Episodes

For our final Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] episode of 2014, we review some of the notable events and news we covered and we discuss some predictions for 2015. Lisa Gonzalez and Rebecca Toews join me in this discussion. Read the transcript from this call here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Let us know if we should try something like this again next year or for the 4th of July... or if we should stick to ou...

Given all the horrible experiences people have had over the telephone with massive cable companies, it isn't clear that one can design a skit to parody such a conversation. Each time someone calls one of these companies is a parody in and of itself. However, given that this is a holiday week, we decided to have some fun and record two such conversations using some of real interactions we have had. The first call is reflective of many attempts we have had in trying to ascertain prices for common...

We have seen a lot of claims about Kansas City - whether Google Fiber's approach is increasing digital inclusion, having no impact, or possibly even increasing the digital divide. This week on our Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast, we are excited to have Michael Liimatta, President of a Kansas City nonprofit called Connecting for Good, that discusses what is happening in Kansas City. Michael offers insights into the difficulty of connecting low income populations and h...

The open access approach, which generally refers to multiple service providers offering services across the same physical network, remains a challenge for those who want to implement it. Though many communities would prefer to focus on the infrastructure rather than selling services directly in competition with existing providers, most find the approach is not feasible. This week, Eric Lampland is back on the show to discuss what the challenges are and how the future of open access may not be w...

I was recently invited to speak in Brussels on the experience of U.S. cities and fiber optic investment. Videos from the seminar are available here. I took some extra time around the seminar to visit Amsterdam and then Bruges in Belgium. On this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast, Lisa and I discuss broadband in the European context. We talk about how much people pay in Amsterdam for better services than we commonly get and note that most European cities have muc...

The small village of Sebewaing has become the first gigabit village in the state of Michigan. Superintendent of Sebewaing Light and Water utility Melanie McCoy joins us to discuss the project on episode 126 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. With approximately 1,800 people, Sebewaing has cracked the code for a small local government to deliver gigabit services to the community. In the show, we discuss previous telecommunications investments by the village and ho...

Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience and now co-author of The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance joins us for Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] #125. We discuss the idea of a Responsive City. Susan contrasts her visions of a Responsive City with more traditional notions of a "smart" city and notes that having fiber throughout a community is a necessary base. We discuss a few of the examples from the book that discuss how local government...

We first became aware of the Media Mobilizing Project through our work with the

Aurora, Illinois, has been named one of the "Smart 21" most intelligent communities of 2015 according to the Intelligent Community Forum. We have been tracking Aurora for a few years and wrote about OnLight, its nonprofit ISP, that we wrote about earlier this year. With some 200,000 people, it is the second largest city in Illinois but it has one of the most interesting hybrids of municipal fiber and nonprofit partnerships we have come across. For this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bi...

For this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast, we are excited to have Bob Frankston back on the show. Frankston has spent a long time thinking about connectivity and we previously explored his thoughts on episode 14. In this episode, we talk a lot about how to think about what he terms "connectivity" rather than telecommunications. Telecommunications are a train track - the network owner determines when to move the trains and at what capacity. Our goal for networks...

This week, we helped to launch Next Century Cities, a collaborative effort of local governments that are making smart investments and partnerships to ensure their communities have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access. Deb Socia is the Executive Director of Next Century Cities, coming to it from a nonprofit organization she developed in Boston called Tech Goes Home that works to increase digital inclusion. Via my capacity at ILSR, I am the policy director for NCC, so I have been workin...

Lisa Gonzalez and I have been wading though all kinds of crazy talk since the cities of Wilson and Chattanooga filed petitions with the FCC to strike down state laws that prevent them from offering Internet access to their neighbors. In our first episode of Crazy Talk since way back in episode 72, we deal with claims that municipal networks often fail, whether the FCC has authority to restore local authority, and whether the state barriers in question are actually barriers at all. In this epis...

Earlier, this year, the Minnesota Legislature established a "Border to Border" Broadband fund to expand Internet access to the least connected in the state. Senator Matt Schmit and Representative Erik Simonson led the effort to establish the fund that is now administered by Danna Mackenzie. All three of them join us this week to discuss the program. We discuss the state of Internet access in Greater Minnesota and why these elected officials fought to create a fund to improve the situation. Then...

While in Springfield, Massachusetts for the Broadband Communities Municipal Broadband and Economic Development event, I met several of the people that have been working on an initiative that aims to bring better Internet access to many in Connecticut. Two of them, Connecticut Consumer Counsel Elin Katz and Broadband Policy Coordinator Bill Vallee join me this week for episode 118 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. Three cities have already issued an RFQ to begin...

Calls for "dig once" policies have resonated for years. The general idea is that we can more fiber and conduit in the ground at lower prices if we coordinate to include them in various projects that already disturb the ground. In the south Twin Cities metro in Minnesota, Dakota County has been tweaking its dig once approach for more than a decade. This week, Network Collaboration Engineer David Asp and .Net Systems Analyst Rosalee McCready join us to discuss their approach to maximizing all opp...

This week, Lisa Gonzalez interviews me about my recent trip to the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. The IGF is an opportunity for anyone concerned with Internet Governance on planet Earth to discuss the perceived problems and possible solutions. It uses a multi-stakeholder format, which means that governments, businesses, civil society, and academics are all able to come to the table... this means just about anyone who has the means to participate -- including by doing so remotely...

By building a fiber line to allow some local businesses to get next-generation Internet access, Rockport became the first municipal fiber network in the state of Maine. Town Manager Richard Bates joins us for episode 115 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. We discuss the financing behind the network and their partnership with local Internet Service Provider, GWI, to improve access to the Internet. Bates also explains how they had to ask voters for authorization ...

Sallisaw is one of many small municipal FTTH networks that most people are not familiar with. For a decade, they have been quietly meeting their community's needs with DiamondNet. For this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary], we learn more about it in a conversation with Assistant City Manager Keith Skelton and Network Communications Supervisor Danny Keith. Sallisaw built their network after incumbents failed to provide broadband in the early 2000's, becoming the first tr...

Though much of western Massachusetts has poor access to the Internet, the town of Leverett is in the midst of fiber build that will offer a gigabit to anyone who wants it. Peter d'Errico, on the town Select Board, has been part of the project from the start and Chairs the Broadband Committee. He joins us for Episode 113 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. He and I discuss the great need for the project and inaccurate broadband maps that overstate availablility in...

After having met City Councilmember Caitlin Copple at last year's Broadband Communities event in Austin and seeing the progress Missoula, Montana, has made in considering a municipal fiber network, I knew we should ask her to be on the show. This week, she joins me and Karen Palmer, the Director of Operations for a local tech company in Missoula, LMG, for episode 112 of Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary]. After surveying local businesses, Missoula found a strong need for better...

Hunter Newby is back for his second appearance on Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] to discuss his thoughts on carrier neutral approaches to spur our economy with more investment in better networks. We just talked with Hunter in episode 104 on carrier neutral approaches to middle mile networks. Now we discuss these types of approaches within communities - how to spur more competition without the owner of the infrastructure actually offering services directly. This has been a c...

Given the exciting development of the FCC opening comment on petitions from Wilson, NC and Chattanooga, TN to restore local authority to their states, Lisa and I decided to take over this week's podcast of Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary]. We talk about the petitions, some background, and interview Will Aycock from Wilson's Greenlight Gigabit Network and Danna Bailey from Chattanooga's EPB Fiber network. We finish with some instructions on how you can comment on the record. ...

If you have doubts that we can or will connect rural America with high quality Internet connections, listen to our show today. Alyssa Clemsen-Roberts, the Industry Affairs Manager at the Utilities Telecom Council, joins me to talk about how utilities are investing in the Internet connections that their communities need. Many of these utilities are providing great connections, meaning that some of the folks living in rural America have better -- faster and more affordable -- Internet access than...

Boulder is the latest Colorado community to recognize the benefits of using city-owned fiber to spur job growth and improve quality of life. Boulder Director of Information Technology Don Ingle joins us for episode 108 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. We discuss the many ways in which Boulder has benefited from community owned fiber over the past 15 years and the smart policies they have used to expand conduit throughout the community. We finish with a discus...