Dozens of Connecticut towns are on a path towards installing wholesale fiber networks
At Least One State has a (Fiber) Backbone — Who's on track to get citizens high-speed Internet? Hint: it's the only state with the word “connect” in its name. — Maybe you remember Sir Boss … Tweets: @stevenlevy Tweets: Steven Levy / @stevenlevy : One state is willing to take on the cable/telcom cabal to become the first “Gigabit State.” @scrawford explains. http://medium.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
In April 2015 Backchannel reported that dozens of Connecticut towns were lining up to build wholesale fiber networks — open-access infrastructure any ISP could ride rather than a single town-owned monopoly cable plant — with Susan Crawford framing it as a bid to make Connecticut the first "Gigabit State" against cable and telecom incumbents.
The idea spread fast and then met politics: three months later 22 Massachusetts towns announced their own gigabit fiber build, but that larger 31-town project was later shelved after state-level delays in approval and funding. Connecticut's plan is therefore both the early template for buyer-led broadband and a live test of whether local ambition survives state inertia.
First-order effects
- Cable and telecom incumbents serving those Connecticut towns suddenly face competition from municipally backed wholesale infrastructure, while residents gain the prospect of gigabit service without any single provider owning the last mile.
- Town governments shift from broadband consumers to infrastructure operators, taking on financing, permitting, and network management directly.
Second-order effects
- Neighboring states copied the play almost immediately — Massachusetts towns launched a rival gigabit consortium within months — turning municipal wholesale fiber into a regional competitive dynamic rather than a one-off experiment.
- But the Massachusetts follow-through shows the downside channel: when state approvals and funding stall, multi-town projects can freeze, so incumbent lobbying at the statehouse becomes the decisive battleground even where towns are committed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, broadband provision splits into two models — investor-owned carrier networks versus buyer-led municipal builds — with the winner decided less by technology than by which states clear the regulatory path.
- Municipal supply-side builds and demand-side rules converge over time: a decade later states like New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and California were mandating affordable tiers via $15–$20 broadband laws, suggesting public intervention at both ends of the market is becoming the norm where incumbents underdeliver.
The trend: US broadband is shifting from reliance on incumbent carriers toward publicly initiated infrastructure — towns building wholesale fiber and states regulating price — with state politics, not engineering, setting the pace.