DevDigital, 365 Data Centers and Peace Communications jointly opened the Nashville Internet Exchange (NashIX) Tuesday, saying they deployed the exchange to improve Internet speeds in the Nashville area and reduce the cost of service. NashIX, which 365 is housing in its Nashville collocation facility, will reroute data that was previously routed via Atlanta, Chicago or Dallas, the companies said. Routing traffic through those cities “significantly” increased costs and resulted in additional latency, they said. Latency within a metropolitan area is typically less than two milliseconds, while latency between Atlanta and Nashville is between six and eight milliseconds, the companies said. A private 10 Gbps line from Nashville to Atlanta costs $5,000-$10,000 per month, while a Nashville area 10 Gbps connection is 30 percent of that cost, the companies said. A NashIX connection is free to entities that join the exchange before Sept. 30, the companies said. “Increasingly, content is moving from the core to the edge,” said NashIX board Chairman Peter Marcum in a news release. “With the NashIX, content will move faster and with less congestion.” The NashIX launch followed Allied Fiber CEO Hunter Newby saying Monday that company is poised to launch its own distributed Internet exchange between Miami and Atlanta, with connections to Chicago, Jacksonville and New York (see 1504060039). The Detroit Internet Exchange launched last week (see 1503310053).

The sponsors of HB-1303 and SB-1134 -- legislation in Tennessee that would partially ease the state’s restrictions on municipal broadband deployments -- confirmed Thursday that they're deferring further action on the bills until the Tennessee General Assembly’s 2016 legislative session. State Sen. Janice Bowling, a Republican, said support for the legislation had grown over the course of the 2015 legislative session but ultimately she and Assistant House Majority Leader Kevin Brooks decided there wasn’t enough support to move forward this year. Brooks previously had told us he believed the FCC’s Feb. 26 vote to pre-empt Tennessee’s municipal broadband law, along with North Carolina’s law, would improve the bill’s prospects (see 1502270048). The FCC’s pre-emption order now faces a legal challenge in the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals from Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (see 1503240059).

Comcast said it will begin offering 2 Gbps upload and download Gigabit Pro residential broadband service to customers in the Atlanta metropolitan area in May. The company said it already offers up to 10 Gbps broadband service to business customers. Gigabit Pro service will be available to any homes within “close proximity” to Comcast’s fiber network in the Atlanta area, which is within reach of 1.5 million area residents, the cable company said Thursday. The service will also require installation of “professional-grade equipment,” Comcast said. “Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods,” said Comcast Senior Vice President-Big South Region Doug Guthrie in a news release. Comcast didn’t disclose potential pricing for the Gigabit Pro service.

Frontier Communications said it made 2Fast symmetrical upload and download speeds available to its residential FiOS customers in Oregon and Washington. The symmetrical speeds will be available on Frontier’s 30, 50, 75, 100 and 150 Mbps speed tiers. “Customers have been demanding faster upload speeds for access to the cloud, gaming and streaming applications,” said Vicky Oxley, Frontier’s general manager-Washington, in a news release. The 2Fast tiers will allow customers to more efficiently upload pictures and videos, conduct videoconferences, connect to cloud services and play online games, Frontier said.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood filed an appeal Monday against the U.S. District Court in Jackson, Mississippi’s ruling granting Google a preliminary injunction against Hood (see 1503310023), he said in a statement Tuesday. “The law is clear that Google could have raised all of its defenses under federal law in state court,” but “we anticipated this judge's ruling,” he said. Judge Henry Wingate said in an order last week that Google didn’t have to “expose itself to civil or criminal liability before bringing a declaratory action to establish its rights under federal law.” “State Attorneys General should not have to go to federal court to prove their state law claims before being allowed to investigate or file in state court,” Hood said. “We believe the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will respect the separate sovereign authority of the states,” he said: “If Attorneys General are unable to enforce state drug and consumer laws simply because a company uses the internet, then this should be a wake-up call to all Americans that our children can simply type in 'buy drugs' and Google will guide them thru its auto-complete feature to the dark web where they can purchase everything from heroin to prescription birth control pills." Google didn’t comment.

Nine Detroit-area companies said they've established the Detroit Internet Exchange Point (DET-IX) to improve broadband speeds and lower costs for service providers in Michigan. Most data from Detroit previously had been routed through Chicago, DET-IX member company 123.net said in a news release. “Major metropolitan areas have been establishing IXP for years,” said 123.net Chief Technology Officer Ryan Dudain in the Tuesday release. “It's now our turn to improve Internet connectivity and stability for Michigan.” Internet collocation provider 123.net is housing DET-IX’s infrastructure in its Southfield, Michigan, headquarters. Only companies that have an autonomous system number (ASN) are eligible to join DET-IX, but the IXP provides 1 Gb and 10 Gb switch ports to its members for free. Several hundred Michigan companies have ASNs, 123.net said. “Detroit now has the infrastructure to consider itself among the best connected locations on the planet,” 123.net CEO Dan Irvin said in the release. “DET-IX offers numerous benefits to Michigan's established business community and will help attract and retain new tech businesses. It's an important milestone in the ongoing development of our state's high-tech economy.”

Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) said it negotiated its current contract with Global Tel*Link (GTL) to “drastically reduce” its inmate calling service (ICS) rates effective Wednesday to 5 cents per minute plus applicable taxes and federal USF fees for all calls within the U.S. The rate reduction is meant to comply with the FCC’s 2013 ICS rate cap order, which took effect last year, DRC said Tuesday. The FCC capped interstate call rates at 25 cents per minute for collect calls and 21 cents per minute for debit and prepaid calls. A 15-minute collect call cost would be capped at $3.75 under the FCC’s rules, while a 15-minute prepaid call fee would be capped at $3.15 (see report in the Aug. 12, 2013, issue). A 15-minute inmate call in Ohio cost $17.14 before the rate reduction, DRC said. GTL said it plans to replace all of its more than 2,000 phones in Ohio prisons by the end of the year and will install an additional 500 phones.

A U.S. District Court in Jackson, Mississippi, reaffirmed granting Google a preliminary injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and denied his motion to dismiss the case (see 1503020060), said court documents. Google’s submitted evidence purported to show Hood’s “dissatisfaction with Google’s posting of certain content he finds objectionable, namely advertisements and videos originating from third parties” before the case, said Judge Henry Wingate. Hood publicized “inflammatory statements” against Google, he said. “Google claims that it responded to the Attorney General’s concerns by voluntarily making requested changes, on several occasions, but declining to accommodate the Attorney General’s expressed wishes on others, citing its right to free speech under the First Amendment.” Hood’s 79-page subpoena against Google soon followed (see 1412190045), he said. Google’s argument “has a home in federal court,” said Wingate. "Google is not required to expose itself to civil or criminal liability before bringing a declaratory action to establish its rights under federal law, particularly where the exercise of those rights have been threatened or violated.” Hood didn’t comment. He said after the initial ruling earlier this month that Friday’s order doesn’t “indicate how the court will ultimately rule on the merits of the case.” The docket is number 3:14-cv-00981.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Sprint said the carrier plans to invest $45 million through the end of 2016 to deploy Chicago’s first LTE Advanced network. Wireless usage in the city has increased by more than 40 percent since 2012, Sprint said Monday. The carrier said it plans to hire 300 people in Chicago as part of the network upgrade, which will include the deployment of hundreds of new cell sites across the city. Underground portions of the Chicago Transit Authority’s "L" train system will be among the areas that will get the new cell sites, Sprint said. The carrier said it plans to hire 540 across the entire Chicago area, including opening 115 Sprint stores in the region.

The U.S. has five of the top 10 fastest broadband regions worldwide, an NCTA blog post Friday said, citing an Akamai report last week. It showed that 10 states that had speeds from 75.40 Mbps to 65.05 Mbps are Delaware, Virginia, D.C., Massachusetts, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Utah, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Worldwide, Hong Kong and Singapore top the list with Delaware coming in at No. 3, followed by South Korea and Virginia. The U.S. has 4 percent of the world's population, 10 percent of its Internet users and 25 percent of its broadband investment, said Akamai.