The city of San Francisco has released its long-awaited Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) feasibility study, estimating buildout costs of over a half billion dollars. After a long and enlightening conversation with Joanne Hovis, president of study author CTC, we have a few initial insights to report. For those of you new to the story, San Francisco’s supervisors [...]

Gwinnett County, Georgia is seeking a private company (or a group of companies) to build, own and run a community wireless broadband network throughout portions of the county. Gwinnett County (pop. 700,000) is one of America’s fastest-growing counties for the past 20 years. It is located 30 miles north of Atlanta. Gwinnett County, Georgia is [...]

Google is offering businesses in Mountain View $50 in free advertising (even if they don’t have a website). Merchants have to create an Google AdWords account and select keywords that determine when Mountain View residents see their ads: “For example, someone searching on Google.com for the keyword Italian food may see an ad for an [...]

Dublin, Ireland has issued a tender seeking a consultant to provide advice on the feasibility of providing free wireless broadband access, similar to San Francisco’s plan. The estimated cost of the network is between 12 million EUR and 20 million EUR (according to this article). Download the tender document from here. I can already see [...]

Tennessee CIO Bill Enzell is retiring. He will be succeeded by Deputy CIO and CTO Mark Bengel.Government Technology reports Mark Bengel has been named the new CIO for the state of Tennessee. He will assume the post on August 1 when current CIO Bill Enzell retires. Bengel is presently the state’s deputy CIO and CTO. [...]