News of Note—USDA, GTT, municipal broadband and more

> Panasonic is making progress on the development of its Pena Station Next smart city outside Denver by installing communitywide Wi-Fi, a partly solar-powered microgrid and other internet of things projects, including a parking-management system. StateScoop article

> USDA allocates funding for telehealth projects in 28 states. mHealth Intelligence article

> Tampnet, a provider of data networking to the offshore industry, has selected global cloud networking provider GTT Communications to provide optical transport services to connect its offshore telecoms assets in the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Release

> Over 750 U.S. communities have built their own broadband networks to circumvent cable and telco monopolies. Motherboard article

> ECI announced record growth in 2017 with a double-digit percent increase in sales along with dozens of new customer wins. Release