Tag Archive for: broadband

Why incumbent ISPs should be worried about the broadband market

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The broadband market has been rocked by a handful of major unexpected developments over the past few years, from Google suddenly stepping into the market with significantly faster broadband at much lower prices to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) removing nearly all legal barriers to municipal broadband projects.

The fallout from the FCC’s ruling is beginning to gain some steam, with a 101-city coalition called Next Century Cities aiming to smooth the path for municipalities to bring affordable, gigabit-speed broadband to their cities.

See also: Inside the bold plan to bring gigabit fiber to Detroit

While the success stories are much more well-known, such as Chattanooga, Tennessee’s long-running municipal gigabit fiber network, others have failed in spectacular fashion, like the city of Provo, Utah, whose municipal broadband project struggled before the city ultimately sold its existing fiber to Google for $ 1. This nationwide group could help provide access to information and expertise on broadband deployment to ensure the taxpayer money devoted to such a project doesn’t go to waste.

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Network World Colin Neagle

Comcast launching 2-gig broadband to trump Chattanooga’s municipal gigabit offering

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Comcast announced this morning that it will introduce 2 gigabit per second (Gbps) internet service to customers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by the end of the year, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported today.

Comcast said it will begin rolling out its Gigabit Pro service in June, and will serve about 200,000 of the area’s residents, whether they are currently Comcast customers or not, according to the report.

The service will challenge one of the most successful and well-known municipal broadband deployments in the country. The city of Chattanooga launched its fiber-optic internet service in 2008 under the city’s Electronic Power Board (EPB), eventually offering residents 1 Gbps internet speeds for $ 70 a month or 100 megabits per second (Mbps) for $ 58 per month. Before long, Chattanooga earned the nickname “Gig City,” and by 2013 those operating the EPB boasted that it had the “highest speeds in the Western hemisphere,” both on its website and in a CBS News profile.

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Network World Colin Neagle

Obama promises to promote net neutrality, broadband

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U.S. President Barack Obama promised to push for net neutrality rules and for more transparency in the government’s surveillance programs during his State of the Union address late Tuesday.

In a speech largely focused on the U.S. economy and aiding the middle class, Obama also promised to push for the deployment of next generation broadband networks, as he outlined in a preview to the State of the Union a week ago. The president has called on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to pass strong net neutrality rules and to roll back state limits on municipal broadband projects.

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Network World Security

Google, Yahoo fighting on both sides of municipal broadband debate

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Last week the Internet Association submitted an official statement (PDF) urging the Federal Communications Commission to intervene in proposed state-level laws that seek to prohibit municipalities from deploying and maintaining their own broadband networks.

The Internet Association is essentially a lobbying organization that says it is “dedicated to advancing public policy solutions to strengthen and protect internet freedom, foster innovation and economic growth and empower users.” It supports net neutrality, patent reforms that could eradicate patent trolls, and the protection of privacy of internet users, among many other causes in the technology industry. The group boasts a long list of very high-profile technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Reddit, and PayPal.  

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Network World Colin Neagle