Fiber

Powered by Utility Fiber, Public-Private Partners in Springfield, Missouri, Now Offer Gigabit Services to Residents

Published

3 years ago

October 12, 2020

Screenshot of panelists from the webinar

October 12, 2020 — How should one go about building a gigabit city? Act quickly, be strategic and work in partnership with the private sector.

That was the conclusion of panelists speaking about a fiber internet build in Springfield, Missouri, included as part of the Broadband Communities Virtual Summit in September.

The webinar session detailed the benefits of a data-driven, digital approach to fiber builds six months into the project. In it, panelists representing the public and private sectors said that in addition to being innovative and strategic in their approach to building fiber infrastructure, city leaders were early.

In 1991, Springfield established a city-led telecommunications strategy, empowering the municipality’s utility department to offer telecommunications services to county buildings, city buildings, and school districts.

This telecommunications strategic plan clearly stated that the city should sell excess fiber capacity wherever feasible.

Since then, the town has expanded its fiber infrastructure services. It offered gigabit fiber service in 2007 and expanded to 10 gigabit per second (Gbps) upload and download service in 2010. As of 2015, the city had built close to 600 miles of fiber throughout Springfield.

Jeff Bertholdi, director of SpringNet, said that in 2016, changes in conversations around broadband included talk at the Federal Communications Commission and Congress about the economic benefits fiber-to-the-home infrastructure offers.

Researching public-private partnerships, including the ‘utility lease’ model

The city began to research the ‘utility lease’ model, after Huntsville, Alabama, adopted that approach with Google Fiber. That made Springfield think harder about the future of their project. “The city utility felt it was time to review its priorities a bit,” said Bertholdi.

SpringNet, the municipally-owned utility, hired the Broadband Group consulting firm to expand their fiber project to Springfield residents. The companies broke ground on the FTTH project in 2020.

Today, Springfield fiber is regarded as a utility. Broadband is “just another service our utility provides alongside electric, water, gas, and transit,” said Bertholdi.

Officials for SpringNet said that building infrastructure is their strong suit. It is building the fiber-to-the-premise network. Meanwhile, the Broadband Group and Biarri Networks, Render Networks, and BHC Rhodes manage the rest of what the project entails.

All units involved cooperate and converse. That was key to getting the project off the ground, said Render Networks CEO Sam Pratt.

The businesses are aiming to continue Springfield’s theme of innovation, leasing throughout, modeling and constructing the network.

According to Pratt, geospatial technology and digital tablets are helping track the progress of the construction project, to ensure timeliness.

“Six months into the project, we’ve transitioned past the training phase, and the project is on schedule,” said Pratt. The businesses have plans to kick off a large marketing campaign to the public in a month or two, and will ultimately bring gigabit services to all of Springfield residents and businesses in the next two years.

The session was moderated by Heather Gold, CEO of HBG Strategies.

Up Next

Google’s John Burchett Explains New Approach to Fiber-Building in West Des Moines

Don't Miss

Electric Utilities and Rural Coops Are Increasingly Important in Nation’s Broadband

Jericho Casper

Contributing Reporter Jericho Casper graduated from the University of Virginia studying media policy. She grew up in Newport News in an area heavily impacted by the digital divide and has a passion for universal access and a vendetta against anyone who stands in the way of her getting better broadband.

Click to comment

Fiber

STL Opens South Carolina Fiber Cable Plant

The $100 million plant was announced in June 2023 as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to America.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 15, 2023

Jake Neenan

Photo of the Lugoff, South Carolina plant

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2023 – STL on Friday opened a new fiber-optic cable manufacturing plant in Lugoff, South Carolina.

The India-based company, which is officially Sterlite Technologies Limited, announced a $100 million investment in the plant after Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister, visited with President Joe Biden in June of this year.

According to the company, the plant will facilitate $150 million annually in optical fiber exports from India.

The company is one of several to announce investments in American fiber-optic cable manufacturing, with major manufacturer Corning announcing a new North Carolina plant in June and Prysmian converting a Tennessee plant from copper to cable production.

Nokia also announced in August a Wisconsin plant that will manufacture electronic components necessary for deploying fiber networks.

The investments can be attributed in part to a provision of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act: The Build America, Buy America rule, which places two requirements on federally funded projects. It requires that 55 percent of the component cost must be spent with American suppliers, and materials must be manufactured in the United States.

Ahead of the disbursement of funds under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, broadband providers will be looking to source infrastructure equipment from vendors that comply with the rule.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is proposing a partial waiver to the BABA rule for BEAD-funded projects. The waiver would do away with the 55 percent component cost rule, as the semiconductors and integrated circuits that make up much of the cost of fiber equipment are manufactured in Southeast Asia.

The comment period for the proposed waiver is open until September 21.

Open Access

Gigapower Exec Pitches Value of Open Access Networks to Maximize BEAD Money Efficiency

The open access model allows multiple ISPs to use the same infrastructure. That could benefit Gigapower.

Published

3 weeks ago

September 13, 2023

Jake Neenan

Screenshot of Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower, during Broadband Breakfast Live Online

WASHINGTON, September 13, 2023 – Gigapower is in talks with state broadband offices about potentially building out open access infrastructure with grants from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.

“I think that when the time comes for BEAD, this platform will be a perfect fit,” Bill Hogg, the company’s CEO, said at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.

That’s because consumers could still choose from multiple internet providers offering different services at different price points, all on BEAD-funded Gigapower infrastructure, Hogg pitched. The traditional ISP-owned infrastructure model would only bring service from the provider that won a state contract to expand their network, he claimed.

“They like the idea that multiple ISPs will be able to bring choice to their constituents,” he said of state broadband officials. “They don’t have to pick a winner or a loser.”

Gigapower, a joint venture between AT&T and the investment firm BlackRock, is already slated to build a 1.5-million-location open access network. That means it will own and operate a fiber network while allowing multiple internet service providers to use that network to connect individual homes and businesses.

Spawned from the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, the BEAD program allocates $42.5 billion to subsidize broadband infrastructure – primarily fiber – in areas that still lack adequate internet service because of geographical barriers or low population density. After submitting initial proposals by the end of the year, states will be able to start doling out this money to fund projects.

Gigapower is actively looking to add more service providers to its lineup, Hogg said.

“We fully intend to have other ISPs on the network,” he said. “We’re having good discussions with potential future tenants.”

Benefits of open access

AT&T will be the first tenant on the open access network, part of its deal with Blackrock. The telecom is looking to reach more people as quickly as possible, said Erin Scarborough, its president of broadband and connectivity, but building out fiber is costly and expensive. Making use of a network outside the company’s existing infrastructure will make it easier to expand into new areas and was a key motivator for investing in the project.

“That’s one of the key tenets of this agreement and why we were looking to do it,” Scarborough said.

The open access model is a departure from the norm in American telecommunications. There are regional open access networks like Utah’s UTOPIA Fiber, but large ISPs have traditionally opted for the security of owning and operating their own networks.

“When you start thinking about operating more efficiently with less capital, sharing networks has always made sense,” Hogg said. “We think that this model is going to break down the historical bias telecos have had about not controlling all the assets.”

Despite the company’s investment in the project and first-provider status, Scarborough and Hogg were emphatic that AT&T will not have a management role over the network.

“We are the network operator,” Hogg said of Gigapower. “We own the assets. We own the negotiation for the commercial terms.”

Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture

In December 2022, AT&T and BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business, jointly invested in the Gigapower joint venture that is expected to build fiber connectivity to an initial 1.5 million customer locations beyond AT&T’s current footprint. Notably, AT&T will rely on a commercial wholesale open access platform, where multiple providers share space and compete for customers over the same fiber infrastructure. Could Gigapower alter the historical reluctance of U.S. telcos toward such networks? How will the deployment impact open access projects throughout the United States? Get the facts from this special Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.

Panelists:

Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower
Erin Scarborough, President, Broadband and Connectivity Initiatives at AT&T
Adam Waltz, Managing Director at BlackRock Infrastructure
Roger Entner, Founder and Lead Analyst of Recon Analytics
Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Adam Waltz is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Fund focused on investments in digital infrastructure opportunities across fiber networks, data centers, and wireless infrastructure. He serves as a Board Director at Gigapower, BlackRock’s joint venture with AT&T to develop a commercial wholesale open access platform on a state-of-the-art fiber network.

Bill Hogg leads Gigapower, an open access, wholesale fiber broadband company that builds and operates fiber solutions lit for fast connectivity and designed for network resiliency and reliability. Bill retired as President, AT&T Technology Operations, and was responsible for all planning, investment, engineering, construction, delivery, and assurance of AT&T’s wireless and wireline networks. Previously, Bill served as President-Technology Development, responsible for the development of AT&T’s products and services, digital experiences for customers, and systems supporting the operations across AT&T’s networks and services.

Erin Scarborough leads the team responsible for AT&T’s efforts to connect more Americans to greater possibility through fiber and wireless 5G investment initiatives, participating in government funding programs and public private partnerships. She and her team are taking a strategic, state-by-state approach working closely with state and local governments as they assess their broadband access, affordability and adoption needs. She also leads the combined broadband and mobility product management teams and has cross-functional responsibility for product profitability, pricing, customer experience, product design, multi-year roadmaps, development, and value-add services across the product portfolios.

Roger Entner advises telecom, media and technology companies on strategic and tactical business as well as public policy issues to allow them to compete better in the marketplace. Some of the challenges he helped to address are mobile market trends and business drivers and how to position themselves for growth and profitability, TMT convergence, bundling, changes in media consumption, software-defined networking, transition from MVNO to MNO, as well as providing the evidence and arguments for light touch wireless regulation and spectrum allocation for 5G. Under Roger’s leadership, Recon Analytics has launched the fastest and most agile telecom insights service based on more than 400,000 respondents across consumer mobile, home internet and business telecom customers.

Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.

WATCH HERE, or on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.