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Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner said she is putting together a plan to establish a city-owned broadband network.

(Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Mayor Stephanie Miner said she is researching the possibility of building a city-owned fiber-optic network to improve access to high-speed Internet service in Syracuse.

Miner, who has expressed frustration at the lack of local broadband options, said a public network may be the best way to ensure that Syracuse has affordable, high-speed service.

"I'm putting together a plan that we can do it ourselves, as a community,'' Miner said.

Cities such as Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., have established public networks that provide Internet service with download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, 50 times faster than the average U.S. connection. Miner said that's the standard she is eyeing for Syracuse.

But the mayor said her administration is just beginning to research the idea, and many details would have to be worked out before a proposal could be brought forward.

"Would we have to do that in phases? What would that look like? How would we pay for it? What would the model be? Those are all things that we are currently looking at, '' Miner said.

Miner today participated in a New York City meeting hosted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which has established a task force to address income inequality and to promote economic mobility and job creation in America's cities. The task force, which includes Miner and roughly 30 other mayors, has targeted broadband access as a critical factor in overcoming economic barriers facing low-income or unemployed city residents.

Chaired by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the task force also has pledged to promote access to high-quality pre-kindergarten education and an increase in the minimum wage. The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report today saying that income inequality has grown worse since 2008, and is expected to continue.

Dozens of communities across the country have established public networks that bypass commercial Internet providers such as Time Warner Cable and Verizon, but the practice is increasingly controversial.

Some states have passed laws restricting municipal broadband, on the grounds that it interferes with private commerce, and federal regulators are currently weighing whether to overturn such limits.

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