Hello Everyone,

We are planning a town hall next week focusing on building fiber optic networks and success stories in cities, such as Chattanooga, TN which has the fastest internet in the country, if not worldwide. We’re delighted to have Gary Bolton, President of the Fiber Broadband Association, the largest fiber association in the country, and Katie Espeseth, Vice President of EPB of Chattanooga, TN (formerly Electric Power Board of Chattanooga). 

Please let us know if you’d like to co-sponsor this amazing Town Hall.  Let us know by noon on Thursday, July 13, 2023 by responding back to this email. 

Their fiber network buildout to all homes and businesses in a 600 square mile area has made Chattanooga a veritable rags to riches story.  Katie will tell us all about it, but here are some tidbits.

EPB is an electric power distribution and telecommunications company owned by the city of Chattanooga. Chattanooga has been known as “Gig City®” and for good reason:

• EPB started offering symmetrical 1 Gig high-speed internet over a fiber optic network in 2010 (100 times faster than the then national average). 
• EPB started offering 10 Gig in 2015 making it the fastest internet offering in the world. 
• During Covid, there was a seamless transition to an already existing and fast fiber optic network for work and learning at home. 
• In 2022, EPB launched the nation’s first community-wide 25 Gig internet service offering blazingly fast speeds to all residential and commercial customers over a 100% fiber optic network with symmetrical upload and download speeds.  
• Also in 2022, EPB launched EPB Quantum Network as the nation’s first commercially available quantum-as-a-service offering across their fiber optic network providing access to the latest foundational quantum networking technologies. 

Economic benefit has been reported at $2.69 billion in community benefit during the first ten years since EPB first introduced 1 Gig symmetrical speeds in 2010. 

In enhancing digital literacy for future generations, EPB developed its Future Ready Institute of Technology and Networking provided at an academy, with its first graduates in 2022, many of whom headed to college on scholarship. In total, graduating seniors earned $6,273,000 in scholarship offers.

EPB has won many awards, too numerous to list all of them here, but here are a few:

• R&D 100 Awards (known as the Nobel Prize of Engineering) for its pioneering work as the only utility in the U.S. testing cutting-edge quantum cybersecurity testing
• As home of the World’s Fastest Internet, Chattanooga was recognized by Forbes, Zillow and PC Magazine as the “Best Place for Remote Working.”
• American Public Power Association’s Sue Kelly Community Service Award for providing high-speed internet to 25,000 people in need at no charge to their families
• The EPB fiber Smart Grid has been recognized as the most resilient and sustainable from the Green Business Certification, Inc. 

This is going to be an amazing Town Hall!

Regards,

Odette Wilkens

Wired Broadband, Inc. (non-profit)