Building the Gigabit City – My Latest Book Launches

Last week I released my first e-book, Building the Gigabit City. Enthusiasm for building broadband networks on their own or in public private partnerships is growing rapidly in communities across the U.S. But there’s so much that people need/want to know about community broadband, it’s almost impossible to bring it altogether in one place. Building the Gigabit City focuses on the needs assessment process. Do this part right and you significantly increase your odds for having a successful broadband project.

Superfast broadband significantly boosts local economies, transforms education, improves healthcare delivery and increases local government efficiency. Building the Gigabit City helps you ask the right questions so you can do the same for your constituents.

Pulling valuable lessons from many of the 340 communities with successful broadband networks, this multimedia guide overflows with practical advice. Building the Gigabit City, produced in partnership with Gigabit Squared, helps rural and urban communities:

 

1. ignore the hype surrounding gigabit networks;
2. understand what super-fast access can and cannot do for your community;
3. conduct effective needs assessment; and
4. plan effective broadband strategy.

Here’s the Table of Contents

Chapter 1.  It’s Not about Speed, But What You Do with It

•  Who needs a gigabit?
•  What do you want to do with all that speed?
•  We don’t need broadband, we need NBA networks

Chapter 2.  Why Communities Want Faster, Better Broadband

• When first deployed, where do you see (expect) the greatest economic impact of broadband networks?
• How do you see broadband networks impacting healthcare delivery and telemedicine?

Chapter 3.  Communities Should Own the Business of Broadband

• Lack of competition, lack of options drive community ownership
• Assessing competitiveness in your community

Chapter 4.  Community Broadband Is a Free Market Win

• Treat Communities as Markets for Broadband
• Communities are the market and the market force

Chapter 5.  The many ways communities can own their broadband infrastructure

• Assessing nine options for business models

Chapter 6.  Pulling Back the Covers on Nonprofit Business Models

• Nonprofits with a broadband purpose
• Co-ops, an American tradition

1.  Arrowhead Electric Co-op Inc.
2. Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative

• Community foundations

1. Urban communities need broadband too

Chapter 7.  Moving Forward on Broadband

• Eight steps for getting off the dime and actively planning

Chapter 8.  Develop the Vision

• Know what you want
• To know what they want, you have to ask
• To share the vision, you must speak the same language

Chapter 9.  Identify Your Stakeholders

• Local Governments— top of the stakeholder lineup
• Anchor institutions: valuable stakeholders and potential subscribers
• Utilities  – public and private – are a good bet

Chapter 10.  Create an Effective Project Team and Steering Committee

• Forming a team – the preliminaries
• Specific details on building a project team and steering committee
• A Project Team Checklist

Chapter 11.  The Needs Assessment – Centerpiece of strategy planning

• Guidelines for effective needs assessments
• Cast the net wider for gathering feedback
• Developing your technology inventory

Chapter 12.  Building Consensus Early, Often and Always

• With consensus building, words matter
• Sometimes building consensus starts from the top
• Consensus building among constituents
• General guidelines for constituent consensus building
• Consensus building with service providers

Chapter 13.  Overcoming Political Adversity

• Winning friends and allies in the state legislature
• Achieving victory on the political battlefield
• When the opponent is philosophy

Chapter 14.  Bringing It All Together

• Hitting the ground running
• Narrowing the focus
• Gigabit cities that brought it all together

Chapter 15. Paying for the Network

• Finding investors for alterative funding models
• Additional funding options
• Economic development fundraising, a different way to attract invest
• Prepaid subscriptions, and other creative strategies

Chapter 16. Driving economic outcomes with broadband

• The many faces of broadband and economic development
• The Gigabit City and Economic Development – a survey
• The current state of broadband
• Broadband’s impact on economic development
• Broadband’s impact further explored

Conclusion and a Word from NTIA

Get your copy of Building the Gigabit City today. Downloads complementary thanks to Gigabit Squared, my partner in this project.

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