Advocates for a public, high-speed community network for Northampton Massachusetts
In our last post, we posted that the town of Plainfield, Massachusetts, population under 1000, approved the construction of a municipal network. It should be finished in early 2020. Residents will have 1 gigabit per second fiber to the home for $85/month. There are also business plans, ranging from $100 to $800 per month depending …
Shutesbury, Massachusetts is still stuck in dialup/DSL-land. Comcast long ago decided it wasn’t profitable to wire up the town. But this is changing as the town wires up, thanks in part to the commonwealth’s Wired West initiative. In March 2017, the town voted to create a Municipal Light Plant for the purpose of bringing a …
Both Plainfield and Worthington in the hilltowns have been passed over by the internet age. Internet connectivity required dialup modems over telephone lines … so 1990s and sizzling speeds up to 56 kilobits per second. DSL lines are also an option at 128k kilobits per second to 3 megabits per second, depending on how far …
We missed this editorial in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on March 2nd. The Gazette is all for Northampton and Easthampton’s efforts to create municipal (community) networks. Read the whole thing! It’s nice they called out our coalition and petition network in particular. Thanks to everyone for doing your part, even if it was just signing …
The Daily Hampshire Gazette today has a front page story on the City Council’s approval in concept of a study of municipal broadband for Northampton. This is bundled in the mayor’s capital plan starting in fiscal year 2020. A final vote by the City Council will take place on March 7th and our coalition will …
The lede story is today’s Daily Hampshire Gazette is an update on Easthampton’s consideration of building a community network. A committee looking into it for the city and provided an update to the City Council at their most recent city council meeting. The city is considering creating a municipal light plant as a means to …
Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz’s proposal adding $80,000 to the city’s capital improvement plan for two years starting July 1 to study a community network is great news. But what does this mean? Is a community network a done deal now? When can construction commence? Naturally, it’s not that simple. The mayor’s proposal is the first …
Great news! After nearly a year of effort and much coalition building, Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz has added money to the city’s capital improvement plan to study the feasibility of a community network for Northampton. It was announced in a couple of places, including Facebook. The money is requested for fiscal year 2020. We believe …
Coalition founder Mark Hamill of Florence describes why Northampton needs a community network. Video editing provided courtesy of the students of Northampton High School.
It should not be a surprise that being a monopoly, Comcast can raise prices at will. Most rate increases for 2019 affect their Cable TV offerings. One Internet plan price has been raised. The Blast! package (up to 250 mbps) is now $94.95/month, up $2/month from $92.95/month. Their rate sheet is here. Price increases affect …