Madison (WI) tests Public-Private Partnerships to Reduce Its Digital Divide

Over the next two years, the City of Madison (WI) will invest $500,000 in general obligation capital funds to experiment with a creative public private partnership to bring fiber-to-the-building services to more than 1,000 underserved families. Madison has been attacking the community’s digital divide from an anchor institution angle for years and using public-private partnerships to get there.

"[Broadband Technology Opportunities Program] layed the framework,” said Richard Beadles, Technical Services Manager for the city. Mayor Paul Soglin made digital equity a priority five years ago, and the City won a $10 million BTOP grant to build a fiber middle mile network to connect its municipal buildings and libraries, higher education, schools and other municipalities in the area. The new Metropolitan Unified Fiber Network (MUFN) was born. In exchange for using part of the network for commercial services, a company called Wisconsin Independent Network (WIN) connected all the schools and the 14 community centers to fiber and gave them free 100 Mbps symmetrical service. A non-profit called DANEnet managed the network and data communications for those community centers. Then two years ago, the City budgeted and fiber connected another 10 cultural centers. WIN was required to provide free Internet service to the centers by contract and worked with ResTech Services to provide 100 Mbps service at no cost.