Community Broadband Summit

Approximately 40 people from 15 communities in Iowa attended the Community Broadband Summit held Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at the Holiday Inn & Suites in Urbandale, Iowa. The Summit was presented by the Community Broadband Action Network and sponsored by Farr Technologies and HR Green.

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The purpose of the Summit was to educate community leaders and advocates about their options to pursue municipal broadband as a way to improve broadband access, speed, reliability, and quality in their towns.  In addition to communities that are exploring community broadband, representatives of several of Iowa's "veteran" broadband utilities - Algona, Osage, and Spencer - participated to provide support for new communities.

The Community Broadband Action Network (CBAN) was established to provide a collaborative network and marketplace for communities, community-based broadband providers, and solutions providers. CBAN’s goal is to provide pathways for successful action by communities that want to guarantee fast, affordable, reliable, and universally-available broadband access to their citizens.

When fully operational, CBAN will increase the number of communities exploring how to impact their broadband options by:

• Lowering information barriers
• Increasing the number of partnerships
• Making network construction and operations more viable

Keep watching for more details about CBAN in future issues of Broadband Bytes!

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