Updates

A pair of postcards from BPW have been showing up in Fiberhoods 2 & 3 recently.

The first, notifies residents of overhead line construction (similar to notices sent for underground work). That means crews are ready to start putting fiber on poles, typically in back yards.

The second, more exciting postcard, indicates actual service hookups are coming soon!

It directs you to BPW’s fiber page where Fiberhoods 2 & 3 are listed as “Accepting Applications”. the applications asks for your BPW account number and asks which service tier you’re interested in.

A while after filling it out, I got a nice call from one of the customer service team members at BPW, confirming receipt and estimating it would be 4-6 weeks before install.

I know other Fiberhoods are eagerly awaiting progress. I don’t have any inside information, but I do see that Fiberhood 5 (Rosa Park Zone) has switched to “Under Construction” on BPW’s map.

At last week’s City Council meeting, Ward 3 Councilwoman Bylnda Sól asked some good questions about why there isn’t a lower priced plan for low-income residents. That’s something I’ve hoped for over the years too, so let’s look at why BPW picked the plans they did, and what could be done to help those who can’t afford it.

As a reminder, the base Holland City Fiber plan is 2 Gbps (2,000 Mbps) for $45/month. That’s pretty amazing, especially since those are speeds way better than anything in Holland today. But that’s still higher than some of our neighbors pay. Logic suggests that you could offer a lower-speed tier for cheaper. Maybe 100 Mbps for $10, or a 10 Mbps free tier? The reasons this doesn’t work are: hardware, installation cost, and BPW’s operating model.

Hardware

BPW looked at the current state of network hardware and found a sweet spot with hardware that will both last into the future and be cost-effective today. They’re building the network to support 10 Gbps service right away, but the hardware for each customer is a lot more expensive at that speed. By offering a 2 Gbps tier, they bring hardware costs down while making it easy to upgrade anytime. BPW builds in periodic hardware replacement into their pricing, so they can keep improving the network over time. Remember, with fiber you don’t need to run new fiber to improve speed, just swap out network hardware at each end. As those costs drop, faster speeds will be possible.

Installation Cost

It costs money to run fiber to your house. The city split up this cost, by having the millage cover the cost of the “passings” (past every house). That leaves the “drop” (nearby pole to your house) and that cost is built into the monthly fee, as is the equipment you get (wi-fi-enabled router), and other costs such as customer service, repairs, etc. The $45 cost covers all of that.

Operating Model

Which brings us to BPWs operating model. They’re very good at providing a reliable service at the lowest cost possible (they are a non-profit, City-owned utility after all). They aren’t good at subsidies. The current pricing reflects what will cover their costs with an estimated 31-51% take rate (that percent of households signing up) after 3 years.

If they wanted to have a lower-priced tier, they’d have to find a way to subsidize those customers, likely by raising prices on other customers. That’s not the business BPW is in. Even for their electric customers, they don’t provide subsidies (though they do steer customers to local agencies & non-profits that can help).

So how else could we help lower costs?

The federal government has long had a program called the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP that offered a $30/month subsidy for qualifying low-income customers. Unfortunately, that’s currently scheduled to end this spring. Congress is currently fighting over funding it further, but no replacement program is in sight yet.

BPW also won’t use funds from the electric or water utilities to subsidize broadband. Which is why the only subsidy so far has come from the City (millage to pay for passings).

The City or State could also come up with another subsidy program if the feds don’t. As of now, there are no discussions at either level that I’m aware of.

Finally, there are still other ISPs in Holland and they aren’t going away. If residents have a lower-cost solution that works, they can and should keep it.

One thing that would definitely lower BPW’s rates is making Holland City Fiber more successful than planned. BPW reviews their rates every year. While I wouldn’t expect any change for 3 years at least, if their “take rate” numbers are higher than 51% it would be likely that rates could come down (ignoring inflation or outside factors). BPW’s electric rates are very low because they follow the same model.

I think councilwoman Sól’s concerns are valid. We have residents who won’t be able to take advantage of this great new system at home. The easiest thing to do is hope Congress approves a restart of the ACP, but that’s far from certain. Will other options appear? Should they? We’ll wait to see.

If you’ve been around Fiberhood #2 this week, you’ve probably seen a flurry of activity related to Holland City FIber installation.

These crews are “undergrounding” conduit to build out the network of fiber “passings” that will go past every home, either underground or on poles. These will generally follow power (more may be underground than power in some areas). These connect back to a central spot in each Fiberhood.

As the underground crew makes progress, other crews will be putting fiber through the conduit and onto the poles. Then, another crew comes through to build the “drops” to every house (from a pole or nearby underground spot to your house). Drops will get installed when they’re ready to turn on customers, and will happen while passings are being built on other blocks.

Fiberhoods #2 & #3 are actively getting built-out now, with the first customers expected to go live in “late spring/early summer”. BPW has emphasized that the Fiberhood numbers aren’t necessarily representative of the order in which they’ll get built, so we’ll wait to see which ones come next.

Keep a look out for all the activity around town!

This week, Holland City Council approved the Holland City Fiber’s rate sheet. This is the same pricing we talked about before:

$45/month for 2 Gbps (2,000 Mbps)
$125/month for 10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps)

Symmetrical (same speeds up and down)
No data caps.
No installation fee.
No contract.
No equipment fee (includes free wifi router).

Council members seem enthusiastic about the project and pricing. The rate sheet passed unanimously.

You can go through the full presentation (as presented to a Study Session on January 24th) or watch a video of the abbreviated presentation from February 7th’s Regular Meeting.

Today Holland BPW approved new rates for Holland City Fiber and they come with some pleasant surprises:

Pricing

There are two service tiers:

$45/month for 2 Gbps (2,000 Mbps)
$125/month for 10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps)

Update: BPW has clarified that these rates are still pending City Council approval and wouldn’t take effect until until March 1 at the earliest (for existing customers) and is subject to service availability.

In the millage campaign, we estimated $42 for 1 Gbps, so having the starting tier doubling the speed is a nice surprise.

Why 2 Gbps instead of 1 (or lower)? BPW is providing a simple offering while building for future growth. The core network will be 10 Gbps (and easily upgradable in the future). Even if customers can’t or don’t take advantage of 2 Gbps speeds, it gives nice headroom for future usage growth. Having only two plan tiers makes it simple for both BPW and customers.

For comparison, Comcast’s 1 Gbps (down, with much lower speeds up) plan is currently priced at $116/month.

Now, an astute reader will point out that this is $3/month higher than our placeholder during the millage campaign (~$42 and a potential range of $22–55). However, this increase will be offset by the City selecting a lower millage rate. The millage allows them to levy 1.5 mills, but they’ve decided to go with 1.2 mills. For the average Holland home, this just about evens out (see our millage calculator).

Equipment

Unlike other ISPs, there won’t be a charge for equipment (modem, etc.) or installation. Holland BPW will provide the equipment to connect, with built-in Wi-Fi for no charge as part of the service.

Optional Wi-Fi mesh routers will be available for $5/month to help extend Wi-Fi to other parts of a house.

Other Options

An Enhanced Service add-on for $150/month provides a static IP address and “a higher priority of response in case of service interruptions caused by equipment failure”. Additional IP addresses are available for $3/month.

No Caps, No Contracts

Finally, BPW confirmed that there are no data caps and no contracts. Sounds great to me!

Construction for Holland City Fiber is officially kicking off this week. BPW has spent the last few months working with their contractors to do a ton of planning, and they’re ready to break ground.

While they don’t expect to hook up customers until this summer, residents may see crews working around town.

Equipment, much of it ordered early, has been arriving throughout the year and is ready to go.

This fall, postcards and pamphlets started appearing around town with more information:

While we don’t have official word of where construction will happen, and when, we do have this map that was in a December report:

This shows the city divided up into the different “Fiberhoods”, or nodes in the network. My guess is that the numbers will roughly correspond to the order of construction, beginning with the high density downtown areas and ending with the lower density areas south of US-31.

You can find your Fiberhood on BPW’s website and tell them you’re interested in signing up.

This afternoon, Holland BPW is scheduled to award the bid for design & build services for Holland City Fiber.

This $16 million contract covers building the network throughout the city.

You can read the winning proposal if you want all the details.

Their proposed schedule jives with what BPW has said previously, with construction starting this fall.

Additionally, BPW ordered $2 million in supplies early to help with supply chain uncertainties. Those materials have already started arriving.

It has a been a while since we’ve updated, and we’re in what I think will be the hardest part of the Holland City Fiber process: waiting. Like kids waiting for Christmas, we’re waiting for what we know will be a long, slow process to get everyone connected.

Holland BPW published a new update with a few notes that’s worth reading.

Some highlights:

• BPW hired an “owner’s engineer” and selected CTC who wrote the initial cost studies for BPW.
• BPW is hiring for a Broadband Services Supervisor
• They published an updated timeline, which in line with their earlier timelines. Reproduced here:

The first service node is expected to go live during the summer of 2024. Final phases should be completed by 2026.

Timeline

• August 2022 – Referendum
• Winter 2022 – RFP for Design and Construction Services
• Spring and Summer 2023 – Vendor Selection, network design
• Fall 2023 – Construction begins. Construction will take place in phases, with services activated upon completion of each phase.
• Summer 2024 – Phase 1 Go Live
• 2026 – Final phases of construction completed

I look forward to the RFP process, but there’s still a lot of waiting to go.

Holland BPW is looking for a Broadband Services Supervisor to join their team.

From the job posting:

This position is responsible for supervising and supporting Broadband Services employees and the activities related to the engineering, design, construction, and maintenance of the HBPW fiber-optic broadband network.

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, send them over to BPW’s careers page to apply.

Unofficial results:

3,942 Yes
3,735 No

We win by 51.4%

Closer than I’d like, but still gets us there!

Thank you to everyone who voted or supported!

Two things bugging me on this otherwise beautiful election day.

First is Orlando Estrada who has a negative editorial in the Sentinel today . He repeats some of the same, tired lines. This is the first I’ve heard from him. However I did see his name pop up on the County website as the agent for “Holland Taxpayers for Fairness.” They’re behind a couple mailers. As far as I can tell, they were set up after the July campaign finance filing deadline to avoid havign to report who’s funding them until after the election. Orlando: feel free to reach out to me to let me know who’s funding this group.

Second is that we saw our first opposition yard signs, this time from “Protect Holland Taxpayers” (a.k.a. Comcast). They showed up outside polling places this morning, which is illegal in Michigan. Someone is fine breaking the law to defeat this.

Yard signs and editorials don’t vote, people do. Go text another friend to make sure they voted!

Polls are open until 8pm!

Today is the big day, and success of Holland City Fiber all comes down to voter turnout.

You need to vote. You need to text your friends and remind them to vote. You need to keep texting them until they send you a photo of their “I Voted” sticker. Offer to drive your neighbor or babysit their kids.

Polls are open 7am–8pm.

Every vote counts in this election. You can be sure the “no” voters will be out. Don’t take even one vote for granted.

You need to find those people who don’t care about voting, or the people on this ballot, and get them to show up.

Not registered? Michigan has same day voter registration! Go to the City Clerk’s office before 8pm.

Let’s get this done!

I wrote about costs in March, but there’s been a lot of confusion since. Let’s try to simplify.

If Holland City Fiber happens, residents have 1 required cost (millage) and 1 optional cost. That’s it.

Required Cost: Millage

The millage, or property tax, is what the vote is asking you to approve. Up to 1.5 mills (BPW is advising that it will likely be closer to 1.2 on average)

If your home is worth $200,000 today (roughly the city average) you’d pay at most $150 a year more in taxes. If you’ve owned your home for a while, your taxable value is probably even lower!

This covers the up-front cost of building fiber past every home. It is the community investment. Similar to what you already pay for the Library which is also 1.5 mills and the Aquatic Center at 1.25 mills.

Optional Cost: Monthly Service

If you want BPW’s internet service, you’d pay $42/month.

There is no install fee. This is the biggest misconception I see. It costs BPW about $820 to hook up your house from the nearest pole, but that cost is built into the $42. You don’t pay it up-front. Even better, after 10 years, it is paid off and $7 drops off your bill!

That’s it!

That’s all there is to it. No hidden costs, or extra assessments. Our average home would pay $150/year (or $12.50) and if they want to sign up for service, an additional $42. A total of $52.50 for internet service. Most residents are paying more than that today for home internet.

Subsidies

There’s a $30 federal subsidy for low income residents. That drops the monthly service bill to $12! The city has additional options to help low income residents too, but only if the vote passes.

Learn More

If you know your taxable value (half your home value at most), you can plug it into our calculator and see how the numbers work for you.

We knew Comcast was spending loads of money with their puppet group, “Protect Holland Taxpayers.” Today we learned they spent over $110,000 before July 17.

This comes from late filings with the county. Why are they late? Probably because they hoped to hide for a bit longer.

$80,000 in “in-kind” Donations

Here’s the list of in-kind they made to the campaign between June 10 and July 17:

$36k on radio ads alone!

“Late” Donations

Yesterday, the group also reported $30,000 in “late” donations from Comcast, again likely hoping we wouldn’t notice.

The Opposition is Fake.

There’s a new group, “Holland Taxpayers for Fairness” and I’ve seen no evidence this is anyone local. They do have a Holland PO Box, so maybe they heard our criticism of them being a non-local group.

Why a new group? By forming after the July 17 reporting deadline, they don’t have to report spending until after the election.

Don’t believe their lies, their mailers, ads, etc. Get the facts. Ask questions. Then vote Yes!

August 2. You’ve heard it. That’s this coming Tuesday!

So when and where can you vote?

1. Vote Early

Anyone can vote early in Michigan by visiting the City Clerk’s office.

City Hall is open Saturday, July 30 (tomorrow!) from from 7:00 am – 3:00 pm.

They’re also open Monday 8:00 am – 4:00 pm.

You just show up and ask for a ballot. You can take it home, or fill it out right there. If you take it home, return it to the drop box outside City Hall. Don’t risk the mail. Put it in the box. ASAP.

2. Vote On Tuesday

Polls are open 7:00 am – 8:00 pm. You can find your polling place on the City’s website.

Remind your Friends

It is very easy to forget to vote, especially in a primary. The way to get Holland City Fiber is to show up. Every vote is super important in this election. Don’t take a single one for granted. Make a plan, tell your friends and family, and make sure all of you vote!

Full election details are on the City’s website

Hi everyone,

Thanks to Daniel, we have all been educated regarding the fiber millage. However, that isn’t going to get us to the likely voters we need to reach. It’s time for action that comes from finances.

I’ve received at least 4 mailers plus the Facebook ad from (well, you know). We would like to put out at our own advertisements before August 1. How can we do that?

We need to reach $10,000. We have seed money of $1350 from 9 donors already. Daniel tells me there 750 people on this list. If each of you who is willing can give $15, we can get moving tomorrow. I know it’s hard to imagine giving money to a political campaign. I used to find the idea a bit off-putting. In the last 5 years, I’ve been involved in two skirmishes with the city and now this election. I found out that money does count and money moves votes. I’ve donated. Will you donate as well.

Would you consider donating to our cause today? If we don’t get it done in the next 48–72 hours, we are putting our hopes on BPW education, but not citizen action. Please help, today.

If you have any questions, please email danackerman01@gmail.com. Yes, I actually live and pay taxes in Holland city. ;-)

Thanks,
Dan Ackerman
22 Bellwood Dr.
Holland 49423

Still have questions about Holland City Fiber before next week’s election? Have neighbors who aren’t convinced yet?

Holland BPW is hosting their final Holland City Fiber Informational Meeting at Herrick Library this Tuesday (July 26) evening at 6:30.

Come ask your questions, or to show your support. I’ll be there and happy to talk after about what you can do to help ensure a yes vote.

The following was submitted to the Holland Sentinel and printed July 24. Unfortunately, the signatories are currently missing from the online version, and they were smashed together in print. Re-posting the original here for clarity:

To the Editor,

As downtown business owners, we’ve experienced Holland BPW’s Fiber Internet service firsthand. It has been a game-changer.

Retail businesses aren’t offline. They need a reliable internet connection for credit cards, phones, online storefronts, and take-out orders. Anyone who tried to use a cell phone during a Tulip Time parade knows cell networks don’t cut it. BPW’s reliability and local customer service (humans you can talk to) beats the competition by a mile.

Marketing companies spend the day uploading giant images and videos. Gigabit upload speeds make this feel instantaneous, instead of arduous. This becomes a competitive advantage.

Tech companies connect to people and computers worldwide. Fast, reliable access gives them an edge and improves their own services. Downtown has become “sticky” for companies who can’t get a connection this good elsewhere.

Shared workspaces need enough bandwidth for an office full of people. It only takes a few video calls and downloads to saturate a typical ISP.

Before BPW’s downtown project, many of us tried to find better options. The big ISPs talk a good game, but can’t deliver at reasonable prices. BPW’s system is a community asset worthy of expansion.

COVID-19 forced us to work from home, where we immediately missed our BPW internet. Zoom calls were less reliable. Files took longer to upload. We pay more at home than we do downtown, for lower-quality service.

We also live here, as do our employees. We want future employees to also choose Holland.

We encourage everyone to vote “Yes!” on August 2.

Daniel Morrison, Collective Idea
David Steenwyk, Macatawa Technologies
Rich Evenhouse, Next Creative Co.
Jenny Van Veen, Frances Jaye
Matthew Scott, Lemonjello’s Coffee
Sophia Leongas, Curragh
Bob Schulze, Globe Design and Vision
Butch TerHaar, Butch’s Dry Dock
Bill & Kat Blair, Evolve by Design
Michael Fitzharris, Hops at 84 East
Adam Lee, George’s Smoke Shop
Mike Ellis, Spindance

Dr. Robin Klay is in the Sentinel today encouraging a “No” vote. Unfortunately, the study she cites is an updated version of the Christoper Yoo study which we already debunked.  

I’ll dive into a few of her other points:

There is no reason to expect Holland to be more successful than similar cities in attracting high rates of buy-in.

We have a couple advantages, actually. We have much lower rates than other communities. Marshall starts at $44 for 50 Mbps, and $200 for what BPW is offering for $42. 

We also have a trusted, established utility, with lots of experience building and operating a fiber network. They’re also very fiscally conservative utility. BPW delivers great value for residents, with minimal risk.

So while it will take some time to get to the take rates we want, it is very possible here in Holland. And because of the funding mechansim of a millage, they won’t go bankrupt. The fixed costs get paid for on day one, and we’re paying off that bill. Monthly rates only pay for the variable costs. We want a high take rate to drive rates lower, but we don’t need them to make the project succeed. 

research shows rapid technological innovations constantly create better alternatives to any system that banks on paying for itself in 25 years

Tech definitely grows and changes, but fiber is the future proof infrastructure underneath. Fax machines come and go, but a fiber network can support future technologies not invented yet. 

Even ISPs are installing fiber and calling it “future proof.”

That’s because we can change out the electronics at both ends in the future (think cable modem) and the network gets faster. Last year, the speed record was 319 Tbps (that’s 391,000 times faster than 1 Gbps)! BPW has assumed upgrades will happen, and has baked that into the costs. Today 10 Gbps is affordable, but in 5, or 25 years, it’ll be much different. The miles of fiber stay the same, only the electronics change. 

A key reason offered for city-provided high-speed internet is that private providers charge high prices.

Do I need to say anything here? Do you like calling your provider every couple years to try to negotiate? I’d prefer clear rates set by a non-profit. Check our calculator again. Most residents would save money. 

All these rebuttals talk about how much we’d pay over time. Have you ever thought about how much you pay now? An $85/month Comcast bill is $1,020/year! This millage is an investment in the future of Holland. If you think that’s important, vote “Yes” on August 2.

Public filings prove today what we already suspected: Protect Holland Taxpayers is just Comcast in disguise.

The group is funded by the Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association and directly by Comcast.

Comcast/Xfinity is pretending that they’re some local, grassroots group. They are not. They’re not local. They’re not residents. They’re not grassroots. They’re Comcast.

But they’re everywhere. Spending money on on social media, radio ads, text messages, and large mailers. Your friends and neighbors are getting these, even if you’re not. Talk to them. Spread the word. The locals want fiber and are voting Yes on August 2.

Our non-local opposition has struck again with a big 8x11 mailer telling people to vote no. 

Their two main claims are:

The lights are turning off on a similar plan in Traverse City

90% of municipal internet providers have failed…

Let’s dig into each of these. 

Traverse City

In June, local media reported on Traverse City’s expansion to the whole city that’s ready to kick off later this summer. That is far from a failure, but a project that’s just getting momentum. So far their downtown Phase 1 area has a 23% and growing take rate, which is great for how early they are in the project!

This mailer used an article by Jarrett Skorup as its source. Jarrett is a a frequent collaborator of Ted Boelma and is a regular critic of municipal broadband. His articles do not seem unbiased. 

Traverse City’s expansion also attracted frequent critics of municipal fiber. Their project is different from Holland’s, and funded different. The critics need you to think it has failed so they can claim funding the expansion is a bailout. 

It also, is a lesser service than Holland is offering ($60 for 200 Mbps compared to $42 for 1,000 Mbps)

Holland isn’t Traverse City, and Traverse City hasn’t failed.

90% of municipal projects have NOT failed

The mailer nicely cites their source for this claim, a January paper from Christopher Yoo. Unfortunately, Yoo has a history of these claims that have been regularly debunked. 

Two sources discrediting Yoo: 

1. Professor Yoo’s Flawed Study Flunks Test on Municipal Broadband

By Joanne Hovis and Jim Baller of the Coalition for Local Internet Choice

In a short blog post, two industry experts dissect the anti-municipal broadband study from Professor Yoo at University of Pennsylvania. It is a brief overview of the most egregious errors in the paper.

2. Community Fiber Fallacies: Yoo Discredits UPenn, Not Municipal Networks

By the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Next Century Cities

In this report, we debunk an academic study from a University of Pennsylvania law school professor who used a poor methodology and purposefully ignored many benefits of municipal networks to critique municipal networks’ financial viability.

Another great source:

Fact Checking the New Taxpayers Protection Alliance Report, GON With the Wind 

By the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

In this quick response to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance’s _GON With the Wind_report on municipal broadband networks, we correct the report authors’ errors and omissions and show that only eight of the 30 networks studied can be claimed as “failures.”

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. 

So why the mailer?

Someone with money to burn, or profits to protect, thinks they can use these claims to derail our project. Speak up, and show them they can’t intimidate us.

Want to help us amplify our voices? Chip in today!

Not everyone supports Holland City Fiber, but two names keep popping up in opposition. Protect Holland Taxpayers is the first, hitting us with mailers, and ads. Ted Boelma is the other, writing articles all over.

I get lots of questions asking who these people are and why they care. Here’s what I know.

Protect Holland Taxpayers

This group appeared in June with a simplistic website, direct mailers, and social media ads.

Their official address is a tight-lipped law firm in Grand Rapids. Through their official filings, we know their Treasurer is Leon Drolet from Macomb. Leon is a County Commissioner and Chair of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance. Leon’s anti-tax stance is clear. His connection to Holland unclear.

Their Treasurer is Susanne Waltman from St. Clair Shores. She’s the Founder of Michigan for Vaccine Choice and also has unclear connections to Holland.

So why are two people from the east side of the state running ads against a Holland Millage? Because someone else is paying them to. This is clearly an astroturfing campaign designed to look like local, concerned residents, but really a front for incumbent ISPs. Can I prove it? No. I only have rumors that Xfinity (Comcast) is behind it. I also haven’t seen any sign that this is locally-coordinated.

Ted Boelma

Ted Boelma is described by WZZM 13 as a “seasonal Holland resident” but his condo is in Park Township, not the City. He can’t vote on this millage. This doesn’t apply to him.

Ted wants you to think he’s a local person with concerns, but he’s been writing against municipal broadband project for years. To quote his own bio, his research “focuses on regulatory policy, especially as it relates to Internet commerce, and on state fiscal policy.” He’s also described as “Mackinac Center board of scholar member who studies technology policy issues.” This isn’t a new space for him, it just happens to be in his backyard…er, the next town over.

Ted brings up a lot of common scare tactics against community broadband. I won’t go into them all today, except to say: Holland is Different

Holland is Different

Holland isn’t Chattanooga, or Traverse City, or Grand Rapids. We chose to form a city-owned power company in 1893. We decided to build a fiber optic network 30 years ago. We opened a new power plant in 2017 and managed the investment so well that we paid off the debt 15 years early and continually lowered electric rates (10% in 2021 alone).

On August 2nd, City of Holland residents vote on another investment in our community’s future. As we do that, let’s listen to the voices here in the City. Not outsiders.

Want to help us amplify our voices? Chip in today!

As the vote for Holland City Fiber approaches, it seems like a good time to talk about Customer Service.

Holland BPW, our city-owned, non-profit utility continually has amazing customer service metrics¹.

96% Service Reliability

BPW does indeed have great reliability. They have their own, local crews, that take care of any issues quickly. With fiber in particular, outside of a random dump truck incident, I can’t think of a major issue since our office joined the downtown pilot.

93% Likelihood to Recommend BPW Fiber/Broadband

Not a lot of us have it yet, but those that do love it. Some downtown residents would prefer lower prices, which a Yes vote brings to the entire city.

92% Trustworthiness

People trust BPW, and a large part of that is that they know who they are. You can go talk to them. Their team is a part of the community and cares.

90% Overall Satisfaction

Nobody’s perfect, but BPW scores high. Does your current ISP score this high?

For me, I want BPW running my internet service. They’re non-profit, local, and an asset to the community.

¹ Source: Holland Board of Public Works Customer Satisfaction Residential Customer Results

Have you started to see our yard signs in the wild yet? We have ‘em, and they’re starting to appear on a street near you. Get one of your own!

Have one? Post it to social media and tag #HollandFiber so we can spread the word. Yard signs don’t vote, but your friends and neighbors can. Talk to them. Absentee ballots will be out very soon.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has been chipping in $5 or $10 to cover printing costs. We appreciate it!

Ready to show your support for Holland City Fiber? Then sign up for a yard sign!

Stick one in your yard and remind your friends & neighbors to vote on August 2.

Chip in!

Go a step further and support printing these signs with a $5 or $10 contribution.

Or give a bigger donation to help our marketing efforts.

Holland residents are getting texted with a Push Poll, a survey designed to sway opinion. This one doesn’t seem to want you to vote yes.

It arrives as a text message,

It begins with some basic questions, and then gets to fiber questions:

After a question showing the actual ballot language, the next question starts to push:

And again:

Finally it pulls in some questionable “facts”:

It ends with some demographic questions.

So who’s paying for this? I certainly have some suspicions, but don’t have any details.

There are two opportunities coming up to hear about Holland City Fiber direct from Holland BPW.

Monday, May 16 – 7pm
Public Meeting at the Library

Thursday, May 26 – 5pm
Small business and entrepreneurs meeting at SURGE Center

Come and learn more about the project and ask questions.

Already convinced and want to help make this project a success? Join the campaign.

Wednesday night, Holland City Council voted unanimously to put fiber on the ballot. The Sentinel has a good article up today.

During the meeting, BPW announced their new informational website: hollandcityfiber.com. It includes a video explaining the project:

They’re kicking off their informational campaign, with a public event Monday (April 25) 6:30–7:30 in Herrick Library’s Auditorium.

BPW will be doing a lot to give information, but they can’t tell people how to vote. That’s up to all of us.

We have a very tight timeline to make Holland’s fiber millage a success.

We need lots of help planning every part of this campaign. Ready to step up? Let us know here.

We have official ballot language, from this Wednesday’s City Council meeting packet.

BROADBAND BOND PROPOSAL

Shall the City of Holland, Michigan borrow the principal amount of not to exceed $30,000,000 and issue its general obligation unlimited tax bonds for all or a portion of that amount in one or more series payable over not to exceed 25 years from the date of issue of each series for the purpose of financing all or a part of the expansion of the City’s broadband internet transport services, including but not limited to the engineering and design, acquisition, construction, installation and expansion of its fiber optics network and associated facilities, and all work and equipment necessary or incidental to these improvements, including the acquisition of the sites and right-of-ways therefor.

The following is for informational purposes only:

The estimated millage that will be levied for the proposed bonds for the first year of levy is 1.5 mill(s) ($1.50 on each $1,000 of taxable valuation) and the estimated simple average annual millage rate required to retire the bonds is 1.12mills ($1.12 for each $1,000 of taxable value).

⬜️ YES ⬜️ NO

If approved, this will go on the August 2 ballot.

One huge benefit of a publicly-owned utility is that rates are transparent.

We broke down the costs of Holland City Fiber which gave us a monthly service cost of $42. The millage is separate, but low ($12.75 for an average home, see our calculator for more).

That $42 can go down as more people sign up (the take rate).

BPW presented this chart, showing estimated costs.

As we increase the city-wide take rate, costs could go down, and would because BPW is a non-profit utility! They set their rates every year, and City Council approves them. No surprises.

Last night, we learned more about the Campustown project.

BPW staff presented a map of the proposed area: South from 9th Street to the north side of 15th Street, from the east end of Pine Avenue, to Fairbanks Avenue.

This encompasses 640 potential customers. There’s also an opportunity with Hope College. Hope owns over 80 cottages in this area which currently have Comcast service today. If they switched, it would be a huge win for the project.

BPW chose to tackle this as a natural extension of the downtown area. They use a cost recovery model to expand into areas that can pay for themselves over time. They could do the entire city this way, but it would take a long time, and some neighborhoods might never make the cut.

The citywide millage is the surest and quickest way to get to every home. It would get lower prices to everyone.

That millage does put Campustown’s timing in question. Campustown is in BPW’s budget year beginning in July. BPW has hinted they’d wait for the August vote before making plans. Either way, construction may take a while, though this budget item lets them order materials and continue planning.

Holland’s Mayor, Nathan Bocks, shared a video about fiber. He does a great job explaining the project. Take a look!

Note: I originally accidentally linked a different video which is about a few different projects. I’ve edited this post to highlight the fiber-specific one.

Making Holland City Fiber a reality will both move fast and feel slow. Fast because there are fewer than five months before the voters make or break it. Slow because it’ll be another year before construction begins.

Here are the key dates.

April 20

Final ballot language and business plan get presented to City Council for approval. Council has been very favorable so far, but still has to vote. This is when we’ll know the official top end millage amount.

August 2

The city votes. The millage proposal appears on the ballot with state and national primary elections. We need a majority of voters to vote “yes.”

But actually June 23

This is the day absentee ballots become available. So voter outreach and mobilization needs to happen by then. That’s just over 3 months away!

Fall 2023-Fall 2025

Construction of the network. This is the part that will feel slow. There should be some network expansion before that, and we may see it begin sooner, but this is the conservative timeline.

Winter 2023-Fall 2025

Service rolls out in phases. As construction wraps up in an area, service is available for residents.

That’s it! Fast at first, slow to roll out. Waiting is hard, and I definitely wish we had done this years ago. But this plan is solid and we’re closer than we’ve ever been. Let’s do this!

Following up on the announcement of Holland City Fiber, I want to go deeper on the costs for residents. This comes from the presentation they gave to council yesterday.

There are two main portions:

Passings (fiber to the pole nearest your house) paid for by millage and go everywhere in the city.

Drops (from the pole to your house) that would be opt-in, and paid for as part of your monthly service.

Passings

The cost for passings is estimated at $22.2 million ($1,510 per passing). A millage of up to 1.5 mills would pay for it all. Technically the millage would pay of a bond, and 1.5 mills is considered the top end. Actual amount will depend on the bond and other factors. The bond would be for 20 years, and the millage would likely drop off over time. If the cost is lower (or is paying for it self faster) the millage can be reduced.

The city has already proposed one way to drop that millage rate. City staff has recommended using about half of the money received from the American Rescue Plan Act and State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, toward the project. So that’s $4.2 million off the price tag before we even get started!

The millage does require a public vote, which would happen August 2.

Drops

The cost of drops, or fiber from the pole to your house (think installation or activation charges) is $215/customer. The electronics (think cable modem) is around $820/customer. Most people would pay this as a single $7/month, with an option to pay up-front.

What else?

The rest of the monthly bill is $28 for Operation and Maintenance and $7 for Internet Service. All that brings you to $42/month for service.

The best part about BPW is that they are a community-owned, non-profit utility. We only pay for what it takes to run and maintain the network, not profits.

BPW prices can change over time, like your electric rates do. It is heartening that BPW’s electric rates are lower than nearby for-profit utilities.

Want to see how it would shake out for you? Check out our calculator.

Tonight we learned the City and BPW’s proposal for city-wide broadband: A 10 Gbps fiber-to-the-home network to every address in the city.

They proposed funding construction with a millage (up to 1.5 mills) and then a low monthly service cost.

How low? We have a calculator for that. If you live in a $300,000 home, ($150k taxable value), then your total out-of-pocket cost (millage + gigabit service) could be $60!

To get there, we need to pass a millage as a city. This would go on the August 2 ballot. Then, it would likely be another year before construction would happen.

Tonight’s presentation and supporting documents have a lot of detail, that we’ll unpack in the coming days. There are still a lot to do, and a lot of help will be needed. In the meantime, BPW has started releasing info on their website. Stay tuned for more, as things are getting exciting!

I’m pleased to report we have some public signs of momentum. This week we’ll see a major update that should set the tone for many discussions over then next few months. There’s also some hopeful information that comes from reading the tea leaves meeting packets.

Wednesday Council Study Session

Get ready! This Wednesday, March 9, at 6:00 p.m, City Council has “Presentation on Broadband Initiative” first on their agenda.

It has been a year since we last heard from the City and BPW. Expect some good things. We’ll have all the details afterwards.

Laying the Groundwork for Expansion

Last week, City Council approved an ordinance to assert their right to expand broadband services. Michigan has some laws that restrict what cities can do. Holland has been in the broadband business longer, so is exempt. A key line from the meeting documents is, “The HBPW expanded its system in the central business area and now seeks to expand it to cover all residential areas of the City. “

The ordinance change is merely a procedural step, but hints at what’s next.

Campustown

A budget item in tonight’s BPW Board meeting refer to “[broadband] services in the Campustown project.”

Though not widely publicized, BPW’s fiber footprint has expanded a bit in the last four years. Typically, this has been to where expansion is easy and cost-effecting. Now we see an new budget outlay ($330,000) for Campustown expansion.

So where exactly is Campustown? I can guess, but we’ll have to wait to see. If you think you’re in, your next question is probably “when?” This is for the next budget year, which starts July 1, so expect sometime after that.

Six months have passed since we’ve posted any updates, frankly because there’s been nothing concrete to share.

As of our last update in March we were waiting for two things: An updated cost study and data from their community survey. Both of these were completed and presented to the Broadband Taskforce Advisory Group in May. To my knowledge, neither the full reports nor a summary have been shared publicly (despite my repeated requests to BPW and City staff).

So what’s happening? The City and BPW are working behind the scenes to come up with funding plans they can present to Council. At the March study session there was support for a millage. If that ends up being the recommended path, it wouldn’t be on the ballot until sometime next year.

What can we do in the meantime? Don’t let up. Talk to City Council and BPW Board members and tell them you want fiber. Holland also has three contested council seats this November. Find out where the candidates stand and keep the conversation going.

Ottawa County would like help filling out their broadband survey. They did a similar one way back in 2017, but there seems to be a lot more momentum now to connect the county. Here’s what they’ve asked us to share:

Help the Ottawa County Data Collection Steering Committee increase broadband Internet access in our area!

Take a brief 5-minute survey and broadband speed test that will help create an accurate map of Internet connectivity in Ottawa County. This data will be leveraged to assist in broadband planning efforts!

Take the survey and learn more at: MichiganMoonshot.org/Ottawa, or to request a paper survey, please call (616)-738-4852.

Spanish Version

Video from last night’s City Council/BPW Study session has been posted:

It was a very positive meeting, beginning with an update from BPW staff and then moving into discussion.

A year ago, the idea of using a millage to fund infrastructure was at the bottom of the list. Now, we have City Council thinking it is a probable outcome. City Council was generally positive. Good questions came up around how to make service universal and affordable.

As this was a Study Session, nothing was up for a vote. Further discussion, especially around funding, is pending more data. BPW has engaged, CTC to update their 2016 report with new cost projections. They expect a new report in early April.

BPW is moving forward with a new communications plan, with a new blog expected to launch today. They’re also working with the Frost Research Center to survey the community.

It has been over a year since our last update here. A long year, where home broadband has been critical.

In January 2020, Holland BPW convened a Broadband Taskforce Advisory Group to bring together a good group of varied stakeholders to advise the staff-led Task Force. The Advisory Group met three times before COVID shut everything down.

While school and working from home brought the broadband need to the front of people’s minds, the Advisory Group went dormant. I was involved in a few ad-hoc discussions to try to bring broadband to more people, especially under-served communities, but there was not much anyone could do quickly. Holland opened up their public wifi at the Civic Center, and local schools did what they could to support their students.

The BPW Taskforce conducted a Listen Tour between July and October, various constituent groups in various sectors of the community. 9 sessions were held, engaging with over 30 individuals representing such sectors as small business, education, healthcare, older adults, and residents.

It wasn’t until December that the Advisory Group met again. I was pleasantly surprised at the change of tone. While pre-COVID, everyone was generally supportive of home broadband, there was fear that public support wasn’t there. By December, it was clear that this was a priority and the public was ready for new options. For years, I’ve worked to convince community leaders that home broadband isn’t “helping people get Netflix faster” but a utility. It seems today that everyone sees that home broadband is critical for work, school, and keeping connected, and will be post-pandemic too.

So What’s Next?

Tonight (March 10, 2021) is a City Council & BPW Joint Study Session and “Broadband Project Update and Discussion” is the only major agenda item. BPW staff is expected to give an update on their plans and discuss a community survey for gauging interest in community-owned broadband and ways to pay for it.

This is a long slow process, but a great indication we’re on a good path. The meeting is live streamed, so I encourage you to watch.

To get BPW fiber to homes it will still take months, but we can encourage City Council and BPW and help build grassroots support. We’re at a good spot, and looking hopeful, even if it has taken longer than we wanted.

Monday night, Holland’s candidates for mayor spoke at the League of Women Voter’s Mayoral Candidate Forum. I was happy to hear a question about fiber come from the audience (no, it wasn’t from me). Here’s the full exchange:

Moderator: Can you explain the journey of fiber optics in Holland and its future as you see it?

Nathan Bocks: It’s been a slow but deliberate journey in my mind. I think it’s great that we’re starting to put that system in place but I think that it needs to expand quite a bit. It’s been great for businesses in the downtown area. I was on the Tulip Time board for several years and one of the issues that we had was having enough bandwidth on our internet to be able to deal with- especially during Tulip Time week, being able to handle all of the traffic that we had.

When Tulip Time moved its offices and suddenly had fiber available to it, it was like a door opened up for us. It was absolutely fantastic. We need to expand it to the general public. I think that the first place that we ought to expand it into is the core city area. We have families in this community that do not have internet access in their homes. I have kids in school, every single homework assignment they have involves some interaction with the internet.

If you don’t have internet in your home, if you can’t afford to have the cellular internet on your iPad or on your phone, you’ve really only got one option, and that’s to go to the public library. When I was on the library board, we had the same kind of tax cuts that the mayor was talking about in the city. The library board’s budget was completely from tax revenue. When the property values in Holland dropped, so did the library’s budget.

The way the system works is that your property tax revenues drop exactly the same way your property values do, but they’ve climbed back very, very slowly. We took a huge hit and that was a hit in hours, we lost weekend hours, we lost nighttime hours. Guess which hours kids do homework. We need to make sure that our core city kids have the tools they need to get the grades that they need in school to be able to be good citizens.

Moderator: Thank you. Mayor DeBoer, can you explain the journey of fiber optics in Holland and its future?

Nancy DeBoer: Holland was way ahead of the curve. We put in fiber optics in order for the BPW to talk to itself. We had a big system and then we connected with the schools and the hospital and all of that came in before the state started regulating. That was wonderful for us. Now, we have this great skeleton, but we’d like to fill it out further and now we tried downtown with a pilot project and everybody loves it.

Once you get screaming fast fiber you want nothing else, the way everything downloads so quickly and that is something that everybody is loving downtown. We’ve been working with the BPW on how can we get this out further, how can we connect with neighborhoods with fiber and so many people have said, if you get fiber in Holland, I am there. I don’t care about anything else. Since we’ve been four years as a very best place to start a small business in the whole country, it’s time to add fiber to that.

Yes, we had a presentation from the BPW a few weeks ago, and I think they figured it out because they found a little city in Idaho that didn’t have good connections. They actually as a government put in this fiber optic system and then all the companies for content competed for the business and the families got the price of– I think was fifty-something per month that they could have fiber along with the assessment to connect with fiber.

That sounded great and the BPW loves the idea of doing infrastructure, not content. Before we have been talking about both. Now they found their lane in infrastructure and really loving that. We also have the possibility of companies competing because they won’t have to deal with the infrastructure. It is sounding really good. We want to start a big community conversation just like we did with the waterfront and with the power plant and with the Civic Center, with bringing a whole group of people together and figuring out how we want to launch this in the city.

Watch the video, with the question starting at 1:11:22.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Last night’s presentation was a good update. BPW gave an update on the Downtown project and then talked about expansion to the rest of the city.

The big barrier to fiber is that the bulk of the cost is up-front. For-profit companies have trouble footing the bill, because it takes too long to turn a profit. That’s why we want our public utility to do it.

BPW proposed “ubiquitous” expansion, meaning they’d run fiber to every house in a neighborhood. That is cheaper and more efficient to build. Installers come to a block one time, not every time someone signs up.

To pay for it, BPW modeled three options:

1. Demand Aggregation

A group of customers in an area (likely multiple blocks) commit to signing up for service at $85/month. Once enough houses (~23%) have commited, the project gets built. This is very similar to the downtown project, and the same monthly rate.

2. Special Assessment

Like BPW would do with a water line to a new subdivision, assess all properties for the build cost. You’d pay $13/month on your tax bill for 20 years, and $41/month for internet service.

The bottom line: Gigabit service for $54/month!

3. Millage

Rather than special assessment, use a millage to cover the entire city. BPW suggested a 20-year millage of 1.9 mills.

For reference, a couple recently passed millages: Aquatic Center 1.25 mills, Herrick District Library 1.5 mills.

Next steps

The meeting’s outcome was to move toward a Task Force. Both City Council and the BPW Board were encouraging. They suggested staff should move quickly. Logistically, putting together a Task Force will likely take a couple months. That feels slow, but is fast for government.

For any of these pricing models to work, we need to engage the community. Either to get enough neighbors to sign up, or to support an assessment or millage.

So what do you think? Is there enough interest in the city? Is it politically feasible to do special assessments or a city-wide millage?

This Wednesday, August 14, we get to hear some exciting news we’ve been waiting over 18 months for: How we could expand fiber to neighborhoods.

The 2011 study estimated that it would cost $58 million to bring fiber to the entire BPW service area. At a November 2017 study session, City Council asked BPW to return with a report of current costs and a neighborhood rollout plan. While we expected that in early 2018, we’re finally on the agenda to hear this update.

We hope Wednesday’s meeting shines light on how costs have changed in the last eight years, and potential ways to pay for network expansion. We won’t get an immediate green light. Instead, we’ll need to use this as a catalyst for community discussion on how we expand this utility to bring gigabit broadband to everyone in Holland.

While it has taken longer than we wanted to get here, we’ll focus on moving forward.

Our goal remains the same: To provide fast, affordable broadband to Holland, operated as a not-for-profit utility.

How to help

Come to the Joint City Council/BPW Study Session this Wednesday. If you have opinions of how this infrastructure will benefit us, feel free to say so at the public comment period. If you’ve benefited from the existing fiber network, share your story.

After the meeting, be ready to join the conversation. This will only happen if we grab the baton.

See you Wednesday!

What’s happened since our last update of Downtown Holland progress?

As of this week, 96 customers have connected. That’s up from 84 in March, still shy of BPW’s goal of 113 by the end of 2018. BPW has done zero marketing to get these new customers. They plan a small marketing push this fall.

As the Sentinel reports, BPW has “completed” the downtown build. This doesn’t mean they’re stopping. It means they’re closing out the initial contracts with their construction partner. New customers can still sign up anytime.

The project came in over 30% under budget. Total cost was $811,563 and estimates were around $1.2 million. Their 10-year rate of return is 4.4%.

We still want new customers. I personally know one who just signed up, and we expect more to come. There’s also a lot of new development coming in the service area.

Next, we’re still waiting to get the service area expanded. We’re working on getting more information, and will share more as soon as we can.

Holland BPW is continuing expanding their service area in Hudsonville. Even before they’re done building Zone 1, they’re taking signups for an adjacent Zone 2.

Phase 1 build-out is in full swing in Hudsonville with a goal of lighting up customers in October. Phase 2 will get built this fall, assuming enough customers sign up. If not, it will wait until spring.

We’re excited to see BPW continue to expand their network. Next up: Holland neighborhoods!

We’ve been following Laketown Township for a while now, most recently when Comcast volunteered to provide service to everyone.

Our contacts have seen signs of activity: Spools of cable, measurements being taken, but we’re still waiting to see.

The Sentinel reported recently that Comcast is reporting some delays, but still expects to have most customers signed up by the end of the year. We’ll keep checking in as we hear more.

The Michigan Governor’s race is in full swing, and candidates are starting to talk about broadband.

Tonight, Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed released his “Internet for All” plan. It is a pretty detailed plan to get all Michigan residents high-speed broadband, with a large emphasis on publicly-owned networks like we’re building in Holland.

The Holland Fiber team doesn’t endorse candidates (we come from the full spectrum of political backgrounds) but we’re interested to see if this will become an issue in the race for Governor.

El-Sayed’s Democratic primary opponent Gretchen Whitmer mentions broadband in her infrastructure plan though doesn’t get into as many details yet.

On the Republican side, I haven’t yet seen any plans that address broadband. I hope this is a bipartisan issue, and we can start to discuss the merits of competing plans.

I look forward to seeing more, from more candidates. Broadband access is still something that doesn’t exist in many parts of Michigan. Choice is lacking in others. I’m happy to see it start to be an issue in 2018.

Know of other plans? Want to discuss this one? That’s why we have a comments section.

Last week, we learned that our friends to the south of Holland in Laketown Township are getting broadband. We previously covered their failed attempt to wire the entire Township via a millage in 2016.

The new announcement is that Comcast is committing to bring broadband to the entire Township. Many residents have no options today, and rely on expensive wireless options.

The Holland Sentinel reports that Comcast plans to build fiber to every home, and have the project mostly complete by the end of 2018. Speeds will range from 25 Mbps to 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps). Pricing has not been announced.

While I’m hopeful that Laketown residents will finally have options, I must say I’m skeptical. Much of Laketown is rural and Comcast doesn’t have any presence there today. The timeline sounds very aggressive from what I’ve learned about the industry. Finally I worry about price. Running fiber along the road (passings) is one thing, but getting it to homes (drops) is another. Will they pass on large install costs to customers?

But let’s not be negative. Here’s what we’re hoping for today, and let’s check back at the end of the year:

• Fiber to the home
• Available to all residents
• Speeds from 25 Mbps up to 1 Gbps
• Mostly complete by end of 2018

Friday, Holland BPW opened up fiber signups to customers in downtown Hudsonville.

Their new site mimics the Holland signup page, with the same services and pricing.

Why Hudsonville? As part of their downtown redevelopment they approached Holland BPW to provide gigabit internet service. They want it for local businesses and their new Terra Square coworking space. Thanks to the downtown Holland project, BPW is set up as an ISP and has everything ready to provide great service.

Hudsonville won’t have to pay BPW to hook up customers. BPW will use a Demand Aggregation model (as we described previously) to build only when enough customers sign up to cover the costs. Hudsonville did a lot of smart work to lay conduit to buildings, making fiber cheaper & easier to install. BPW is only asking for 12 customer commitments before beginning construction.

BPW’s fiber already goes right through Hudsonville (map). Unlike power & water, which are highly regulated, broadband service can expand anywhere that makes financial sense.

I was initially tempted to complain, “why Hudsonville before my home?” but we should see this a good thing. It further solidifies that Holland BPW is an ISP. It shows their intent to go into new areas. We expect to hear a plan for going into Holland neighborhoods soon. We’ll be working to push that forward as soon as we can.

In November, we reported that Holland BPW had a goal of 126 customers by the end of 2018, with 79 already signed up. Let’s see where we are today now that the new network is coming online.

• Total standalone customers: 84.
• Some multi-dwelling units run their own internal networks and take advantage of special pricing of $25/month per extra tenant. Those take the total over 100 customers.
• 30 customers have been activated. 15 more north of 8th Street will go online in the next two weeks, and then BPW will move to the south side.
• BPW has lowered their 2018 goal from 126 to 113 customers, due to more demand than expected for their higher price tier.
• BPW is at almost at 75% of the 2018 goal with the standalone customers.

Customers who sign up now (and 6 already on the list) will be part of a “phase 2” build, which will take place late spring or early summer.

BPW has done zero promotion of the project since November, as they focus on built-out. We expect to see a new push once they identify a wider area that can also be in “phase 2.”

Customer hookups have taken longer than planned. We expect demand to increase once more people experience gigabit fiber.

The downtown installation has had some delays, but new customers are being hooked up. Here’s a bit of what’s going on behind the scenes.

At the end of January, Holland BPW switched pilot sites over to their new ISP network. The new network uses their dedicated IP address range (104.36.72.0/22 for you network nerds¹), and has two routes to the internet.

Both connections to the internet are 1 Gbps and utilize partner ISPs already connected to BPW’s network. One is through US Signal which goes through Grand Rapids, and then to Chicago (network map). The other is through 123.net and goes through Detroit (network map). Traffic is routed over the best route using BGP.

The downtown network will connect through a new hut located behind the 7th Street parking deck, on the northeast side. The hut was installed late in the fall, and is now coming online.

The pilot network connected through the James De Young power plant. Moving to the new hut ensures that this network won’t be impacted by the plant’s decommissioning. This downtown node would be just the first as the project expands. The 2016 study estimated 4 nodes to cover the entire BPW electric service area.

We’re hoping to know more about possible future expansion plans in the coming weeks.

¹ Their IPv6 range, 2604:7840::/32, has not been enabled on the network yet, but we’re pushing to get it soon.

Comcast recently announced that they’re bringing gigabit speeds to Holland. After some construction this summer we’ve been expecting them to make a move in response to Holland BPW’s offering.

On the surface, it looks good, but as Gizmodo reported a year ago, it “Isn’t the Internet of the Future You’ve Been Waiting For.”

They offer 1 Gbps down, same as BPW, but merely ~40 Mbps up. If you’re trying a big upload, you’re not going to feel any speedup. BPW’s offering is a full 1 Gbps up too.

One of our supporters in Holland signed up, and reported this initial speed test:

This is certainly much better than anything Comcast (or anyone else) has offered in Holland. But it comes at at cost: $139.99/month (may be slightly cheaper in a bundle). Then don’t forget data caps. Comcast currently only lets you download 1 TB/month, before their data cap kicks in ($10 per 50 GB with a monthly max of $200).

BPW still wins on having a superior product, lower pricing ($85/month) and no data caps.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Comcast moved to release this faster in Holland because of pressure from BPW. That’s great, because BPW isn’t city-wide yet. If you want faster speeds today, this is a good option. We’ll keep pushing to get better, cheaper service all over town.

At a City Council & BPW Board joint study session Wednesday, after giving an update on the downtown project, BPW staff presented possible ways to expand fiber to other parts of the city! I know this is what many of you are waiting to hear about, so let’s dig in.

They showed four models for capital cost recovery (how to pay for it). The single biggest hurdle to fiber is the initial installation cost. These models are different ways BPW can cover the initial costs either up-front or over time.

Model 1: Up-front contribution in aid of construction

In this model, a neighborhood association (or similar entity) would pay construction costs and BPW would build to the neighborhood. After the initial construction, BPW would cover all maintenance and upgrade costs.

Model 2: Partial up-front with credit assurance

Similar to Model 1, but with less money up-front and the addition of a credit instrument in case revenues (and customers) are below expectations. If customer numbers are high enough, the credit isn’t used. This would most likely be used by housing developers in a new development.

Model 3: Demand Aggregation

BPW would define a geographic area and try to get commitments from residents. When enough customers signed up, they’d build to that area. This would likely be the model used in the City.

This is effectively the model used for downtown. They defined an area and got customer commitments. For downtown, they started building before customer commitments because the risk was low.

Model 4: Binding commitment from single entity to pay over time

In this model, a taxing or special assessment authority would commit to paying for construction over time. This could be used by a township to build to all residents, or a special assessment district could be created (like we have for the library or airport).

This model could be used to cover the entire city too, but Model 3 seems more likely at this point.

So what’s next?

BPW staff plan to use any of these models where they make sense, and as demand arises.

Additionally, they plan two specific next steps:

Inside the City

BPW will divide up the city into geographic region. They’ll pick one and calculate construction costs. Then, evaluate models 3 and 4 for that area. They’ll bring their findings back to City Council and BPW’s Board in 2-3 months (by end of February) to consider next steps.

I have no inside scoop on which area of the city they’ll use to run the numbers, but if I were them, I’d look closely at people who have expressed interest on their downtown signup page. Even if you’re not in the downtown area, you can enter your address and BPW will keep track (see last slide of the presentation). They already had 325 people outside of downtown express interest. Let’s add some more!

Outside the City

BPW plans to take advantage of opportunities to use any model where it makes sense. I know through the grapevine that some housing developments have already expressed interest in getting BPW fiber, so BPW will be willing and able to move forward if it makes sense.

After many months of hoping, we’re now seeing real signs that BPW fiber can expand outside of downtown Holland. We’ll keep pushing to make it happen!

Holland BPW’s downtown project is in the middle of it’s construction phase. If you’re downtown you may have seen Western Tel-Com trucks with BPW “Fiber is Here” stickers. Both AT&T and Comcast have been laying a bit of fiber downtown this fall too, so there have been some of their crews around.

Here are some project stats so far:

• 79 customers (50 basic, 22 enhanced, and 7 multi-dwelling. See our post on pricing for a refresher.)
• This is 63% of their 1-year customer goal.
• This is 74% of their 1-year revenue goal, due to more customers opting for the more expensive plan.
• If no other customers sign up ever, the project will pay for itself in 12 years.

We expect more customers will sign up. We’ve heard from some people that they’re waiting for existing contracts to expire. Others can’t make the required 3-year commitment due to their lease being shorter (if that’s your concern, talk to BPW as they may be able to shorten it in some cases). At some businesses, the decision-makers are at a corporate office elsewhere. Others need to figure out how to migrate their phone systems before they take the plunge.

The Michigan house bill that threatened to derail us has been pulled without a hearing.

Thankfully this bill is dead, but don’t expect it to stay that way. There’s always a chance a similar bill could seek to stop Holland from moving forward. We’ll let you know if anything comes up.

I’ve updated the original post with various links to coverage of the original bill.

Update October 20: We have heard that the bill is off the table for now. It is unlikely to be completely dead, but does mean there is not a hearing next Tuesday.

A new bill in the state house is trying to limit Holland’s ability to provide fiber internet service.

Specifically, it seeks to prevent cities from using “any federal, state, or local funds or loans to pay for the cost of providing qualified Internet service.”

The bill was introduced by Michele Hoitenga of Manton who believes government shouldn’t compete with private ISPs, telling Michigan Radio “I feel strongly that this needs to either be stopped or it needs to, at least at the very minimum, go to the vote of the people within the area.”

Rep. Hoitenga is obviously unaware of a couple key facts:

1. Taxpayers are not paying for BPW’s project.

All of the money for Holland BPW’s project comes from their operating budget. No tax money is used. Also, the BPW runs their broadband services sustainably, reinvesting profits into the network. They have been providing broadband services to businesses for 25 years.

Maybe Holland would want to use tax money somewhere in the future (maybe to provide free access to low-income residents for example).

2. Current providers cannot offer gigabit speeds at affordable prices (if at all)

Rep. Hoitenga seems to believe we have 37 ISPs serving the City. Anyone who lives here knows we effectively have two: Comcast and AT&T. Neither provide gigabit fiber to residents, and where they can offer fiber, it is not affordable. BPW’s gigabit fiber will be 10x faster than these providers at a lower price. Plus, BPW is building an open-access system that other ISPs can use.

We know what Holland residents and businesses are clamoring for BPW to provide better service. We see that in the signups downtown, and in the amount of interest from the rest of the area.

We need your help

This bill threatens to derail Holland’s project, and will hurt other Michigan cities. BPW staff members met with Rep. Hoitenga last week, and plan to testify before the committee, which could be next week.

If you are interested in helping, reach out to state representatives and senators. Give them the facts and let them know that this bill is bad for broadband. Need some facts? Here are a few quick ones:

1. The Holland BPW has operated a broadband business for twenty-five years, serving nearly 250 businesses with access to superior bandwidth and reliability
2. The enterprise is providing positive net revenue to support growth and reinvestment in infrastructure
3. No tax dollars are used to support the broadband enterprise
4. Holland has created an open access system, which promotes competition through multiple content provider partners
5. Residents and businesses in Holland are demanding higher speeds and more reliability than the private sector alone currently provides
6. As a not for profit entity, organizations like the Holland BPW are well positioned to build out world-class, future-proof fiber infrastructure that reduces duplication of infrastructure while encouraging private companies to use the fiber to offer products and services

Other coverage that goes more in-depth:

Ars Technica - Republican fight against municipal broadband heats up in Michigan

DSLReports - Michigan Introduces New, Awful Bill to Ban Community Broadband

Community Networks - Anti-Muni Bill In Michigan Pulls No Punches

Michigan Radio - Bill would bar Michigan communities from using public money for internet infrastrucure

Techdirt - Michigan Lawmaker Doesn’t Understand Her Own Bill Hamstringing Broadband Competition

International Business Times - Telecom Lobbyists Fund Lawmaker Who Sponsors Bill To Ban Municipal Broadband

Stop the Cap! - Mich. Lawmaker Seeks Ban on All Community Broadband Networks

Cadillac News - Hoitenga broadband bill won’t proceed

Remember to join us and Holland BPW at an Open House tomorrow (Wednesday, August 23).

Drop in to learn more and get all your questions answered.

There’s a new opportunity to work for Holland BPW on their fiber projects

They have a position open for an Outside Plant Engineer

This position is responsible for all aspects of Outside Plant Engineering for HBPW fiber projects including building and maintaining HBPW’s regional fiber optic plant, developing OSP planning/design procedures, specifications and documentation. This position will also Coordinate project activities with contractors, developers, municipalities and consultants along with responding to network outages, coordinating necessary resources and activities for prompt and appropriate restoration.

Our Outside Plant Engineer position requires an Associate’s degree or equivalent education and experience in a technical discipline along with at least 4 years’ experience in Aerial and Buried Outside Engineering and design and documentation of fiber optic cable (Aerial and underground), vault and conduit infrastructure.

Is that you? Do you know someone? Let’s help them get some great candidates!

Join us and Holland BPW at an Open House to learn more about the new Gigabit Fiber Broadband service coming to downtown.

Join us for appetizers and conversation. Broadband advocates and Holland BPW there to answer all your questions.

We’re meeting at Collective Idea (44 E 8th Street, Suite 400) next Wednesday, August 23, from 4:30–6:30. Collective idea is a pilot site, and we’d love you to try out gigabit service. Want to do a big upload/download? This is your chance.

Downtowners, today is the day you can (finally) sign up for BPW gigabit fiber internet!

Holland BPW has a new website where you can sign up.

The sign up form is a little confusing. You put your street number in the first box, and street name in the second. And street names have the direction (east/west) last.

For example, 44 E. 8th Street gets “44” in the first box, and “8th St E” in the second box:

If you’re inside the initial service zone, you’ll get a form to actually sign up for service! Please fill it out and help us make this a success.

Read our explanation of the two pricing tiers if you need help deciding.

Outside of Downtown

If you’re outside the zone, that’s ok. Fill out the form anyway! This helps us tell BPW that there’s demand.

Become a Champion

You can also sign up to become a “Champion” in your neighborhood. To find the signup form, click on the shaded downtown region of the map, and you’ll see a “Become a Champion” link appear.

Holland BPW is offering two pricing tiers for their gigabit service, $85/month & $220/month. Let’s discuss the difference.

What’s the same?

Both plans offer the exact same gigabit internet service. This is important. The “Enhanced” plan is the same internet service, but with extras. You don’t get faster speeds on the Enhanced plan. Neither plan has a data cap*.

Both plans have free standard installation. This typically means BPW brings service into the basement of a building. Depending on the wiring inside the building, you may have to pay extra to get it from that entry location to your office/apartment (or have someone else do it).

Both plans require a 3-year commitment. This helps BPW recoup their costs. They may reduce to 1 year if you already have fiber in your building. If this is a sticking point for you, please contact BPW.

What’s different?

So what does the higher-priced plan offer? A few things that may be of interest to some businesses.

Static IP Address. Static IP addresses are sometimes needed for phone systems or VPNs. Contact your IT person to ask if you need it.

Service Level Agreement (SLA). An SLA gives guarantees about the reliability of the service, and credits your account if they don’t meet that level of service. It is a commitment by BPW of what you can expect. You can read their SLA and see if it is valuable to you.

Priority Restoration and Enhanced Reliability. BPW will restore Enhanced customers first in the event of an outage. BPW will monitor these customers closely to ensure they’re getting the best service possible and avoid downtime.

Proactive Communication. BPW is committed to communicating before issues arise as much as possible. We hope they do this for all customers, but they are only guaranteeing it for Enhanced customers to start.

Which tier is right for me?

If you want a great connection and top speed, both are great. If you can live without static IP and the service guarantees (SLA) from the higher tier, then stick with the lower one. Otherwise, spring for the higher one. Either way, this should be much better and cheaper than anything you have today.

Last night’s City Council meeting approved Holland BPW becoming an Internet service provider (ISP)!

What we know

Holland BPW can now provide Internet service as a new utility.

They will offer 1 gigabit (1,000 Mbps) fiber service downtown in November starting at $85/month.

The initial plan is for a small service area in downtown Holland. This is a dense area with a mix of businesses and residences. The area is from 7th Street to 9th Street, Pine Avenue to Garretson Road.

What we don’t know

The big question is, “when can I get it outside of downtown?” Simple answer: we don’t know.

The are currently no plans past downtown. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, just that there’s no concrete rollout plan. Everything depends on the success of this project, and demand.

Going beyond downtown doesn’t require all the procedural steps it took to get here. It does require money. Installation is the primary cost of fiber. We’ll need to identify money to pay for the initial investment, and/or make a strong business case that it is a solid investment for BPW to make.

If we help make this phase a success and show strong demand beyond downtown, we can make the case for expansion.

What does success look like?

BPW’s business plan expects downtown to be making a profit in 6-11 years. Meaning it has paid for itself and is now making money.

Their numbers are based on a minimum “take rate” of 28%. That means they need 28% of everyone downtown to sign up in 2018 (126 customers) and ideally growing to 42% (189 customers) in 2021.

The more successful we are at increasing those numbers, the easier the case is for expansion.

This is a time to celebrate, but also to prepare for making this project a success. We’ll have concrete ways you can help, so stay tuned!

Tonight is the most important City Council vote on broadband so far. Tonight’s meeting should see the City adopt a new ordinance allowing Holland BPW to provide Internet service.

This is the final procedural hurdle to providing service downtown. If that goes well, expanding wider is possible too.

If you can, please attend tonight’s meeting at 7:00, which serves as a Public Hearing on the new ordinance. There is time for public comment too, if you have words of support or thanks.

Tonight’s presentation gives a lot of the details. I’ll highlight a few here.

Timeline

August - After tonight’s approval, the BPW can approve the construction contract on Monday, August 7.
September–October - Actual installation. The contractor will be running fiber to customers, and BPW will be setting up their back office equipment.
November - New customers come online.

Downtown businesses and residents will be able to officially “get on the list” for service next week.

Price

The price for both business and residences is $85/month for 1 Gbps service (1,000 Mbps). Additional features (static IP, priority support) are available for $220/month.

Show your support

We hope to see some supporters at the meeting tonight. I (Daniel) personally can’t be there, but will be following along closely.

Ottawa County is beginning a Broadband Initiative to look at the current state of broadband availability and plan for the future.

You can help by filling out this survey to help the county collect data.

The County is working with Connect Michigan, a non-profit that works with the Michigan Public Service Commission. They have done similar studies in many other counties in Michigan.

This project in Ottawa County is mainly focused on research, with some possible future planning to happen at a later date. This is not the County ensuring everyone will have broadband. It is merely the start of a process to better understand the lay of the land.

Here in the City of Holland, we are still working to get Holland BPW to bring fiber to every home and business. In other parts of Ottawa County, there’s a mix of cable, DSL, other fiber providers, and wireless providers where none of these others go.

This is your chance to let broadband developers really know how you feel about your current broadband service, or lack thereof. Filling out this survey will inform the broadband development community in greater detail, allowing them to identify needs and (hopefully) respond accordingly.

As Holland Hospital celebrates 100 years, it is fun to point out a little-known fact about their early history:

officials approved a plan for the Board of Public Works to donate its utility profits to fund a new hospital — Holland City Hospital — which opened Jan. 9, 1928.

As we encourage the City and BPW to invest in fiber (BPW gives profits to the City each year and maintaines a very large reserve fund), we’re encouraged that there’s precident for investing in our community.

We’re not the only group that wants the City to use BPW’s funds for strategic investments. At a recent City Council meeting, a letter encouraging “A Concept for Funding Transformational Opportunities” was shared:

For example, in the immediate past fiscal year (FY16), the Net Operating Income (after other Costs but Before Appropriation) was approximately $21.2 million. The City of Holland received a Contribution of $5.5 million of this amount, compared to approximately $10.6 million that could be appropriated by the City. In essense, and theoretically, the City could have appropriated up to approximately $5.1 million additional funds (Appropriation) to its coffers. Instead, those “additional funds” are simply added to BPW Reserve Funds. For the current/forecast Fiscal Year FY17 and proposed FY18, the expected Net Operating Income (after other Costs but before Appropriation) are $24.5 and $17.9 million, respectively.

Unlike a private ISPs, Holland BPW can think long-term and build fiber which takes multiple years to pay for itself. Like building a Hospital, we think fiber broadband is a great community investment and hope that it is seen as the transformational opportunity is is.

This week is the week we’ve been waiting for for Downtown progress! Don’t get too excited, though, we still have some waiting to do.

Meetings

Two important meetings are today’s BPW Special Meeting and Wednesday’s City Council/BPW Joint Study Session. Both meetings will move the Downtown project forward, but we also get lots of new, finalized information.

Service Pricing

We now know BPW’s planned rates for service for businesses and residences downtown:

$85/month for 1,000 Mbps (1 Gigabit)
$220/month for 1,000 Mbps (1 Gigabit)

The higher tier is the same speed, but has additional features:

• Static IP Addresses
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Enhanced reliability
• Priority Restoration

Businesses will be able to use whichever tier is better for them.

An exciting additional rate is for Multi-Dewlling Units (MDUs). A building will be able to hook up 10 additional tenants for $10/month/tenant.

Open Access

BPW is creating an open access network. That means, while they will be an ISP, other ISPs could use this new GPON network too (just like their to today for their more expensive Active Ethernet services).

Wholesale rates (transit only) come in two speed tiers: 100 Mbps and 1,000 Mpbs (1 Gigabit):

$40/month for 100 Mpbs
$60/month for 1,000 Mpbs (1 Gigabit)
$140/month for 1,000 Mpbs (1 Gigabit) plus the enhanced features above

So any ISP can offer internet service, TV, phone, etc. over that same connection and they pay a lower wholesale rate. As a customer, you’d only deal with your ISP, not BPW.

What happens next?

This week’s meetings sets wheels in motion for hooking up all of Downtown. By setting rates for this new ISP service, there’s pontential for going wider. However, we still have to get Downtown complete.

The City needs to pass a new ordinance to allow BPW to become an ISP. This process requires a public hearing which (to give time for proper notice) will be July 9. Downtown will happen, but to get through the municiple hurdles takes time. I expect new downtown installations to begin in Sepetember.

The board packet for tonight’s BPW meeting has all the info including the proposed ordinance.

Even though the process takes time, this is an exciting time, and it seems like things are finally moving. When can you have BPW fiber at your house? We still don’t know that, but keep telling them and City leaders you want it!

Fiber in downtown Holland keeps getting closer. Holland BPW is in the final days of the engineering phase and should initial schematics this week. The next step is to put out a bid packet to actually run fiber to each downtown building. We expect to see that released at the end of March and be open for around 4 weeks.

After the bids come back, there are additional steps such as BPW Board and City Council approval. BPW is targeting a summer install and having an operational network in the fall.

Our team continues to talk with BPW, the City, and stakeholders to help make this a reality. We don’t want to stop with downtown; we want this to be the start of a much larger project.

Learning Events

If you’d like to hear more about the downtown project, BPW is hosting a public meeting Monday, March 13, from 7:00-8:30 PM at the Herrick District Library on River Ave. Come talk to BPW, hear what’s happening, and get your questions answered.

Holland Young Professionals will be talking fiber at their Breakfast of Champions event Thursday, March 16th. Free registration is required.

For the technical geeks out there, there are a couple things BPW has been doing recently that hint at things to come.

ARIN Registration

ARIN, or the American Registry for Internet Numbers is the regional body that manages IP addresses. For example, hollandbpw.com currently lives at the IP address 67.225.219.197.

Holland BPW is now registered with ARIN which is a step needed to become an ISP and sell internet service. Each internet customer needs and IP address to connect to the internet, assigned by their ISP (ok, I’m simplifying this a bit, but if you knew that much you probalby stopped reading a while ago). BPW needs to be registered in order to get a block of IP addresses to assign to customers.

Merit Membership

On Monday (March 6) the BPW Board approved membership in Merit Network. Merit is a membership organization made up of Michigan’s state universities, education, healthcare, and government entities and they run an extensive fiber network across the state.

Merit membership has a lot of benefits from training to services, but to quote BPW, “of specific interested to HBPW is Merit’s IPv4 address space. By becoming a Merit member, HBPW will gain access to this space, allowing for enhanced internet connectivity…”. IPv4 addresses are a scarce resource, but still needed for an ISP. It is good to see BPW making plans to gain access to that address space.

Last week, City staff presented City Council with a draft of a new Master Plan. There’s a lot in it, but page 70 talks about broadband. Specifically, it lists two relevant Action Steps:

• Ensure that all residents and businesses have fiber optic broadband access.
• Work with the Holland Board of Public Works to create Wi-Fi zones in certain areas of the City.

Sounds good to me! Broadband continues to be City Council’s #1 priority, yet progress happens slower than many of us would hope.

Holland BPW continues to work towards wiring downtown, however summer 2017 is probably the earliest we could see that completed. The good news is that the work is continuing and soon we’ll know exactly what is needed to finish downtown.

Holland BPW has a new map that shows where all of their fiber is today.

This existing infrastructure is one of the big reasons why Holland is a great place for fiber broadband. Let’s leverage what we already have!

We’re making progress toward lighting up fiber in Downtown Holland. Last night, the Holland BPW Board of Directors voted to approve a contract with Vantage Point for engineering and construction management to bring fiber to all of downtown.

What We Know

Vantage Point will do all the work to figure out exactly where fiber should go to each building, use those detailed plans to solicit bids for doing the actual construction, and manage the construction.

This is a great step forward in getting great fiber internet service in Holland.

Vantage Point provided an example schedule. We’re already behind their starting point, but ideally we could be getting construction bids in early 2017 and building in late winter or early spring.

What We Don’t Know

The biggest unanswered question is: “What will internet service cost?” BPW is actively working on a business plan for this purpose.

We also don’t know how much construction will cost. This contract involves getting bids based on detailed engineering work, so those bids will have the total cost. At that point, BPW and the City will have to decide how to pay for construction. Ideally, they can amortize the construction cost through service bills, but we don’t know for sure yet.

A Great Step Forward

This is a great step forward toward getting broadband in Holland. We’re farther away from fiber to the home than I’d like, but we’re getting closer all the time.

Looking for an internship working with fiber broadband? Holland BPW> has an opening for a Network Intern/co-op.

Responsibilities: Assists the Broadband Services team with the implementation, installation, configuration and technical support of network systems that use Ethernet and other technologies. This is an excellent internship opportunity to learn and gain real world experience in network documentation using GIS software, spreadsheets and drawings along with quoting customer costs and VOIP phone systems, WAN, LAN and WLAN networks; including routing and switching.

Sounds like a great opportunity to work on the ground floor of a municipal fiber deployment!

It has been months since we’ve had much to report. Good things are happening, but they take time. September is here and I have a little bit to share.

First, Holland BPW created a position for Manager of Broadband Services and hired local resident Pete Hoffswell. If Pete sounds familiar, it might be because he’s on our homepage as a long-time advocate of broadband. He’s been working to connect Holland people since the days of modems and ISDN. Needless to say, we’re excited both for this new position and that Pete took the job.

Next, the BPW is reviewing engineering proposals to bring internet to all of Downtown Holland. This involves getting detailed schematics and construction bids to hook everyone up. Nothing is certain yet, but BPW could be hooking up people early in 2017 if everything goes well.

This means we still don’t have a definitive plan for city-wide rollout (or wider). We’ll continue pushing for that. We hope a successful Downtown project will help spur action.

Finally, BPW shared with us that their fiber network continues to grow:

Right now, we are averaging about 6 new connections to the HBPW fiber network monthly. These connections are to various buildings throughout the service area, and built to support our current connectivity options - Dark Fiber lease (Point to Point) and Active Ethernet (IP Transport) offerings. As we build these new fiber paths, we also consider future use for them. We consider neighboring premises connectivity opportunities as well as possible future GPON (Internet) service.

These connections represent larger businesses that can afford expensive connections. We still want to provide high-speed bandwidth to every home and business. BPW’s network is a great investment, and we want to see it used to benefit the entire community.

Laketown Township votes today to build a fiber optic network to every house in the township. This is an amazing project, and promises to bring great internet service to everyone.

If you haven’t been following along, here are some recent news stories:

Wood TV: Lakeshore taxpayers to vote on $8.7M high-speed Internet

MLive: Is broadband Internet a ‘basic utility?’ Voters consider high-speed tax

Holland Sentinel: Supporters tout Laketown Township fiber network project’s savings; detractors question risk

The Sentinel also published a handful of letters for and against.

• Rebecca Bruns: Laketown Township looks toward the future

• Dick Becker: Laketown NO vote for tax increase

• Mark Rubino: Vote against Laketown fiber

• Kathie McLoed: Vote NO on Laketown fiber optics
• And they even published a letter from the “Citizens Against Government Waste”

Early reports indicate high voter turnout. I’ve talked a lot with the Yes! campaign and they’ve done a lot of great work going door-to-door and educating residents about the plan. We’ll wait and see!

Tonight, as part of their annual budget planning, City Council discussed allocating $25,000 to put together an engineering study and comprehensive budget to bring fiber broadband to all of 8th Street.

The final budget will be presented at the regular City Council meeting on May 4th.

The money will be used for detailed planning, and actual rollout would happen later (probably summer at the earliest).

While this is not the fast, bold action we were hoping for, it is progress. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Watch a video of today’s Early Bird Breakfast panel on broadband at the West Coast Chamber of Commerce.

4-12-16 Early Bird Breakfast from City of Holland on Vimeo.

We had good discussion about Holland BPW’s business plan, why people want gigabit broadband, and what it would take to roll it out.

It was over a week since the BPW & City Council Study Session where we heard about the new fiber study. The Holland Sentinel had a great write-up and we want to touch on some key data points here.

Among the possible scenarios were two main ones to bring fiber to the full BPW service area, or just to the City of Holland. The BPW would become an ISP to sell retail internet service.

To bring it to the full BPW service area requires a build out cost of $63,239,000. Limiting to just the City is $29,756,000.

The study suggested financing with a combination of bonds and loans, though other options are possible. The utility would be net income positive in year 7.

For 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps) service, the cost to consumers would be:

• $80 residential
• $85 small commercial
• $220 medium commercial (with an SLA, or Service-Level Agreement)

The biggest assumption in the plan is the “take rate”. This simply means the number of subscribers. To make these numbers work, they need 39.6% take rate, meaning 39.6% of the possible homes need to sign up for service.

Since no immediate action was taken at the meeting, we will be discussing with the City and BPW to move this forward. Look for many more updates in the coming weeks. We need to keep up the momentum, and will need your help.

Finally, join us Tomorrow (Tuesday, April 12) at the Early Bird Breakfast where we’ll be discussing broadband with BPW.

Laketown Township’s Fiber Optic YES! campaign is kicking into high gear. Yard signs are popping up all over the township, and informational flyers are going out to residents. They’re also collecting a lot of great stories from residents on their Facebook page.

We helped out by building a calculator for residents to calculate their savings with fiber. Because their plan involves a millage plus a monthly fee for service, it may sound expensive but most residents will end up saving significant money for much better service.

Here’s an animation of it in action. Click to try it for yourself!

We’ve received some great media coverage lately. Here are some of the articles we’ve collected:

Fiber optic internet service provides new opportunities to lakeshore communities

MiBiz - April 10, 2016

My Take: Fiber optic Internet will transform Holland

Holland Sentinel - April 10, 2016

Study: Holland BPW’s fiber Internet utility would cost $63.2M

Holland Sentinel - April 2, 2016

Michigan city looking at $47M fiber optics network

MLive - April 2, 2016

Fastest Internet in Michigan? Holland Fiber one step closer thanks to new report

Jeremy Gonsior - March 29, 2016

Holland BPW considers starting fiber optic Internet utility

Holland Sentinel - March 28, 2016

Tonight City Council and Holland BPW met and had a presentation from CTC Technology and Energy about a possible business plan to run fiber to the entire BPW service area.

The consultants talked through a presentation based on the study that we’ve been reading over since it became public Friday.

Nothing specific was voted on tonight, but this sets the groundwork for real progress. We will have much more to say in the coming days as our group determines how to best move forward.

In the meantime, some quick facts from the presentation:

Building out fiber to everyone in the current BPW service area would cost $63 million. If that was only the City, it shrinks to just under $30 million. Assuming a 39.6% “take rate” (percentage of homes connected), service could cost $80/month for 1 Gbps. No setup costs or equipment rental.

It would most likely be paid for with bonds, but there are multiple options on the table.

These are conservative estimates, and we hope they could get that monthly price down. The more people sign up, the easier that is.

Again, this is all preliminary. We’ll have much more, and ways for you to get involved, coming soon.

Thursday: Look for the Press Release from BPW and hopefully some more press coverage.

On Friday, we got our first peek at Holland BPW’s newest study of Fiber to the Home. The 118-page document will be officially presented to the BPW Board and Holland City Council this Wednesday (March 30th) during a joint Study Session.

The document has a lot of information (especially on the engineering side) but doesn’t make clear exactly what path forward the Holland BPW is proposing. We hope to get clarification in the days ahead.

If you’d like to attend the Study Session, it is Wednesday 5:30 PM and the report is scheduled to be presented at 6:05 PM. This is a study session for the BPW Board and City Council, so there won’t be time for public comment (that would happen at a later meeting).

I had the pleasure tonight of meeting with Laketown Township residents who are supporting the May 3 millage to build a fiber optic network.

This millage will cover running a great fiber network to each and every home in the township. They’ll then contract with an ISP to provide high-speed service at low prices.

Many Laketown residents don’t have any access to high-speed internet. Some use slow satellite connections, and others try cellular cards (with terrible data caps), while others aren’t reached by cell service either. This is a great opportunity for Laketown to leapfrog most of the nation in speed and reliability.

Follow their progress on their Facebook page and website.

Catching me by surprise this morning was front-page news that Laketown Township will vote on a fiber broadband project in May. Laketown Township is just southwest of Holland.

The meeting minutes (see Article IX on Page 2) has the details. The township will raise a millage of 1.6572 mills ($1.6572 per $1,000 of taxable value) to pay for the project’s estimated $8.6 million cost. The network will be available to all township residents, but prioritize those without access to broadband today.

The proposal will be on the May 3rd ballot for residents to vote on. Pending approval, it could take 8 months for availability. They’re targeting a price of $50-60/month.

While this is unrelated to our discussion with Holland BPW, it sounds good and complimentary. We support Laketown Township’s effort to bring better broadband to their citizens! Hopefully as more fiber is built, the governments involved can work together to make access better and even more affordable.

Holland BPW has spent tens of millions of dollars into their fiber network in the last couple decades. It goes well beyond the city limit into the surrounding townshps.

This is a key reason we want the Holland BPW to become a broadband utility.

In their 2015 Annual Report they have a great graphic showing how much fiber is already in place.

This is great public infrastructure, and will make rolling fiber out to everyone much easier than in other cities.

Update: The survey is available here until February 26.

Holland BPW is emailing residential customers a link to a survey.

For a subset of respondents, they ask questions at the very end (if you opt-in) about broadband.

Please fill it out and make your voice heard!

City Council had their annual retreat this weekend and made broadband a top priority.

Top among the elected leaders was bringing fiber optic Internet to Holland’s neighborhoods.

Once again, getting #HollandFiber into the neighborhoods is `CityofHolland's City Council's top priority for the year.

— Brian Burch (`brianburch) January 30, 2016

“I wasn’t surprised that fiber was No. 1,” Mayor Nancy DeBoer said. “Everyone feels strongly about trying to make that happen.”

This is great news, but we still have work to do. Tell your council members that we want this today!

This week Holland BPW connected Gigabit fiber broadband to three pilot sites. This is a big milestone toward getting broadband for everyone.

ZOMG! I just downloaded a 6GB film from iTunes in fewer than five minutes on #HollandFiber.

— Brian Burch (@brianburch) January 26, 2016

Initial speed tests are looking good; we’re getting 800 Mbps speeds down and 600-700 Mbps up!

As the final few pilot sites come online, speed tests might go down a bit (we’re all sharing 1 Gbps or 1,000 Mbps). But this is 10-100 times faster than what we had before, so it feels extremely fast.

Try it out

How do you try it for yourself? Two of the sites are public: Lemonjello’s and Butch’s.

Both have public Wi-Fi into BPW’s fiber broadband. I recommend starting your day at Lemonjello’s with coffee and a muffin straight from the oven. Then move to Butch’s for soup and sandwich lunch and a microbrew in the pub.

The Wi-FI network names are HBPWHighSpeed5G (best) and HBPWHighSpeed24.

These are 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz networks respectively.

Read our What to Expect tips to get the best speeds from these Wi-Fi network. Per-user speeds may be limited from time to time.

What’s next?

The pilot runs for three months. During that time, we hope to hear about pricing and wider rollout plans from BPW.

How can you help? Tell BPW and City Council you want this soon! Spread the word, and have your friends sign up to show their support.

Gigabit fiber broadband is impressive, but when you go to a pilot site and run a speed test, you might be surprised to see lower (yet still impressive) speeds.

Wi-Fi is capable of gigabit speeds, but there are many factors that will determine your actual speed, including:

• Distance from the access point

• Equipment capabilities

• Noise (other networks)
• Number of people on the network

Here’s what you can do to improve your speed.

Distance from the access point

This one is easy. Move closer. In the Collective Idea office we initially saw a 100-300 Mbps drop when moving 20 feet from our Wi-Fi access point.

Equipment capabilities

Not all devices can handle gigabit speed. Your Wi-Fi must be 802.11ac to get full speeds. Computers and phones also have different antenna configurations, which can limit your speed. 802.11ac came out in late 2011. The Wikipedia page has a list of capable devices.

Your device negotiates a speed with the access point. On a Mac, you can see your current negotiated speed by Option-clicking the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.

Finally, Wi-Fi networks broadcast at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. You’ll get the highest speeds from the 5 GHz networks.

Noise (other networks)

We have many many Wi-Fi networks downtown and there’s only so many channels for Wi-Fi to use. It is best to keep nearby networks off the same channels, but as new networks come and go, this is a constant challenge.

This is another reason to pick a 5 GHz network: they’re less crowded.

Number of people on the network

As more people try to use the network, the speed allocated to each individual is less. This is easy to see with a speed test. Run one on your own, then run one the same time a friend does.

All the pilot sites are sharing a single gigabit connection (1,000 Mbps). A benefit of fiber, however, is that since downloads are quicker, you get out of the way of the next person quicker. So your speed test might not be the best, but you’ll be loading YouTube videos faster than you ever have.

Will I notice a speed difference?

I’m confident you will. Load YouTube and play a video, download a Software Update, host a video chat, or something equally bandwidth intensive. You’ll feel the difference immediately. If you’re a gamer, you’ll notice fiber provides the lowest latency possible. If you have anything to upload you’ll notice a huge difference.

Either way, let us know what you think! Drop us a note in the comments, email info@hollandfiber.org or discuss on social media with #HollandFiber.

Holland BPW is almost ready to kick of a 3-month pilot program in Downtown Holland.

Fiber installation happened a couple weeks ago, and BPW is waiting on trial equipment to hook it up. We hope to have everything up and running in early January.

The three buildings are:

• 44 E 8th Street (Riverview Building)
• 31 E 8th Street (Lokers)
• 61 E 9th Street (Lemonjello’s Coffee)

The first two are multi-tenant buildings, so the pilot will simulate a neighborhood. BPW will lease a 1 Gigabit line to the Internet, and all pilot participants will share.

So what are the goals of a trial? For BPW, they get to test equipment from 2 different vendors in real-world situations. It also gives time while BPW finalizes their business plan and pricing.

The public will have opportunities to test the system too. We’ll keep you posted!

The Holland Sentinel reported Sunday about BPW’s progress to roll out fiber.

This Wednesday (October 21st), Holland City Council will take action to make fiber to the home a reality!

They’ll vote to authorize a contractor to conduct an engineering survey and formalize a business plan. This is a big next step into Holland BPW becoming an ISP. By January, we should have the results which will allow for community rollout to be planned during the Spring.

This is just one step in a long process, but BPW and City Council are making great progress. Read the BPW Recommendation and view the City Council Agenda for more info.

BPW met yesterday with three downtown Holland buildings about running a fiber pilot project. The goal is to test equipment that could be use in homes or small businesses, and get some real-world usage.

Each multi-tenant building will be set up like a small neighborhood, with the same equipment that you’d get in your home. That way, BPW doesn’t merely test that they can do fiber to the building, but tests the real equipment in a contained area (easier to tweak inside a building than atop a pole).

All three sites will share a 1 Gbps connection to the internet, similar to how a residential block might be set up.

The project will kick off around late November and run for 90 days. We’ll be sure to have public events when it is up and running, and have spaces where you can try BPW Fiber on your own time.

Hello Holland Fiber supporters. We have some great news to share.

BPW working to bring fiber to the home

In meetings with Holland BPW this week, we learned that they are working on a business plan to bring fiber to the home! This is a huge first step in the process of providing affordable high speed internet.

This means in the future, we could call the BPW to get a high-speed fiber optic internet connection instead of Comcast, Charter, or AT&T! The goal is much faster speeds at competitive prices with great customer service.

There are a handful of steps that have to happen, and the BPW Board still has to approve the plan, but we have confirmation from BPW General Manager Dave Koster that his staff is actively working on this.

Pilot Project

The BPW is also working on a pilot project to test equipment and usage in a few downtown buildings (and hopefully a few neighborhoods). We’ll definitely post more information as this gets closer. We hope to have access in public places so you can experience what Holland Fiber could be.

Timing

The business plan will take at least a couple months. Concurrently, planning for the pilot project can happen with implementation in early 2016. If everything goes well, by spring they could be planning wider rollouts for implementation later in 2016.

How do I help?

1. Encourage your friends and neighbors to sign our support form.
2. Educate yourself on fiber and its benefits by reading our FAQ.
3. Talk with your elected officials to let them know you feel this is important.
4. Let us know how we can help you spread the message and what information you’d like to hear.
5. Get excited! The wheels are in motion to bring high-speed home broadband to the Holland area!