Calix Partners With 10 Cities on New Municipal Broadband Networks

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10 cities have announced partnerships with Calix to deploy municipal broadband networks. Two of those networks appear to be the direct result of the FCC’s recent move on petitions brought by North Carolina and Tennessee to go around local laws and build networks.

As CivSource reported last week, Salisbury, North Carolina is one of the 10 municipalities. They have launched the nation’s first 10-gigabit fiber network.  Erwin, Tennessee will also double its fiber-to-the-home footprint in the coming months with plans to expand gigabit broadband and voice services throughout its electrical serving area within five years.

The other cities in the announcement include a handful in Massachusetts – Concord, Holyoke, Leverett, Shrewsbury, and Taunton. Each will be expanding existing networks.

Ownesboro, Kentucky will also be expanding OMUfibernet to include gigabit fiber-to-the-home services.

The city of Hudson, Ohio is launching a municipal gigabit service pilot and Wisconsin’s Sun Prairie Utilities is now expanding its fiber infrastructure to provide high-speed internet services in a large subdivision of single family homes.

The announcements are significant given the coordinated ALEC-led attack on municipal broadband through a series of bills making their way through statehouses that are aimed at making it harder – if not impossible – to build out municipal networks. (Read our prior coverage on this here.)