Municipal Networks

Otis, Massachusetts, isn’t the sort of place you expect to spend a lot of time online. For Kirsten Paulson, who lives part time in Otis, that’s all a selling point. Another major one: Her internet service is better here than at her home outside Washington (DC). That’s because the town of 1,500 people built its own network to fill in the gaps left by private providers, which don’t offer high-speed internet in Otis.

In an era where internet access is as essential as water and electricity, many residents in Los Angeles remain digitally left behind due to rising costs, poor service quality, and discrimination. This report delves into the growing movement for publicly owned internet services, highlighting successful municipal broadband for all initiatives across the nation. These initiatives have proven effective in increasing access, lowering costs, and fostering stronger community engagement.

Over $140 million in awards from the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program will expand broadband infrastructure throughout Central New York, the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Mid-Hudson, and Western New York regions. These public-private partnerships will lead to the construction of more than 1,200 miles of publicly-owned fiber optic infrastructure and wireless hubs, connecting over 60,000 homes and businesses with affordable, symmetric service — offering equal download and upload speeds at rates below regional averages.

As the federal government makes unprecedented investments to expand high-speed access to the Internet, unbeknownst to most outside the broadband industry is that nearly a third of the states in the U.S. have preemption laws in place that either prevent or restrict local municipalities from building and operating publicly-owned, locally-controlled networks.

November marks the tenth anniversary of NextLight: the municipal broadband provider for the city of Longmont, Colorado, launched in 2014 as the first municipal broadband network in the state.

Frustrated by years of substandard broadband service from regional telecommunications monopolies, Kendall County (IL) residents have joined the growing chorus of Americans that are tackling the problem head on by building their own better, faster, more affordable fiber networks. The Kendall County network, part of a public-private partnership with Pivot-Tech, is being funded by a tax-free revenue bond. Kendall County officials say that the full cost of the network, which will include private investment from Pivot-Tech, is expected to ultimately be $67 million, serving more than 13,000 locat

In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) celebrates the growing number of Tribal nations exercising digital sovereignty by building Tribally-owned broadband networks.

In 2021 Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) agreed to lead the administration’s $42 billion plan for expanding high-speed internet to millions of Americans. That year, she tweeted that “we can bring broadband to rural America today.” Today, nearly three years after Congress passed the infrastructure bill that created the program, not one home or business has been connected through it.

Fletcher Kittredge, chief strategy officer at the service provider GWI, is an expert on financing public networks with municipal revenue bonds. Whereas a general obligation bond is secured by and paid for by taxes, a municipal revenue bond is secured by and paid for by the revenue of the network.

During a meeting Wednesday, September 25, with the Cape Cod Technical Council’s infrastructure committee, a representative from Verizon stated that the company planned to build a fiber-optic internet network in seven towns on the Cape, including Falmouth (MA). This is not just fiber to neighborhood “nodes,” as Comcast currently offers, but fiber right to homes. This is called fiber-to-the-premises, or FTTP.