Washington broke ground on a project that will expand broadband access statewide. The Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) began construction on a massive project that will bring nearly one thousand miles of broadband service to nearly every unserved community in the state. Washington was awarded $140 million in federal stimulus grants for the project.
Hawaii is hoping to expand its broadband access statewide with the support of a new law that exempts broadband providers from state and county permitting requirements for installation, construction and development of broadband infrastructure. The bill will go into effect on July 1 and last for five years before sunsetting.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is creating a Broadband Adoption Task Force. The task force will be mandated with closing the gap on rural broadband access and pushing providers to expand their networks nationwide. Nearly 100 million people in the US have little or no access to broadband. According to the FCC this access gap is [...]
Maryland will soon begin expanding broadband access throughout the state through the use of a $115 million federal grant. The initiative will cover ten counties. The expansion will be coordinated through a new “logistics center,” and headquarters of One Maryland Broadband in Elkridge, Maryland. The bulk of the money will go to provide service to [...]
Seattle is pushing broadband providers to bring service to its Pioneer Square neighborhood. The city is a new construction project as an opportunity to lay conduit pipes for broadband providers to lease and bring service to the area. The pipes are for fiber-optic service or broadband which is nearly 100 times faster than DSL which [...]
Yesterday, business leaders, educators and policy makers convened at New York University for the NCWIT Summit on Women and IT. The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) is an organization that works to identify best practices and solutions for a more inclusive educational system and workforce. This year, the summit challenged attendees to [...]
Illinois is working to build up its startup economy with the launch of the Illinois Innovation Network (IIN). The network is supported by by the Governor’s Illinois Innovation Council, a public-private partnership launched in February to accelerate innovative economic development and job creation efforts in the state’s startup sector. The network will also be connected [...]
In March, Google announced that it had chosen Kansas City, Kansas to be its first high speed fiber community. Now, thanks to successful lobbying efforts by the community an additional agreement with Kansas City Power & Light and Great Plains Energy, the companies will install fiber-optic lines along existing electrical infrastructure thereby extending the network [...]
Verizon and the state of Delaware have partnered on new improvements to the statewide broadband network to provide state and school district services including support for data center consolidation initiatives, telework and increased capacity. CivSource spoke with Bill Hickox, chief operating officer of the Delaware Department of Technology and Information (DTI) and Bette DeRogatis, area [...]
A bill that would limit the creation of municipal wifi networks in North Carolina edged closer to final passage Tuesday. The Senate voted in favor of House Bill 129 – Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition with some exemptions for existing municipal wi-fi networks statewide. The measure now goes back to the House for final approval.
