Monthly Archives: February 2015

These Cities Built Cheap, Fast, Community-Owned Broadband. Here’s What Net Neutrality Means For Them—and All of Us

Originally published in Yes! Magazine on February 23, 2015.

Just before his State of the Union address last month, President Obamashowed up in the small city of Cedar Falls, Iowa, to highlight the work of Cedar Falls Utilities, a publicly owned utility that operates an Internet network in the city. Cedar Falls has one of the oldest community-owned networks in the country and, with recent upgrades, is now one of the fastest. In addition to having higher-speed connections than neighboring communities in Iowa, the publicly owned network’s more than 11,000 subscribers pay around $200 less per year.

While in Cedar Falls the President stated his opposition to the spread of corporate-backed state laws banning local communities from operating their own networks. An accompanying White House report highlighted several community broadband success stories, including efforts in Chattanooga, Tenn., Wilson, N.C., and Lafayette, La.—all of which further document the possibilities of a forward-looking community broadband strategy.

Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed