News

The Community Broadband Networks Initiative is only one of several research areas at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. It’s common for people who follow the work of one initiative to find overlapping interests in other initiatives at ILSR.

In the U.S., Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel times of the year. Families and friends come together to catch up, to eat tons of food, and to appreciate their good fortune. It's a time to count our blessings and laugh at a few of the characters common to every family. This year, we've imagined some of those characters at Thanksgiving Dinner in the world of telecom...

Ninety miles west of Boston, the small town of South Hadley, Massachusetts, will soon have a new, municipal option for Internet access.

California

Resilient rural communities built on upgraded infrastructure, faster broadband for all by Kevin Cann, California Economic Summit

As LUS Fiber approaches it’s 10th anniversary of bringing fast, affordable, reliable connectivity to the community, there’s a growing interest in their story. We’ve spoken with Terry Huval about the network that beat back the incumbents determined to see it fall.

Hartford, Connecticut, was abuzz in early November with policy and tech experts discussing the connectivity situation there and in the region. If you weren’t able to attend, or didn’t have the chance to stream it live, you can now watch video from the event.

Internet service in Marshall was slow, so the city built its own fiber-optic network

The Battle Creek Enquirer interviewed Christopher Mitchell, director of ILSR's Community Broadband Initiative, as part of a story on the new municipa

Earlier this summer, we talked with Jase Wilson and Lindsey Brannon from Neighborly, the investment firm that uses online investing to allow individuals to invest in publicly owned infrastructure projects, including broadband networks.

This past summer, a group of Portlanders with digital equity as a primary goal, launched Municipal Broadband PDX.

Until November 6th, community leaders in Loveland, Colorado, vacillated between whether or not to hold a referendum for final voter approval on a muni project. Asking voters to make the final call can remove political uncertainty, but there are times when elected officials have to make the call themselves.

California

Why San Jose kids do homework in parking lots by Sam Liccardo, New York Times

There’s more than skiing stirring up Breckenridge, Colorado, this winter. Recently, the city released their Request for Interest (RFI) as they search for ISPs interested in delivering services via their future publicly owned fiber network. Responses are due November 26th, 2018.

For many rural Americans, the local electric or telephone cooperative is their best hope for finally obtaining modern-day connectivity.

If you couldn’t make it to Hartford, Connecticut, don’t despair! The good people at Next Century Cities and the Office of Consumer Counsel have got you covered. They’ve set up a live link so you can watch all the great panel discussions and presentations from the Connected New England event.

The march toward reclaiming local telecommunications authority throughout Colorado continued yesterday as eighteen more communities opted out of restrictive SB 152. As in prior years, voters passed referendums with high majorities in every contest.

Halloween is less than a week away, but our horrifying tale of customer service terror is quickly turning into science fiction in which we are caught in an never-ending loop bending time and space. Time for a quick update.

California

In San Leandro, we are building on public broadband investment for a brighter future by Corina Lopez, National League of Cities

We knew that Longmonters loved their publicly owned network, but recent numbers show how many of them have shunned incumbents to switch. More than half of the market in Longmont has now signed up with NextLight.