Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Whenever Christopher attends a Broadband Communities event, he returns with great stories from cities and towns across the U.S. that have invested in publicly owned Internet infrastructure. This week, we share his interview with Mel Poole, Ocala Fiber Network Director.

Last week, we unveiled the new podcast project we're working on with the nonprofit NC Broadband Matters, whose focus is on bringing ubiquitous broadband coverage to local communities for residents and businesses in North Carolina. The ten episode podcast series, titled "Why NC Broadband Matters," explores broadband and related issues in North Carolina. In episode two, “Fiber Rich Wilson, Why and What's Next?” Christopher talks with Gene Scott, General Manager for Outside Plant for Greenlight, a division of the city of Wilson, North Carolina.

In late October 2019, Christopher travelled to the D.C. area to attend a Broadband Communities Economic Development event and while he was there, he sat down with Executive Director Adrianne Furniss and  Senior Fellow Jon Sallet from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. This week, we get to sit in on their conversations about the recent change at Benton from "foundation" to "institute" and about their recent report, Broadband for America's Future: A Vision for the 2020s.

In August 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that they would begin to restructure their data collection techniques forming the basis of national broadband availability maps. The nonprofit Free Press submitted comments, as did the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and other organizations that consider correct mapping data a key element to expanding access to broadband. In this episode of the podcast, Free Press Research Director Derek Turner and Christopher talk about the proceeding and different perspectives toward moving forward.

We're pleased to bring you the first episode from a special bonus series of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast titled "Why NC Broadband Matters." The series is a collaboration with the nonprofit NC Broadband Matters, whose focus is on facilitating the expansion of ubiquitous broadband coverage to local communities for residents and businesses. We'll be working with NC Broadband Matters on this series to develop nine more episodes that center around broadband in North Carolina.

If you're a regular reader of MuniNetworks.org, you've seen Karl Bode's name and it's almost certain you've read his work elsewhere. Karl has had his finger on the pulse of telecom, broadband, and related legislative events for a long time. This week, Karl comes on the show to talk about how his career trajectory led to where he is right now, the surprising and unsurprising things he's seen, and how media coverage of telecom and technology has changed over the years. There are some issues, notes Karl, that should be handled more aggressively both in developing policy and in how the media covers them. The impact of large monopolistic Internet service providers, privacy concerns, and network neutrality are a few matters that affect us more than most people realize.

South Bend, Indiana, is a mid-sized city of around 100,000 people where they are making practical use of their dark fiber network and technology. In episode 378 of the podcast, Christopher talks with Denise Linn Riedl, Chief Innovation Officer. Denise describes many of the "non-sexy" ways the community and her department are using technology to encourage interdepartmental cooperation, efficiency, and the idea that technology is a standard tool, rather than a "shiny new thing."

Hey, Community Broadband Bits fans, it's time for Crazy Talk again! This time, our Communications Specialist Jess Del Fiacco joins Christopher and I to address recent insanity attacking municipal networks. "What IS Crazy Talk," you say? Every once in awhile, anti-municipal network initiatives get wind of particular projects in local communities and make extra efforts to spread misinformation. They usually rely on the same tired old talking points and refer to the same incorrect data from old reports that have been called out for inaccuracies.

The history of the Internet Society (ISOC) reaches back to the early 1990s when a group of early Internet pioneers, realizing the power of connectivity, developed an organization aimed at  bringing safe and secure Internet access to everyone. Since then, ISOC has worked in policy, deployment, and the difficult task of creating collaborations. This week, we have ISOC's Director of the North American Bureau Mark Buell and Senior Policy Advisor Katie Watson Jordan to talk about the organization, its history, and the work they do.

The Connect America Fund (CAF) from the federal government has been both praised and criticized as a mechanism to expand rural broadband deployment. In this episode of the podcast, Principal of Mattey Consulting Carol Mattey talks in depth with Christopher about the program. Carol was a Deputy Bureau Chief in the Wireline Competition Bureau at the FCC to help develop the program and has worked on the National Broadband Plan.