WIsconsin Governor Tony Evers made a visit to the Reedsburg Utility Commission (a CBAN Provider Member) to present the municipal fiber utility with four grants under the state's Broadband Access Grant Program.

Reedsburg will utilize the grant funding to continue its buildout of fiber-to-the-home in Sauk and Iowa Counties in Wisconsin. Congratulations to Reedsburg for continuing to bring better broadband to residents of its area!

For more on the Reedsburg story, CLICK HERE.

Here's a reminder that the January 2022 edition of Lunch and Learn debuts at noon today on the CBAN YouTube and LinkedIn pages. For the first portion of the program, CBAN founders Todd, Jon Ann and Curtis discuss the Affordable Connectivity Program that the FCC is rolling out this month. Then we have a panel discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on America's libraries.

The next edition of CBAN's Lunch and Learn will premiere on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at Noon CST.

In our first webcast of 2022, CBAN discusses how libraries have responded to the Coronavirus pandemic with a panel of librarians and library advocates. Our guests are Larra Clark, Deputy Director of the Public Library Association; Natalie Caula-Hauff, Deputy Director of Innovation at the Charleston County, South Carolina Public Library, and Joan Grothoff, Director of the Eldora, Iowa Public Library. In particular, the panel will discuss how libraries played a vital role in keeping American’s connected during the pandemic for education, health care, and remote work.
 
CBAN co-founders Curtis Dean, Todd Kielkopf, and Jon Anne Willow will also discuss the Affordable Connectivity Program, funded through the recent federal infrastructure bill, that provides a $30 monthly internet service subsidy for low-income Americans.

The webcast premieres on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at noon CST on the following CBAN pages:
YouTube
LinkedIn

Click the link below to add a calendar reminder!

Last summer, the US Treasury Department released interim rules on how cities and counties could use their allocations of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLRF) funds from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA). The rules provided some guidance on what broadband projects could be funded, but left some questions unanswered. Many local governments decided to wait until the final Treasury rules were released before identifying broadband investments while others moved forward.

The final rules have now been released and, in a win for local control, they provide more latitude for broadband investments than even the interim rules.

For cities and counties that have been considering the use of these ARPA funds for broadband projects, now is the time to make plans. With long lead times for telecommunications supplies and equipment,  it will take time to put those plans into effect.

Colorado Springs Utilities has announced plans to build fiber-to-the-home network in the Colorado city of 460,000. Rather than operate the fiber utility itself, the utility has signed an agreement with Ting Internet.

Under the agreement, Ting will be the anchor tenant on the network, which will begin construction in the second half of 2022. When completed, the network will pass nearly 200,000 homes and businesses. CLICK HERE for more information on the project from the Colorado Springs Utilites website.