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Reminder: IAMU Broadband Conference and CBAN Summit

7/14/2021

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Make sure you have the following dates marked on your calendar as CBAN and the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities return to in-person gatherings for the first time since COVID-19.
CBAN SUMMIT
Tuesday, October 19, 2021 @ Stoney Creek Hotel in Johnston, Iowa
IAMU BROADBAND CONFERENCE
October 20-21, 2021 @ Stoney Creek Hotel in Johnston, Iowa
Final details of both events (schedule, costs, etc.) are being finalized and will be released soon. In the meantime, we hope you can reserve those dates and plan to attend!
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Fort Dodge Moving Forward With Municipal Fiber

7/13/2021

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Citizens of Fort Dodge, Iowa will have access to a multi-gigabit fiber optic network following action by the City Council yesterday. 
The City Council authorized four key elements to advance the project:
  1. A resolution authorizing the City to borrow up to $40 million to pay for the network.
  2. An engagement with HR Green to prepare detailed network engineering and bid documents.
  3. A Request for Proposal for materials for the project. The RFP is being issued early in the process due to supply chain issues that have needed materials such as fiber optic cables being shipped months after ordering.
  4. A resolution adopting initial rates for the internet and telephone services. The City is not planning to offer their own cable TV service but will instead enable over-the-top video applications that customers choose.
The next key milestone comes later this month with financial advisor DA Davidson presents the Council with final financing documents.  
With a population of 25,206, Fort Dodge would be the second largest city in Iowa to have access to a municipal broadband utility. Cedar Falls Utilities has served the northeast Iowa community of Cedar Falls (population 39.260) since the mid-1990's.
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MetroNet Backing Off in Mankato

7/12/2021

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While details are fuzzy, it appears that Indiana-based MetroNet is backing off from plans to serve the entire city of Mankato, Minnesota following an announcement by the incumbent telephone company that it will be upgrading to fiber over the next few years.
As detailed in an article in the Mankato Free Press, MetroNet made a splash earlier this year with their announcement to overbuild Mankato, a city of 39,000 in south-central Minnesota. MetroNet had been working with the City on a franchise agreement, as well as concessions on permitting costs and other logistics. Then Consolidated Communications announced that it was going to replace its copper facilities with fiber, and the announcement seems to have chilled MetroNet's ambitions.
“They’ve made a decision to move on,” Arntz (Mankato City Manager Susan Arntz) said of MetroNet, which as recently as this spring was promising to provide top-speed internet service at low prices to virtually every neighborhood in the city. -- from Mankato Free Press article, 7/11/21

MetroNet has been aggressively announcing new overbuilds across the nation. In addition to several cities in Iowa, the company recently announced plans for a fiber network in Bryan, Texas.
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