Broadband Bytes
  • News
  • About

Cedar Falls, Manning, Waverly Utilities Join CBAN

2/5/2021

0 Comments

 
Two of Iowa's first municipal telecommunications utilities-and one of its most recent projects-have joined CBAN as Provider Members.
Picture
Cedar Falls Utilities began offering broadband services over their hybrid fiber-coaxial network (HFC) in the late 1990's. As customer demand for internet grew, CFU rebuilt their entire community with fiber-to-the-home in the 2010's. And just last year, CFU became one of the first networks in the country to offer 10 Gbps services to any customer that wanted or needed it.

Picture
Manning Municipal Utilities has offered telecommunications even longer than Cedar Falls, having built and operated a legacy cable TV system in the 1980's. MMU rebuilt their network to HFC in the early 2000's, and are just completing their rebuild to fiber. 

Picture
Waverly Utilities operates a fiber-to-the-home network in their northeast Iowa community. The project was launched in 2016 - 16 years after voters approved a municipal telecommunications referendum. Waverly continues to grow its customer base at a steady pace.

These municipal broadband providers are great role models for any community looking to bring better broadband to their citizens. They show that communities large and small can take control of their future by investing in vital infrastructure. Welcome aboard!
0 Comments

Vinton Fiber Project is a GO

2/13/2019

0 Comments

 
After years of advocacy by residents and careful study, a community-owned fiber network in Vinton, Iowa is finally moving forward.
PicturePhoto courtesy of iVinton Facebook page
On March 12th, the Vinton Municipal Electric Utility Board of Trustees, which also serves as the governing board for the communications utility authorized by voters in late 2015, voted 5-0 to approve bids totalling approximately $6.5 million for the FTTP project. Overall bids came in just under the original engineer's estimates.

​Nearly 40 Vinton citizens attended the Board meeting, despite a winter storm that raged outside and closed major roads into and out of town. There were lots of smiling faces when the Board's unanimous vote was cast, followed quickly by excited determination to get started on all of the many tasks needed to bring the network online by the end of 2019 or early 2020.

The bids were accepted contingent to final financing details, which are expected to be wrapped up over the next several weeks. Central Cable Contractors will be the lead contractor for the outside plant. Construction is expected to begin in early summer, with the goal to have most of the feeder & distribution network completed by the end of year. 
0 Comments

Rock Falls, IL Completing Phase I of Fiber Build

12/13/2018

0 Comments

 
By the end of the year, the City of Rock Falls plans to complete the first phase of a multi-phase effort to bring fiber-to-the-home to the Illinois city of 9,266.
Picture
The first phase of the project was to build fiber in the city's business corridor and should be wrapped up this month. Already a number of businesses have connected to the network and are enjoying internet speeds of up to a gigabit.

Up next, the project will move to residential areas of the city. Adopting a process invented by Google Fiber and replicated in several other cities, the City has divided their time up into "fiberhoods" and will deploy the network in areas as they gain enough service committments to justify the expense.

CLICK HERE to read a story about the project at SaukValley.com.
0 Comments

SCTE Training: All Things Fiber Optics

10/25/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Iowa Heartland Chapter of the SCTE has a great training scheduled in November, and we'd encourage municipals and other broadband providers to send their technical staffs to learn more about "All Things Fiber".

The training will be held on Tuesday, November 7th at IAMU in Ankeny and Wednesday, November 8th at Kirkwood Community College in Hiawatha. On each day there will be a morning session and an afternoon session; attendees need only attend ONE session at ONE location.

To make it even more convenient, two Iowa municipals - Cedar Falls Utilities and Muscatine Power & Water - are hosting remote sessions on Tuesday, November 7th. Both the AM and PM sessions that day will be "broadcast" live from Ankeny and shown at CFU and MPW via webinar.

Morning sessions at each site (live or remote) are from 8:30am to 11:30pm and afternoon sessions are from 1:00pm to 4:00pm.

The training will be led by Ron Grigsby with RDG Telecom.  Here's the scheduled agenda:
  1. A brief history of Fiber Optics
  2. Physical Characteristics
    • Single Mode
      • Construction
      • Uses
      • G.652
      • Ribbon vs. Loose Tube
    • Multimode
      • Construction
      • Uses
  3. Connector types and uses
    • SC/UPC and SC/APC
    • LC/UPC and LC/APC
    • ST       
    • FC
    • MTP
    • Other
  4. Cleaning & Care
    • Wet vs. Dry
    • Inspection
  5. Testing Fiber
    • Physical
      • Light Source
      • Power Meter
      • OTDR
      • OSA
      • Fiber Inspection Probe
    • Services
      • HFC
      • Transport
      • DWDM/CWDM
      • Mux/DeMux
  6. Applications for Fiber
    • HFC
    • Transport
    • PON
    • Enterprise
    • Uni-directional/Bi-directional
    • Wavelengths uses (1310/1550/PON/ITU-T Grid)

The cost is just $10 for SCTE members and $15 for non-members. Even better, the Iowa chapter can directly bill your organization for the attendees you send so no credit cards are required.

To register, CLICK HERE or go to http://www.iowaheartlandscte.org/events--training.html for all the details.  Managers, you can click the link multiple times if you'd like to register multiple employees.  We'd love to see a great turnout for this, our final training session of the year!
0 Comments
    Picture
    Picture
    CBAN YouTube

    Broadband Bytes News

    Presented by the Community Broadband Action Network and curated by Curtis Dean.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    ALLO
    Broadband
    CenturyLink
    Conduit
    Construction
    Dubuque
    Education
    FCC
    Feasibility Study
    Feedback
    Fiber
    Fiberhood
    Fort Morgan
    FTTP
    Grassroots
    IAMU
    Indianola
    Lawsuit
    Mediacom
    Meeting
    Municipal Broadband
    NCTC
    NMPP
    OTT
    Petition
    Provider
    SCTE
    Skinny Bundle
    Training
    Vinton
    VMVPD
    West Des Moines

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • News
  • About