Russell, Massachusetts’ Municipal Cable Era Comes to an End After Three Decades
For more than three decades, the small town of Russell, Massachusetts, home to roughly 1,600 residents, operated one of the few municipally run cable and internet systems in the Commonwealth. The system, launched in 1988, was established as Russell Municipal Cable TV and provided cable television and later broadband services through its network. By the time of its sale in 2021, Russell offered residential internet plans with speeds up to 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload, serving just over 200 households.
The same local control that once empowered Russell to build its own network also meant it bore the full burden of upgrading and maintaining it, a burden that grew heavier as technology advanced and costs rose. Town officials cited the rising cost of programming and the challenge of keeping pace with advancing broadband technology as key reasons for exiting the business.
In November 2021, Russell sold its municipal system, and its approximately 213 customers, to Comcast, marking the end of more than 30 years of locally owned service. Comcast, which serves over 1.2 million subscribers across 248 Massachusetts communities, began transitioning Russell residents and businesses to its Xfinity and Comcast Business services. The migration included gigabit-speed internet, the X1 video platform, and Xfinity Mobile. Comcast also extended its Internet Essentials Program, a low-cost broadband option for qualifying households to the Russell community.
Russell’s experience illustrates the structural challenges that small municipal broadband operators face in the modern market. Sustaining a network to meet evolving customer demand requires substantial capital investment, technical expertise and scale, resources small towns often lack. The sale was part of a broader interest in acquisitions at the time, with cable providers purchasing small municipal broadband systems to expand their regional footprints while towns exited the broadband business. Russell’s story reflects a sobering reality for many small municipalities: public broadband built for the 20th century may no longer be sustainable in the 21st.
Amina Cecunjanin-Music is a 3L at New York Law School.