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Open Access

Population Center in Chautauqua County May Be First City in New York With Municipal Fiber

Jamestown is hoping an open access network would make internet more affordable.

Published

2 years ago

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Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist

August 18, 2021 — Jamestown – home to 30,000 residents, the largest population center in western Chautauqua County – could become the first city in the state of New York to construct a citywide municipal fiber network using American Rescue Plan relief funds.

In April, Mayor Eddie Sundquist formed a task force to assess the potential for a municipal fiber network in Jamestown. The city is currently working with EntryPoint Networks on a feasibility study to estimate the overall cost of the project, as well as surveying residential interest in building a municipally owned open access broadband network in Jamestown.

If the city decides to go through with the project, Jamestown will be the first city in New York state to embark on a municipal fiber build. Although many cities across New York state own dark fiber assets, and cooperatives in the southeastern and northern regions of the state are serving some residents, no city in the Empire State has moved forward with building a citywide fiber-to-the-home network.

Idea dating back to Sundquist’s mayoral campaign 

Connecting citizens to new technology was a component of Mayor Eddie Sundquist’s 2019 mayoral campaign, centered around efforts to enhance economic development and community revitalization projects.

“Who says that we can’t become a technology hub attracting businesses around the country with our low cost of living and rich resources? Who says we can’t wire broadband and fiber to every home and business in this city at a lower cost?,” WRFA reported Sundquist campaigning in 2019.

In an interview with the Institute for Local Self Reliance, Mayor Sundquist recalled that the message was well-received by Jamestown residents, and that even pre-pandemic, city residents were calling for more reliable Internet access offering higher speeds.

Jamestown residents are currently stuck with one or two Internet Service Providers to choose from: Charter Spectrum and Windstream. In the process of conducting the feasibility study, network planners learned that the cost for Internet access in the community is comparatively high for the lower-than-average Internet access speeds residents are receiving.

With a little more than a year in office under his belt, Mayor Sundquist sees the proposed network as more than infrastructure essential to growing the economy. He considers the fiber network the key to connecting citizens to 21st century opportunities and revolutionizing the way residents connect and interact.

Impacts of open access municipal fiber

Under the open access network model Jamestown is pursuing, the city would own and maintain all network infrastructure, which the city would then lease to third-party ISPs to compete in offering Internet services to residents. Since the city would own the infrastructure, it would be able to establish basic network policies to address community-specific needs, such as prohibiting bandwidth caps or providing a service option affordable for low-income residents.

To ensure that low-income households are able to access the network, Sundquist said the city would require ISPs offering service over the network to provide a low-speed, low-cost Lifeline service option.

Throughout the pandemic, private providers refused to connect local residents with outstanding balances to free services being offered under the Emergency Broadband Benefit program, Sundquist said, echoing what he recently told WNY News.

“Just from talking to families and school kids alone, the ability to have free or low-cost internet is incredible, it is such a huge need. We’ve had so many families that had to go without because a lot of these companies refused to connect them up because of past due balances and bills.”

Although Sundquist said the low-speed Lifeline option would provide enough bandwidth for Jamestown’s residents to access virtual education and telehealth resources, Jamestown could consider taking a page from the book of Hillsboro, Oregon, whose citywide FTTH network provides symmetrical gigabit connections for $10 a month to qualifying low-income families. The city of Jamestown could also choose to model Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber network recently committed to supplying low-income households with students free 100 Mbps symmetrical connections.

Besides the benefits a municipal fiber network would have for Jamestown students, it would also be a game-changer for Jamestown’s intergovernmental operations.

The municipal network could alleviate recurring charges the city pays to lease Internet and telephone services from multiple providers. Though unsure of the exact figure, Mayor Sundquist said that nearly all municipal buildings are connected with fiber service which costs “around $500 a month per building.” As the city owns several buildings, “the costs are astronomical when you tie in phone services and Voice over IP (VoIP) services. We’re talking thousands and thousands per building,” Sundquist said.

The cost-saving benefits of a city-owned fiber network would also aid Jamestown’s municipal power plant. The city maintains a utility company which currently leases Internet service. “To be able to connect . . . our utility service or to allow our utility service to use their own connection between substations is really critical,” Sundquist said. “It [would provide] a really incredible savings to the city.”

Beyond that, the network would also assist in helping Jamestown move towards Smart City initiatives, such as digital monitoring of water and electric meters.

Prioritizing mental health with federal relief funds

Jamestown is considering using $3 million of the $28 million in American Rescue Plan relief funds the city is set to receive over the next three years to build out broadband infrastructure.

According to the city’s Recovery Funds Master Plan [pdf], the highest spending category the city of Jamestown is looking to invest in is economic development, aiming to increase tourism, retool businesses, and attract new tech companies to a “Rust Belt” city. Another priority is for the city to invest in general services to complete city construction projects that have been on hold.

Also high on the city’s spending priority list is to direct relief funds to address housing and neighborhood issues, as well as mental health issues, which have become increasingly prevalent as residents have struggled to cope with the ongoing pandemic.

Jamestown’s Master Plan reports that “in the city alone, 6.5% of all calls for service from the Jamestown Police Department are to check on the well-being of an individual. This, coupled with an increasing homeless population in the city, creates the need to radically change how we address housing and mental health disparities in our community.”

In addition to a Mental Health Rapid Response project the city will be dedicating relief funds to, investing in a municipal fiber network would also support city efforts to improve access to mental health resources.

According to Sundquist, the low-cost Lifeline service required of ISPs on the citywide network would support mental telehealth initiatives and prove valuable to residents most afflicted by the pandemic by giving them a way to access telehealth services.

The city would also be able to subdivide and segment the municipal network to support its mental health goals. “For example, if we really needed to connect with folks that needed mental health evaluations or are currently working with therapists, we could create a specialty private network off of our network,” Mayor Sundquist told ILSR.

Mayor Sundquist said he is excited about the potential of using American Rescue Plan funds to improve Internet access across Jamestown, and for the immeasurable benefits a municipal open access fiber network could bring to town.

Listen to Episode 460 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast to learn more about the connectivity issues afflicting the Western part of New York state.

Check out this video on Mayor Sundquist’s effort in Jamestown.

Editor’s Note: This piece was authored by Jericho Casper, a reporter for the Institute for Local Self Reliance’s Community Broadband Network Initiative. Originally appearing at MuniNetworks.org on August 13, 2021, the piece is republished with permission.

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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.

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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

1 week ago

on

September 13, 2023

By

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.

As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.

SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.

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Broadband Breakfast on September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture

Gigapower CEO Bill Hogg and AT&T President Erin Scarborough headline event.

Published

4 weeks ago

on

August 25, 2023

By

See Gigapower Exec Pitches Value of Open Access Networks to Maximize BEAD Money Efficiency, Broadband Breakfast, September 13, 2023

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 in the webinar.

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.

As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.

SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.

Continue Reading

Fiber

Automation Exchange Announces New Managed Services for Fiber Operators

The service provides a centralized communication hub and technical support for open access networks.

Published

1 month ago

on

August 21, 2023

By

Photo of John McLauchlin

ORLANDO, August 21, 2023 – South African fiber software company Automation Exchange announced Monday here at Fiber Connect the addition of a new managed services offering that provides new software for fiber operators needs to deploy and support open access broadband networks. 

“AEX offers network operators unparalleled scalability,” said Greg Mclaughlin, the company’s new CEO. “Throughout comprehensive managed services and tested and proven integrated [operations support system and business support system] software, AEX’s complete solution enables operators to efficiently plan, build, maximize, operator and support both greenfield and brownfield networks with remarkable speed.” 

Mclaughlin said in a press conference that the software will allow providers to automate their systems and hand off the hard work to AEX so they can focus on building out their networks with maximum efficiency. 

Jim Sanders, vice president of sales and marketing, said that the company seeks to make it as easy as possible for internet service providers to get internet out to unserved and underserved communities as fast as possible by providing solutions to minimize upfront heavy lifting. 

AEX helps open access fiber network operators, which lease fiber infrastructure to deliver services to the end user. The software services offered by AEX include a network operations center, equipment supply, installation and commissioning, technical support, virtual internet service provider and service desk. Additionally, AEX directly supports operator customers, acting as the single point for all network queries and technical issues. 

John McLauchlin, vice president of implementation at AEX, said at the press conference that the company’s “support structure provides efficient escalation, granting appropriate access enabling our trained professionals to deliver a superior customer experience.” 

Mclauchlin added that the company’s success in helping to build open access networks in South Africa has given AEX the expertise to do the same in the United States. AEX says that its software platform talks to all different entities on the network to centralize communication and simplify the process of operating a network.

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