Boulder names broadband partner
Citywide high-speed internet is finally coming to Boulder after city council unanimously approved an agreement with ALLO Communications on Nov. 21.
The Nebraska-based telecom company will enter into a 20-year agreement to lease a portion of Boulder’s recently completed fiber backbone, with plans to bring affordable, market-rate broadband internet to 97% of the city by 2030.
“This is a long time coming,” councilman Matt Benjamin said at the Nov. 19 meeting where the lease was approved. “The community said ‘hey, we want to do this and here’s some money,’ and we made it work,”.
Boulder has been working to make municipal broadband service a reality since 2018 when it approved $20 million to construct 65 miles of fiber optics throughout the city. In October 2023, the city opted to move forward with a partnership model to lease the fibers to a telecom company, as opposed to providing the service itself, a project that would have cost an additional $295 million.
The deal is projected to bring $9 million in revenue to the city, with ALLO paying Boulder $1.5 million upfront along with monthly per-customer revenue shares: $2.25 for each residential customer and $9 per business.
Even with the savings, several council members expressed concerns about partnering with a for-profit company to provide a public good.
“I still remain a little bit nervous,” Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Speer said during the meeting. “Things don’t tend to go well for a lot of folks in our community when people’s ability to access their basic needs is sold for a profit.”
Several of Boulder’s neighboring communities, including Longmont and Loveland, have municipally provided internet service, but Boulder maintains that offering its own broadband through the city wasn’t an option due to the high cost.
“Given that we didn’t have the funds to finish this buildout and provide internet access as a purely public service, you all have done a really good job of finding a middle ground here,” Speer said.
Rates won’t exceed the monthly costs for the other 10 Colorado cities where the company currently provides internet services, according to the lease agreement with ALLO, and includes a $30 monthly subsidy for residents who live in affordable housing or qualify for government assistance. Nearly 10% of Boulder residences meet these requirements, according to Boulder’s deputy director of innovation and technology Mike Giansanti.
Current monthly rates for ALLO services are $79 for 500mb, $108 for 1G and $136 for 2.3G. In comparison, Longmont’s municipally owned NextLight internet service costs residents $70 for 1G service.
BVSD bans cellphones
Boulder Valley School District classrooms will be cell phone-free starting in January.
The BVSD board voted to universally ban “personal technology devices” — which includes phones, wearable watches, headphones, cameras and other mobile devices — with a 6-1 vote at its Nov. 19 meeting.
Enforcement for the ban will be up to the individual schools at first, but board members said implementation will be a learning process for the district.
“This policy is fairly high level in that it’s not dictating a lot of how to do this within each school, so I expect there to be some iterative learning,” said board member Alex Medler. “I don’t believe we know what the answer is to some of these implementation issues.”
BVSD is planning to update the public on policy enforcement practices at a meeting in March, Superintendent Rob Anderson said during the meeting.
Schools will still be able to contact parents in emergency and non-emergency situations through several means of communication, including their SchoolMessenger platform.
Boulder's emissions drop
Boulder has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 24% since 2018 according to its 2023 Greenhouse Gas Inventory, a city press release said. The largest reduction in emissions comes from building electricity — still the leading contributor to GHG in the city at 36% — due to lower consumption levels and use of cleaner energy sources, according to the release. Boulder needs to curb annual emissions by 7% on average to reach its 2030 goal of a 70% reduction.