The growth of municipal broadband networks

Sun Mar 27 14:00:12 UTC 2011

I've been a geek since I was a kid, and I'm now in my mid thirties.  I
had worked at an ISP in Central NY for several years until my wife and
I decided to move south, to warmer weather.  We ended up in South
Carolina where I found a job as the Senior Network Engineer for a
small datacenter company.

Muni networks have always been an interest of mine.

Imagine my surprise a few years ago, when the switch from analog to
digital television would open spectrum for wireless broadband use like
WiMax.  Imagine my further surprise to learn SC's education system
owned all of the spectrum in the state!  An awesome, state-wide muni
network was sure to spring from this.  You can find info for it here
(http://scetv.org/about/distribution.cfm) and here
(http://ebscommission.sc.gov/).   The kicker is, they have until May
of this year to show progress on a viable plan or else they lose the
spectrum.

This entire project seems to have been dropped to the floor.  Notice
the broken link on the first page?  And no recent updates on the
second?  I think they fell victim to local cable and telco
incumbants...

It's really discouraging.

-- 
                      Fred