Community Broadband for Municipalities

In your community, leveraging a fiber network to make it "smart" has many benefits. Fiber can improve economic development by attracting new residents who work remotely and supporting the growth of local businesses. A "smart" community can also enhance quality of life by strengthening safety infrastructure, enabling remote learning, and providing high-speed internet connections to those you serve. With the additional bandwidth that fiber networks offer, communities can harness the growth and potential of a fiber network to move toward a brighter future.

As demonstrated by our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for connectivity will continue to grow alongside an ever-changing workforce dynamic. Fiber broadband networks are the best solution to this challenge due to their scalability and ability to support any bandwidth application. To properly prepare your network for the future, a "build it once" approach allows for the flexibility needed to accommodate ever-evolving customer demands. This approach involves preemptive planning in the initial design phase to anticipate future expansions and to keep capital expenses to a minimum as demand grows. Key considerations include deciding on the ideal fiber architecture for your application (e.g., fiber-lean vs. fiber-rich) and whether there is already usable network infrastructure in the area. Taking all of these factors into account will ensure that the utilization of your municipal fiber broadband network is maximized.

Quality of Life: Alongside, water, electricity, and gas, broadband is considered "the fourth utility." Installing a municipal broadband network will increase access to today's interconnected society, allowing a municipality with access to thrive.

Service: A fiber network will bring a significant increase in the bandwidth of the municipality, allowing for adoption of smart systems (surveillance, waste management, monitoring of municipal systems) that can improve the services provided to municipal citizens.

Economic Benefit: Communities with widely available fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) have significantly higher localized GDP and experience double-digit growth of higher-paying jobs.

Education: As seen in recent years, the move to remote learning and online assignments- whether it be in elementary school or higher education- requires a reliable internet connection for students to complete coursework. A fiber-to-the-home approach allows students to thrive in this environment.