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Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S.
Mediacitizen writes "Media rights group Free Press has just unveiled an online broadband map showing the vast extent to which publicly supported 'Community Internet' projects have overtaken towns across the country. Hundreds of communities now have municipal broadband systems on the drawing board, despite aggressive lobbying efforts by big telephone and cable companies to derail these projects. The national map shows Community Internet is spreading like a prairie fire."
"So... that pretty much encompases the entire province I'd say."
Sweet joke. Yeah they just put a tower up on Spy Hill, Wood Mountain, and Climax for redundancy, as a tower anywhere would serve all locations, or at least the edges of towns facing the towers.
For those that don't get the joke, there are no towers in any of those three places that sound like high elevations, and SK has an un-deserved reputation for being a completely flat wheat field because that's what it looks like from the Trans Canada Highway through the southern grain belt. Nearly half of the province is actually trees, lakes, rocks, and brush.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
"Broadband Reports explains that Texas Representative Pete Sessions is trying to pass the "Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005" (HR2726), which would ban towns and cities from wiring themselves for broadband.
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However Sessions is not only a 16 year ex-SBC employee, his wife works for Cingular, and he holds half a million dollars in SBC stock options, according to an e-mail being circulated today by media reform outfit Free Press.
"Congressman Sessions is the latest poster child for corruption on Capitol Hill," says Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press."
from http://www.dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=New
The Flash map itself if powered by my DIY Map tool. It's free (as in beer) for personal and non-profit use. You can download it at http://backspace.com/mapapp/.
Where I live in Wyandotte, Michigan, we've had municipal broadband for years. Its not free, but "competitively priced" as if a company provided the service. I pay ~$50 for 4Mb/512k cable service. The city contracted a Canadian provider, ParaSun Technologies, to be the ISP. The city owns the cable network, so they can provide whatever services they want. Of course, the city also owns their own power plant and water treatment facilities. The only services provided by public utility companies is natural gas and telephone.
What?