leverage existing, georeferenced plant information.

Thanks to integrated, georeferenced information, sales engineers can handle what-if or on-the-fly scenarios. Accessible data generates more accurate ROI estimates and more efficient turnaround on large projects. Recycling data already collected means no wasted effort, time or resources from repeat data entry.

THE ODD COUPLEEngineering and marketing – an odd couple – need to join together. Data should flow between engineering’s prebuild processes and marketing’s postbuild processes. This allows prebuild planners to evaluate service areas by performing a spatial analysis of existing customers versus noncustomers and visualizing qualified customers in a potential build area.

Using plant information stored in a GIS database allows quick generation of build estimates. Marketing teams can then move faster than their competitors to launch in areas first or with better targeting strategies. The benefit of joining this odd couple is more confidence in knowing how much builds will cost and their ROI.

By pairing the odd couple, CSPs address the challenges that arise from duplicating or repeating efforts in multiple departments. When the odd couple works from the same GIS system, they can combine the data sets particular to their functions for greater effect. Demographic data about resident income levels and lifestyles can be overlaid with open plant capacity. Buildouts to business premises can be estimated and overlaid

Data should flow between engineering’s prebuild processes and marketing’s postbuild processes.

TECHNOLOGY


TECHNOLOGY

with business size, type and revenue data. Historical network troubles can be georeferenced over existing service area take rates. When engineering staff need data from the marketing domain or marketing staff need data from the engineering domain, they can go straight to the GIS and get what they need. This can save significant amounts of time, eliminate the duplication of efforts and ensure more accuracy in whatever function is performed.

Most CSPs have a GIS capable of importing demographic data, and a great place to start to bring in data is www.census.gov. There is a large amount of free census data for CSPs to bring in and visualize with their existing and planned builds.

The next step is to focus on a particular service area. Is there an area that has open capacity and qualified customers and that is relatively inexpensive to deliver service to? Visualizing the existing access points allows the marketing team to target the most profitable prospects.

To determine the profitability of a prospect, a marketing team needs to know the cost of serving that prospect.

This is where automated design tools in the GIS come into play. Without involving engineers, marketing staffers can use these tools to generate a quick estimate of the costs to serve a prospect or an area. The engineering department saves time by configuring the system with construction estimates and existing facilities. Bringing everything into one system prevents departments from repeating the efforts of other departments.

Duplicating work is a huge detriment to efficient operations. It wastes time and introduces the risk of inaccuracy. If the second work results differ from the first, which are correct?

In CSPs, different divisions specialize in certain aspects of business operations. When one department duplicates the work of another department, the repeated process is likely to take longer and be less accurate, as the result will be based on data that is not as timely. One way to mitigate this problem is to provide access to the systems a department uses for its data collection to other areas of the organization, but this duplicates work in other ways. For example, it

requires training departments to use multiple systems they will not interact with regularly – and when they do access those systems, they will be slow to extract the data and information they need.

Still, the marketing team needs outside plant, capacity and service availability information, and sales engineering needs to know where prospects, campaigns and high-value customers are in reference to the infrastructure.

CUSTOMIZED INTERFACESThe solution is for each department to have access to the other’s information through a common system with customized interfaces. A GIS should be able to store all a CSP’s records about infrastructure, service area demographics, billing and customer relationship management (CRM). Horizon Network Partners, a southern Ohio telecommunications company, utilized these ideas when completing a three-year-long fiber installation that brought gigabit-speed Internet to Appalachian communities. Having provided service for more than 120 years, Horizon Network Partners capitalized on its previous buildout experience, bringing together fiber management, network equipment management, circuit management, workforce management and CRM for presales processes into one visually powerful GIS.

Like Horizon Network Partners, other CSPs should store all their valuable data in one system. Once the data is in that GIS, each division can visualize or report on that data in the manner that best suits its workflows. For engineering, that could be a report of prospects and the nearest access location for each, with an estimated cost to provide service. For marketing, it might be an open capacity report with service take rates for a service area to aid in campaign planning.

The GIS handles the important integration work, which allows each division to use its current systems and visualize data in the best manner for its processes. Automated design tools

Sales teams can win business by prequalifying targets and creating on-the-spot solutions.


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take things to another level; they allow marketing to react to market conditions without engaging or depending on engineering. Because the work is done in a central GIS, engineers can see the results of the design work and tweak it to match the actual design specifications and build process. The automated design tools save engineers time by not involving them in the sales quotation process while still adhering to buildout best practices.

When demographic, plant, customer and prospect data are all housed in a GIS, a team can prequalify service areas. The marketing department can project take rates for different campaigns given income levels and lifestyle habits. It can prequalify business prospects based on location, number of employees and revenue or examine current service areas for trends that can be used elsewhere or to see why take rates are not as high as expected.

As the engineering department builds and upgrades plant, marketing and sales can see newly qualified prospects emerge in real time. And as sales and marketing create build estimates for prospects, engineering can leverage that work for staking sheets and work orders.

The engineering department can benefit in other ways, too. With access to prospects, demographics and customer data, engineering can begin to plan the best way to expand service area and capacity. If some prospects emerge in close proximity to one another, engineering may be able to take advantage of that opportunity. If a capital project is underway in an area, engineering can lay conduit for future outside plant. Being freed from having to produce sales estimates will give engineers more time for prioritizing and executing corporate growth strategies.

The key takeaway for CSPs is

to find a way to centralize data and distribute it the way each department needs to see it. A second tip is to visualize demographic, plant, customer and prospect data into the existing workflows of the various departments. When each department has a good picture of what is going on in other departments, the entire CSP can coordinate actions and move faster.

Nearly every aspect of a CSP’s business can be georeferenced, and using georeferenced data in a GIS to coordinate workflows among departments will pay massive dividends. v

Tom Brooks is director of product solutions at Mapcom Systems, whose M4 Solutions Suite has helped more than 180 communications service providers manage their networks and workforces. Contact Tom at [email protected].




FTTH CONFERENCE

Cheaper Fiber Deployments – And More of ThemAttendees at the FTTH Council Americas annual conference heard about surging deployment around the world and how to cut costs at home.

By Steven S. Ross / Broadband Communities

Attendees at the annual Fiber to the Home Council conference in Anaheim this summer feasted on cost-cutting

deployment technologies, better business cases and the news that fiber is making big inroads in Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Market researcher Michael Render’s new survey of 2,150 broadband consumers presented plenty of good news for FTTH deployers along with some caveats. Most important, the U.S. take

rate for FTTH is now 47 percent. Though only 29 percent of consumers are aware of the term “fiber to the home,” 84 percent are familiar with the concept of “fiber optic Internet.”

The term “gigabit Internet” is also familiar to some consumers (14 percent), and though gigabit service is price elastic – customers won’t buy it if the price premium over good FTTH service, typically in the 25–100 Mbps range, is too high – offering gigabit service provides a halo effect that makes marketing other bandwidth tiers easier. Consumers know that gigabit service is there if they eventually need it.

Render said consumers are now spending six hours a day online, up a bit in the last year. Even smartphones are often connected to home Wi-Fi.

Reliability is as important as speed to customers, Render said. He noted that providers rate reliability higher than any other goal, but they do not believe consumers rate reliability and latency as highly as they actually do. Render added that fiber is so reliable and produces such high consumer satisfaction that no-contract FTTH services are attractive even though consumers’ overall satisfaction with telephone companies has been declining.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCENERoland Montagne, market analyst for telecom at the European consultancy IDATE, was bullish on Latin American and European deployments. For Latin America, he listed 75 fiber-to-

0.2%

0.2%

0.8%

1.2%

2.3%

6%

9%

18%

34%

58%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

$100

$90

$80

$70

$60

$50

$40

$30

$20

$10

Percent of consumers who choose gigabit service versus price premium

over next-lowest broadband tier

Source: RVA, spring 2015consumer survey

Even a small price premium for gigabit service is a barrier to consumer uptake.


the-building (FTTB) and FTTH deployments by 58 providers. Most fiber customers are served by FTTH; only 9 percent of access is through FTTB. More than 85 percent of households and businesses in Barbados and Uruguay have access to fiber, he said. In Mexico, the number is 17 percent, not far below the United States, where 20 percent of homes (24.5 million) are passed with fiber.

In terms of technology, GPON dominates Latin America; 97 percent of ports are GPON and only 3 percent EPON. Take rates are generally low, however, and marketing emphasizes entertainment downloads. Upload speeds are not heavily promoted.

Montagne reported that 2014 marked huge successes for fiber in Europe, and homes passed increased to about 50 million. The number of homes passed is an uncertain statistic when many of the homes are in MDUs because gaining permission to deliver fiber to individual units may be difficult or impossible. However, Hartwig Tauber, director general of the FTTH Council Europe, added that the EU-28 nations had 12.3 million FTTH/B subscribers by the end of 2014, up from only 8 million at the end of 2013.

Tauber noted that the numbers do not include large FTTB deployments in Russia, which is not an EU nation, and that Germany and the U.K. have less than 1 percent fiber adoption. BT, the British incumbent telecom, aims to serve broadband through G.fast on loops as long as 300 meters. Deutsche Telekom’s plans center on using a VDSL variant, 35b.

Tauber stated that it would take $210 billion to deploy fiber broadband to every building in Europe. The total is less than the $240 billion the EU loaned to Greece (and which is unlikely to be repaid).

Christine Beylouni, director general of the FTTH Council MENA (Middle East North Africa), said that every day, 154 km of new fiber is deployed in Africa. The total has more than doubled in the past five years.

VALUE OF FTTH The FTTH Council Americas released a study it had commissioned that confirmed Michael Render’s earlier estimates of FTTH’s effect on housing values. Render’s conclusion, based on consumer surveys, has consistently

shown that fiber broadband adds value to dwelling units. His spring 2015 survey suggested an increase of 2.4 percent in value for a $300,000 home and 2.8 percent for a $200,000 home.

The FTTH Council survey, using a different methodology, found that

ADVICE FOR DEPLOYING FIBER IN MULTIFAMIILY HOUSING

Michael Weston, executive director, Verizon Enhanced Communities: Identify the true owner of the building or the real decision-maker. In New York City, tracking down the true owner is not easy!

Barry Walton, formerly with Bell Aliant, now consulting for Magellan Advisors: Buildings are all unique. Determine building characteristics, design options and design decisions; communicate with customers and residents and only then write the implementation plan. The plan should cover getting fiber into the building, customer security and privacy.

Walton: Think creatively. One pathway to housing units is from the garbage chute room typically on each floor. If there is room, the hub box could be on mid-floor rather than in the basement.

Walton: Take lots of pictures for the designers back in the office.

Andre Kriger, FTTH Director, Telefonica Vivo Brazil: Do a lot of leafletting. Wine and cheese parties didn’t increase penetration for us.

Kriger: Clear up customer complaints before you try to sell more customers.

Weston: When we first started to install, property owners were nervous about where the demark was and whether they could ever do away with us. FTTB ultimately topped out, so we’re retrofitting 250,000 units in older deployments.

Weston: Owners with large property portfolios are nice because they have more experience and more business potential, but they are tougher to negotiate with.

Weston: Key negotiating issues include aesthetics, tenant inconvenience, special considerations for specific tenants or owners, and impact on the existing provider.

Walton: Try to wire everything; fiber the apartments along with the building because piecemealing is more costly.

Weston: Bulk service is growing. Bulk business has doubled recently for Verizon, but it’s still well under 10 percent.

Weston: Marketing agreements, done right, are great. But we have them for only half our MDU builds.

Kriger: When you get close to capacity on fusion splice boxes, there’s a bigger chance that splices will break.

Weston: Gamers want low latency, so wireless is unsatisfactory for them.

Kriger: Wi-Fi issues account for 20 percent of trouble calls.


FTTH CONFERENCE fiber added 3.5 percent to home prices. The conclusion was based on 500,000 home sales during fall 2014 in 14 communities. The median home sales price was $175,000.

SDN VISIONKurt Raaflaub, senior product marketing manager at ADTRAN, described the imperative for software-defined networks (SDN) in stark terms. With the growth in bandwidth demand, how does a provider add capacity where needed – to a new factory or commercial center, for instance – without laying down a new network spur? In theory, fiber and Ethernet should make the task easy. A provider can write a few scripts to control routers and switches, physically reconfigure a local distribution hub or two and maybe run a cable from the nearest trunk into the new building. However, these are tasks for specialized network engineers. What happens if the provider doesn’t have enough fiber capacity in that part of the network?

Raaflaub noted that wavelength-routed PON is very efficient but not very agile. Instead, his solution is wave-selected PON, which allows every user to get any wavelength on a fiber. In many cases, this allows providers to increase bandwidth without touching the physical network at all – a few keystrokes provision the new customer.

This is one reason many network designers and vendors are so excited about SDN. It allows service segregation (a bank could have its own wavelength), capacity expansion (add a channel), dynamic load balancing (rogue detection and mitigation), energy efficiency, even easier OLT maintenance.

The next year should bring much NG-PON2 hardware, which will allow providers to more comfortably serve businesses and residences on the same fiber line. Providers can also phase in expensive wave-division multiplexing (WDM) and even more expensive wavelength-

tunable lasers to specific customers by overlaying even single P2P fiber. The expense is real but still cheaper than laying new fiber. Emerging SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) tools should make management of the extra electronics easier as well. v

Editor-at-large Steve Ross can be reached at [email protected].

Clearfield’s high-density pedestal uses one of its standard cassettes. This technician-friendly Clearview Black has an integral splicing tray and a jig that makes it easy to splice individual round fibers to a single ribbon cable.

The Clearfield Makwa hub – perhaps the industry’s most compact – uses a new high-density tray.

Photos From the Expo FloorExhibitors at the FTTH Conference showed new products that save space, time and power in fiber deployments.


From outside plant to inside – just strip off the outer protective coat of this 3M fiber when you pull the fiber inside, then attach it to a wall – or anything else – with the new Clear Track Fiber Pathway. The flexible, almost invisible trackway has an adhesive base, and fiber can be pressed between its two rows of nubbled fingers. The fiber can easily be peeled away from the trackway if needed, but the track itself stays attached permanently. 3M has a new roller tool to assist technicians in placing the fiber (only 0.9 mm diameter). This picture shows a prototype of the tool; the final product has a narrower flange that lets it get right up against moldings or adjacent surfaces at corners or ceilings.

3M’s small Fibrlok integrated network interface box can accept new inside-outside plant fiber – the fiber passes through to inside the premises without splicing, if the deployer desires. Many fiber vendors are thinking the same way. OFS and Corning were among those that showed small-scale, technician-friendly boxes, fibers and raceways.

Just 7.5 watts will power this compact RFoG node from PCT International.

This 3M cassette is layered, with an extra mezzanine to store fiber. Layering is becoming a common feature. TE and Clearfield showed well-thought-out cassettes as well.




BROADBAND COMMUNITIES MARKETPLACE

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ADVERTISER INDEX / CALENDAR

SEPTEMBER15 – 18Community Fiber NetworksBroadBand Communities Economic Development ConferenceHilton Lexington/DowntownLexington, KY877-588-1649 • www.bbcmag.com

28 – 30NMHC Student Housing Conference & ExpositionArizona Biltmore • Phoenix, AZ202-974-2300 • www.nmhc.org

29 – Oct 1ECOC 2015European Conference on Optical CommunicationValencia, Spain+ 33 (0) 169 81 6574www.ecoc2015.org

OCTOBER13 – 16SCTE Cable-Tec ExpoNew Orleans, LA800-542-5040 • www.expo.scte.org

NOVEMBER17 – 19NMHC OpTech Hyatt Regency • Chicago, IL703-518-6141 • www.naahq.org

FEBRUARY 201616 – 17NAA Student Housing Conference & ExpositionHilton San Diego BayfrontSan Diego, CA202-974-2300 • www.nmhc.org

APRIL 20165 – 7BroadBand Communities SummitRenaissance Hotel • Austin, TX877-588-1649 • www.bbcmag.com

ADVERTISER PAGE WEBSITE

AT&T 74 www.att.com/commumities

BroadBand Communities Summit Outside Front Cover Flap – 1, 41, 45, 57, 63, 74 www.bbcmag.com

BHC Rhodes 74 www.ibhc.com

Calix 5, 58 www.calix.com/gigabit

Charles Industries 53, 58 www.charlesindustries.com

Clearfield, Inc. 61, 58, 74 www.seeclearfield.com

Corning 59, Back Cover http://opcomm.corning.com/ CentrixBuzz

COS Systems 59, 69 www.cossystems.com/ service-zones

DrayTek 29, 59 www.draytek.com

ex2 Technology 59, Inside Back Cover www.ex2technology.com

GLDS 42, 60 www.glds.com

Maxcell 7, 60 www.maxcell.us

Power & Tel 74 www.ptsupply.com

S&N Communications 35, 60 www.sncomm.com

Smart Communications 9, 60 www.smartcommsys.com


THE GIGABIT HIGHWAY

Making Broadband WorkThe federal government can do more to increase broadband investment and adoption.

By Heather Burnett Gold / FTTH Council Americas

In January, President Obama traveled to Cedar Falls, Iowa, to deliver a message: He intends his administration to be a catalyst in delivering “broadband that works.”

This was the next step in furthering his commitment to “help[ing] folks build the fastest networks so the next generation of digital innovators and entrepreneurs have the platform to keep reshaping our world.” The president chose Cedar Falls – a fiber-to-the-home community – as an example of a place where broadband “works.”

Making good on his promise, the president set up a multiagency council – the Broadband Opportunity Council (BOC) – to increase broadband investment and adoption. The BOC’s charge: come up with steps its 25 agencies can take to advance those goals. The president asked for regulatory actions or budget proposals within 150 days.

The BOC sought comments from industry and other stakeholders, and the FTTH Council was pleased to share its recommendations. Council comments were guided by the belief that to get better broadband everywhere, the federal government must promote comprehensive strategies to lower regulatory barriers and facilitate all-fiber network builds.

A pressing concern is that providers and communities have no single, easy-to-use source of information on how to access federal funds, obtain necessary permits and adopt successful strategies to deploy broadband infrastructure. This administration has made notable progress in investigating ways to streamline the federal permitting and review process, but it has been two years since a federal entity last issued a progress report. In addition, little comprehensive information exists in one place about how to plan a deployment.

Providers spend a lot of time and resources to get basic information about project development. This means some potential deployments are delayed or abandoned because the planning process is prohibitively expensive. To remedy this problem, the FTTH Council recommended (1) an online broadband deployment handbook and (2) an interagency broadband deployment consulting service.

A one-stop shop for prospective broadband projects should include the following:

• A road map for accessing federal funding. The handbook should include an easy-to-use road map of all federal resources available for funding a broadband infrastructure deployment, from developing feasibility plans through constructing a network. The FTTH Council

developed a similar guide as part of its Community Toolkit, which provides communities with information about federal funding that can be used to deploy all-fiber networks. But in developing its guide, the council faced significant challenges in trying to compile the information and ensure that it was complete and up-to-date.

• Clear permitting instructions. The handbook should have clear instructions to guide providers and communities through the permitting process for access to federal assets, such as poles, ducts, conduits and other rights of way.

• A more complete broadband map. The handbook should include a more complete national broadband map that providers and communities can use when applying for funding or permits. This map should indicate underserved and unserved areas and highlight other federal assets that providers can use to expedite deployment, such as highway conduit and federal buildings.

• Best practices for communities. The handbook should include best practices that communities can leverage to improve the business case for all-fiber deployments. For example, Google developed a checklist to help communities gather information about existing infrastructure, assist providers with gaining access to rights of way, and facilitate permitting, construction and maintenance processes. And the FTTH Council Community Toolkit provides strategies for communities to make themselves fiber ready.

An online, one-stop shop would help overcome barriers to information. For instances in which more specific information is needed, the FTTH Council recommended the executive branch establish an interagency consultancy to assist communities and providers – particularly small entities – in understanding the federal permitting process and available federal funding sources for broadband infrastructure deployments. The council looks forward to the Broadband Opportunity Council’s report, expected in August, and to continuing to collaborate on these efforts. v

Heather Burnett Gold is president and CEO of the Fiber to the Home Council Americas, a nonprofit association whose mission is to accelerate deployment of all-fiber access networks. You can contact her at [email protected].



PRESENTATIONS WERE VERY USEFUL IN CASTING KEY BROADBAND ISSUES“The keynote presentations were very useful in casting key broadband issues in a very important global light.”

– Andrea Brown, Attorney Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (KY)

BEST CONFERENCE AND FRIENDLIEST I’VE BEEN TO IN YEARS“All the session including the actual muni broadband case studies were very useful. Best conference and friendliest I’ve been to in years.”

– Saul Tannenbaum, Community Member Cambridge Broadband Task Force (MA)

THE SCHEDULE OF GUEST SPEAKERS WAS FANTASTIC“The Broadband Communities Summit was a fantastic event. We met with lots of people interested in what SiFi Networks has to offer. The schedule of guest speakers was fantastic and the workshops very useful, we look forward to hopefully attending again next year.”

– Sara Pickstock, Marketing and Communications Director SiFi Networks

EVENT WAS PERFECT AND ENERGY WAS GREATER THAN EVER“The BBC team once again batted a homer over the fence, the event was perfect and the energy was greater than ever. The unanimous popular opinion among all participants is that BBC is by far the best organization in our field!”

– William Vallee, State Broadband Policy Coordinator State of Connecticut

NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES WERE SECOND TO NONE“A very professional effort put forth by every one of the BBC staff. The conference was outstanding, and it was extremely professional and the networking opportunities were second to none.”

– Gordon Caverly, RCDD Regional Vice President Mid-State Consultants

ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING AND REWARDING EVENTS I HAVE EVER ATTENDED“I am back from attending the Broadband Community Summit and will tell you it was one of the most exciting and rewarding events I have ever attended. I have so much to learn and attending this event has helped me tremendously in this journey. The level of education and expertise along with the common sense approach of the three track program was more than I had thought possible. I plan to ask our Governor to send someone to next year’s Summit as it is a very valuable experience.”

– Mayor Eddie Fulton, Mayor City of Quitman, MS

REAL WORLD EXPERIENCES“Real world experiences and the associated consequences – found value in all of the panelist’s commentary.”

– David Hopkins, 911 Director Southern Tier Network

Hilda LeggFormer RUS Administrator and Vice Chair, Broadband Communities

Tom WheelerChairman, Federal

Communications Commission

Eric FreeVice President, The Internet of Things Group, Intel Corp.

WAS MY FIRST TIME HERE BUT NOT MY LAST“The sessions gave great examples and covered all types of financing. Overall, this was a great conference. Was my first time here but not my last.”

– Terrie Salinas, Economic Development Director Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council (TX)

AS A FIRST TIME PARTICIPANT, THE EVENT WAS VERY IMPRESSIVE“Each speaker described their individual origins within their deployment, key positives and negatives. As a first time participant, the event was very impressive.”

– Mayor William Wescott, Mayor City of Rock Falls, IL

EXPERIENCES TO HELP MAKE MY CASE BACK HOME“The sessions were very useful – real life experiences, ideas to help make my case back home.”

– Richard Wilson, IT Director, Special Projects Walton County BCC (FL)

APRIL 5-7, 2016 • AUSTIN SUMMIT

Here’s what attendees are saying about the 2015 Summit!Make plans to attend the 2016 Summit now. April 5–7, 2016 • Renaissance Hotel - Austin • www.bbcmag.com To sponsor or exhibit: email [email protected] or call 505-867-3299

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mark calendars - · pdf file“all the session including the actual muni broadband case...

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