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Note: Despite many common misconceptions, Vermont actually is a state in the USA. Given the Vermont's headway and success in municipal broadband projects, other states would do well to take a closer look.

from: Burlington Free Press

Rural Towns Bundling a Blueprint for Broadband

Note: An older post, but worth revisiting given the recent interest in ConnectKy.

from: The Red, Blue and Green

Friday, December 21, 2007
ConnectKentucky should get lump of coal

This is a subject I first addressed a few weeks ago but it continues to deserve our attention. The background is that this organization, whose members are generally the big, rich, telephone companies and privately owned cable companies, ConnectKentucky, is hanging around our state legislature looking to siphon off our tax revenues for their own selfish purposes. They have been quite successful at this in the past. During the last couple of legislative sessions they have already been successful in getting millions of our tax dollars by claiming that they have a magic potion that results in more broadband facilities being built for the people of Kentucky.

Note: An older post, but worth revisiting given the recent interest in ConnectKy.

from: The Red, Blue and Green

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
ConnectKentucky Wants Your Tax Dollars

This is sort of a "rerun" post. I first commented on this topic back in August when I was first experimenting with the creation of this site. However, now it is on the front burner again because ConnectKentucky is trying to ram a piece of legislation through the next session of the Kentucky Legislature aimed at further enriching some of its members.

from: DrewClark.com

Connect Kentucky Article Raises Bell Lobby Specter
January 17th, 2008 By Drew Clark

Art Brodsky’s 4,789-word article about Connect Kentucky and its offspring Connected Nation has been the talk of telecom circles over the past week.

from: Lawerncian.com

Municipal WiFi Provider Forces Local Monopoly to Offer Free Broadband Service

Written by Matt Del Vecchio
Jan 11, 2008 at 09:32 AM

In an environment where troubled municipal Wi-Fi projects are showing up on front pages around the nation, a municipal Wi-Fi project in Lawrence, Kansas is using Wi-Fi to give one of the nation’s most dominant media companies a run for its money.

from: Broadband Reports (see comments section to this article)

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT: Rebutting Misrepresentations and Inaccuracies from Art Brodsky’s Recent Post Regarding ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation

Note: Connect Kentucky has been something of the poster child for public/private broadband initiatives but there has been little critical analysis of it's past record. You know there is something up when the telcos, politicians and the CWA all support the same model - yet solid criticism has been hard to find. Now, Art Brodsky of Pubic Knowledge gives a thorough and long overdue look at ConnectKy's record and past.

from: Gotham Gazette

Expanding Wi-Fi Beyond Manhattan
by Joshua Breitbart
08 Jan 2008

Municipal wireless may be struggling in other cities, but New York City's Wi-Fi cloud is growing steadily. In addition to the fee-based access points in Starbucks, McDonald's and other venues, various civic groups continue to deploy wireless hotspots in parks, apartment buildings and lower-income neighborhoods. Late last year, CBS announced it would start offering an advertising-supported wireless Internet service in a tourist-heavy swath of Midtown. But there are many steps the city could take to promote these efforts, especially as it works to promote Internet access across the five boroughs.

from: chattanoogan.com

Tennessee Getting Wired For The Future

by Drew Ruble
posted November 4, 2007

The last thing a person would expect to find after pushing through the solid brass doors of the nearly Century-old neoclassical Giles County courthouse on the historic downtown Pulaski square is a high tech communications nerve center resembling something out of a futuristic Hollywood movie. But inside, beneath the contemporary offices of “PES Energize,” the telecommunications services arm of local utility Pulaski Electric Service, which is headquartered there, lies a state-of-the-art data center housed within a tornado-proof bunker with fully redundant systems ready to support any size off-site data storage need. It’s also the focal point of a publicly-owned and operated $8.2 million fiber-optic network providing high speed Internet access and other telecom services through pieces of glass cable weaving like a piece of spaghetti to every home, business, factory and school in Pulaski, population 7,875.

from: IP Business Magazine

Fiber's Open Spaces

By Martin Vilaboy

There may be up to 360 providers currently offering fiber to the home in the U.S., but Verizon, it’s estimated, accounts for about two thirds of the 2.14 million U.S homes now connected to fiber. It’s safe to assume, however, that not many of the homes Verizon is passing reside in rural areas, as suburban and urban regions with higher concentrations of office locations are likely to produce lower hanging fruit.