Community Broadband

Around the United States, hundreds of communities have made substantial investments into telecommunications networks. These investments range from the nation's largest FTTH network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to the hundreds of local governments that built networks to connect schools and community anchors.

This is the first map to comprehensively show the broadband networks that are structurally designed to meet community needs first. Most of the networks are owned by local governments, but nonprofit networks will also be incorporated over time.

Currently, the map shows publicly owned broadband networks that are offering FTTH on a citywide (or close to it) basis to residents and businesses (red markers). Additionally, it shows the citywide cable networks owned by local governments across the nation (blue markers). The markers half-filled with orange designate publicly owned networks serving some residents and/or businesses (some of these have plans to eventually offer universal coverage in the community).

In due course, the map will show broadband stimulus projects with a community focus, publicly owned institutional networks, and community wireless networks.

If you want more information about a specific networks, check if we have tagged it in a previous post, search our site for it, or check another source of information such as the excellent database maintained by Broadband Properties Magazine. You may also be interested in our Community Broadband Preemption Map focusing on state laws.

For general information about community networks, read our comprehensive report, Breaking the Broadband Monopoly: How Communities Are Building the Networks They Need.

Please do let us know if we missed any community networks or if you want to report an error. Stay up to date with information about these networks by following us on Twitter, fanning us on Facebook, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Credit for this map should be given to Eric James for designing it while interning with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The data comes from a combination of sources, notably Broadband Properties Magazine, FTTH Council, Jim Baller, and information collected for years by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Map