Fact Sheets, Reports, and Books
Internet Freedom of McHenry County is happy to share a bunch of Fact-Sheets, Infographics, Reports, and Books from our various Partners and Supporters that make digesting the various topics easier.
Fact Sheets
Our Fact-Sheet to Internet Freedom
Looking to start some place? This is it.
We are wasting our tax dollars and something needs to be done. Fiber is the solution. There are numerous benefits. Most networks have not been paid with taxpayer money, there is creative financing available.
Community Owned Fiber for McHenry County [pdf]
Why Local Solutions?
The next time you’re attending a city council meeting, a local broadband initiative, or just chatting with neighbors about better local connectivity, take a few copies of our fact sheet.
In addition to providing some basic talking points to get the conversation moving. The fact sheet offers reasons why we have to go with a local solution. You’ve already started to get people interested in all the advantages of high-quality connectivity, now show them how local self-reliance is the most direct route to better access.
Based on a Fact-Sheet from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Broadband 101
This is a handy resource for elected officials and activists that are confused by some of the jargon or just want to make sure they understand some key ideas around broadband and telecommunications.
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Wireless 101
Wireless networks may appear to be magical, but are actually driving investment in fiber-optic. This resource defines many terms, key points, common speeds, and offers insight into wireless technology and policy.
Wireless Internet 101 Fact Sheet [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Satellite Is Not Broadband
As a nation our goal is ubiquitous broadband coverage so every person, regardless of where they live, can obtain the fast, affordable, reliable Internet access necessary for modern times. For people in rural areas, where large national wire-line providers don’t typically invest in the infrastructure for high-quality connectivity, satellite Internet access is often their only choice. In this fact sheet we address some of the reasons why depending on satellite Internet access to serve rural America is a mistake.
Satellite Is Not Broadband fact sheet [pdf].
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Municipal Networks: Speed Increases & Affordable Prices
The large corporate national Internet Service Providers seem to raise their monthly rates every year but don’t give subscribers anything more for their money. On the flip side, we noticed that municipal networks tend to increase speeds for subscribers with very modest or no price increases over long periods of time. In order to illustrate this phenomenon, we looked back in time at rates and speeds in eight Tennessee communities that have invested in publicly owned Internet network infrastructure. You will see how speeds have increased significantly, but rates have only inched up.
Municipal Networks: Speed Increases & Affordable Prices [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Local Incumbents Compared to Community-Owned Fiber-Optic Networks
Wonder how our local incumbent providers stack up to the various community-owned fiber-optic networks from around the country? Now you can see the savings for yourself.
Community Broadband and Economic Development
Community Broadband Networks have a very good track record in creating jobs. This fact sheet details where publicly owned network attracted new businesses or helped existing businesses to thrive.
Economic Development Fact Sheet [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Community Broadband and Public Savings
Though schools, libraries, and other community anchors need access to faster, more reliable networks, the big cable and telephone companies have priced those services so high that they are breaking the budget. But when communities create their own connections, affordable high capacity connections aren’t the only benefits.
Public Savings Fact Sheet [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
The Internet is more than just Facebook
This fact sheet provides an overview on how Internet access and fast, affordable, reliable connectivity reaches most aspects of our lives. It provides statistics on economic development, education, and methods of delivering Internet access and is a good introductory tool that points out how Internet access is much more than just social media.
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Typical Financing Methods for Community Broadband Networks
When a community decides it needs to establish its own publicly owned network infrastructure, one of the biggest challenges is financing the investment. Each community is unique but three main methods of financing are most popular. This fact sheet offers a quick look at these common approaches and provides real-world examples.
Financing Municipal Networks Fact Sheet [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Creative Financing Methods for Community Broadband Networks
As interest in publicly owned broadband network infrastructure increases, local communities seek new ways to fund municipal networks. Revenue bonds, interdepartmental loans, and avoided costs have been the three most common methods for funding Internet network infrastructure, but local leaders are finding creative approaches to get the job done. In this fact sheet we analyze some new approaches to funding fiber optic infrastructure, pros and cons, and offer some examples.
Creative Funding Sources For Fiber Infrastructure [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Different Community Fiber Network Models
When you think “municipal fiber network,” you may think Chattanooga or Wilson, North Carolina – places where the city utility offers retail services directly to subscribers. That’s only one of several possible models that are emerging as an increasing number of communities use publicly owned assets to improve local connectivity. This fact sheet offers five of the most well known models that local governments are investigating and implementing as they become more self-reliant. Examples and characteristics of each model help illustrate.
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Infographics
Market Is Broken
Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) created this infographic to present the evidence showing that the market is broken. This resource also discusses why creating more competition in the current market is such a challenge. An effective way to overcome this broken market, however, is to consider what hundreds of local communities are already doing – investing in publicly owned Internet infrastructure. This infographic offers a few examples of different models, each chosen to suit the communities they serve.
Market Is Broken Infographic [pdf]
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Deeper Dives – Reports and More
What Fiber Broadband Can Do For Your Community
Learn the essential information about FTTH and discover what fiber broadband can do for your community. This deeper dive will explain why you need fiber, and what fast, reliable, and affordable broadband means to individuals, businesses, and communities.
What Fiber Broadband Can Do For Your Community
Source: Fiber Broadband Association
A Primer on Rural Broadband Deployment
This paper was researched and written by Doug Dawson, president of CCG Consulting, a
telecommunications consulting firm. Doug Dawson works with rural communities and internet providers. He is an expert in his field and with this deep dives into on the challenges on rural broadband deployment. While rural areas have a long list of issues with broadband deployment, McHenry County does not have many of the issues outlined in this whitepaper because in constrast to many other areas of the United States, it is just not as rural as many other communities.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts
Broadband Models for Unserved and Underserved Communities
A white paper from US Ignite and Altman Solon, explores the various models that cities can employ to connect their residents and businesses.
The paper covers five approaches that communities can take to improve Internet access, from full private broadband to full municipal broadband with varying types of public-private partnerships in between.
Broadband Models for Unserved and Underserved Communities (pdf)
Source: US Ignite and Altman Solon
Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net
The Book of Broken Promises is the 3rd book in a trilogy that started in 1998. It presents facts taken from primary sources that directly contradict the FCC’s biased fake history of broadband in America.
America’s households and businesses have been overcharged at least nine times for broadband/fiber optic services, including the wiring of schools, libraries, and hospitals— about $4000-$7000 per household, and the total is way over ½ trillion dollars by 2016. You can thank just a few companies: AT&T, Verizon, and Centurylink, who control the state-based utilities, along with the cable companies, Comcast and now-Spectrum et al., Which is the low number.
With the continuation of various infrastructure broadband bills, companies like AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink, Comcast, and more continue to take advantage of the lack of accountability at the federal government level, thus only prolonging the issue and making the solution more expensive. If we had done Internet Freedom from the beginning, we could have already fixed the issue.
Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal & Free the Net
Source: http://irregulators.org or
Wholesale Fiber is the Key to Broad US FTTP Coverage
Wholesale Fiber is the Key to Broad US FTTP Coverage offers an economic case for open access fiber in improving access, affordability, and driving competition. Comparing the potential of what it calls a Vertically Integrated Operators deployment (i.e. traditional incumbent broadband providers that build, own, and operate networks for end users) and Wholesale Network Operators deployment (an open access arrangement where the physical infrastructure is owned by one entity that invites providers to operate on the network and connect end users for a fee), the report finds that the Wholesale Network Operator model reduces the risk of capital investment, drives infrastructure expansion, and would lead to future-proof connectivity for hundreds of millions of Americans.
- Reducing the risk of fiber infrastructure deployment is one of the most effective ways to increase the potential for private coverage and therefore decrease the need for public funding to bridge the “gap”. However, there are few proven ways to radically decrease that risk in the current market structure. Initiatives to do so end up compromising either market competition, long-term infrastructure or both, and still cost significant amounts of public money
- Expecting private telecom players operating on purely commercial terms in the retail market to invest in nation-building is at best misguided.
- Our analysis shows that a WNO [Wholesale] based model could cover close to 80% of US households with fiber to the premises whereas a VIO [Vertical] model could only reach 50% profitably
The benefits of an open access fiber-to-the-home network owned at the local level are many. There are plenty of communities willing to build, own, and operate a network to improve Internet access at the local level, ensuring a future where broadband access isn’t solely driven by short-term profit maximization schemes. But many other communities are not. The good news is that an open access network turns broadband infrastructure into basic infrastructure: something cities have proven successful at building and maintaining for the last hundred and twenty years.
This report was commissioned by the Electronic Froniter Commission. It is very smiliar to the author’s work that was done in 2016 titled Structurally independent broadband infrastructure can solve perceived FTTH coverage issues
Wholesale Fiber is the Key to Broad US FTTP Coverage
Orginally seen on Muninetworks here.
Books
Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution – and Why America Might Miss It
The world of fiber optic connections reaching neighborhoods, homes, and businesses will represent as great a change from what came before as the advent of electricity. The virtually unlimited amounts of data we’ll be able to send and receive through fiber optic connections will enable a degree of virtual presence that will radically transform health care, education, urban administration and services, agriculture, retail sales, and offices. Yet all of those transformations will pale compared with the innovations and new industries that we can’t even imagine today.
In a fascinating account combining policy expertise and compelling on-the-ground reporting, Susan Crawford reveals how the giant corporations that control cable and internet access in the United States use their tremendous lobbying power to tilt the playing field against competition, holding back the infrastructure improvements necessary for the country to move forward. And she shows how a few cities and towns are fighting monopoly power to bring the next technological revolution to their communities.
Amazon: Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution―and Why America Might Miss It
