Municipal broadband takes a step in Cambridge with fiber-optic test at Manning, Newtown Court

Cambridge is taking its first concrete step toward establishing a municipal broadband system, partnering with the Cambridge Housing Authority in an experiment to bring extremely high-speed service to residents at two low-income public housing developments. The three-year trial involves Starry, the alternative wireless Internet provider serving mostly businesses and large apartment buildings.

But in this case, Starry will use fiber-optic cables instead of wireless connections to provide low-cost gigabit-speed Internet to residents at Manning Apartments in Central Square and Newtowne Court in The Port. Manning has 205 units that house seniors and disabled persons, and Newtowne Court is a family development with 268 apartments. CHA director of information technology John Barrett said most residents in the two developments now buy Internet service from the city’s dominant provider, Comcast, at higher prices and slower speeds.

On Wednesday, the housing authority board of commissioners approved a three-year contract with Starry. Another contract that did not need board approval is with Crown Castle, a company that leases fiber-optic cable that is not connected to the Internet – known as “dark fiber” – to customers. It is a “fast lane” that can be used for different types of connections, such as linking company sites as well connecting a property to Internet service, Barrett said.

The “dark fiber” term unnerved some who weren’t familiar with the description. “I can’t get over the title,” board chair Elaine DeRosa said. CHA executive director Michael Johnston joked: “I thought we were getting into something we shouldn’t get into.”

On the contrary, city officials asked the housing authority to participate in the experiment. And the money for the dark fiber lease and for the Internet service from Starry, a total of $227,165, is coming from American Rescue Plan Act funds received by the city under the federal program to help communities cope with the effects of the pandemic.

Crown Castle’s dark fiber will serve Manning Apartments. At the city’s request, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will provide some of its own dark fiber that connects to Newtowne Court and links its buildings, free of charge. The Crown Castle and MIT dark fiber cables are connected to a data center at 300 Bent St., in East Cambridge near Kendall Square, where Internet service providers such as Starry have a presence, Barrett said.

Starry will charge residents no more than $35 a month. Barrett told CHA commissioners that service from Comcast could cost four times as much for slower speeds.

He said the model of having a municipality own a fiber-optic cable network that one or more providers could use to bring service to residents is “not uncommon in places where cities have begun sponsoring more Internet connectivity.” If the housing authority experiment becomes “more than a pilot, it would be open to many Internet service providers,” Barrett said.

A consultant who prepared a long-awaited feasibility report on municipal broadband for Cambridge listed that model as one option. Advocates who have lobbied for city broadband for years have sought a system in which the city owns and provides the service as well as the infrastructure.

Starry already offers $15-per-month Internet service to residents at several CHA developments, using wireless receivers on building roofs. That service is available at Manning Apartments and Newtowne Court, Barrett said. When the fiber-optic Internet is installed there, existing Starry customers at the two buildings can transfer to the faster Internet at the same price they now pay, he said.

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