The number of municipalities in the U.S. entering the broadband business is growing rapidly. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), at least 47 new municipal networks have come online over the last three years, up from the 400 recorded in 2021. Many other projects in the planning or pre-construction phase-a further 40 are being considered in rural California alone.

The ILSR claims that these networks are routinely recognized as among the fastest in the nation with high subscriber satisfaction rates. Many are praised for turning their communities into some of the best work-from-home locations in the country.

In many cases, municipalities are stepping in to fill the void left by the private sector. The business models of the large telecom companies have historically focused on high population density areas, with manageable infrastructure costs, and favorable residential demographics. But this has led to significant gaps across the country, particularly in rural, remote, and economically disadvantaged urban areas.

An Open Approach To Municipal Broadband

So how are municipalities making the economics work when the large players cannot?

This was the subject of a recent Calix webinar, which focused on the role of Open Access Networks (OANs) in helping municipalities bring state-of-the-art broadband to their communities. The defining feature of this model is the structural separation of the underlying infrastructure from the layer that delivers the service to the end consumer. This allows the municipality to deploy the network and support multiple service providers at the retail level.

This model reframes the motivations for investing in broadband. For a municipality, broadband infrastructure is a critical public utility, essential for economic development, education, healthcare, and overall quality of life-and not just a line item on the balance sheet.

Nevertheless, publicly-funded projects must be economically viable. In the webinar, we outline why such projects are becoming attractive propositions for outside investment. Private investors are drawn to broadband infrastructure because it offers a stable, long-term investment opportunity, with the promise of steady returns, potentially for decades. This long-term perspective aligns well with the goals of public sector entities, which seek a sustainable, future-proof solution for their communities.

The Partners You Need To Succeed

The other key partnerships the municipality must get right are with the service providers. The OAN model means they can move on from simply writing a check for a monopoly provider which can then capture all the economic benefits of the public investment. Instead, a municipality can broker deals with service providers judged to provide real value to their communities. This includes service providers that can offer differentiated services targeting specific demographics-such as low-income residents or seniors-or to connect anchor institutions such as schools and hospitals. Such niche players become viable in the municipal-operated OAN as they can focus on marketing their services and serving the subscriber, rather than worrying about infrastructure costs.

Getting into the broadband business can be a daunting prospect for a municipality, which will likely lack the in-house skills to plan, deploy, and manage an OAN. This means it is critical for the municipality to choose the right partners for every step of their journey. They will initially require experts to help conduct feasibility studies and secure funding, then network engineers and plant designers to build the physical infrastructure. And, perhaps most importantly, will be the choice of technology partner to light up the network and put the right software in place to make it work.

This partner helps shape the online experience that the community receives and provides the municipality with the tools they need position their city as a leader in the digital age. Calix is working with ambitious municipalities across the country to do exactly that.

Watch the new webinar, "How Will Your City Thrive with an Open Access Network?" featuring Calix, Arcadis, and COS Systems.

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