Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Missouri is one of the states where electric cooperatives are taking the lead in bringing high-quality Internet access to rural areas. This week, we talk with Jack Davis, Vice President of IT and Special Projects at Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative. The co-op is in the midst of deploying Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to members in their service area, located in Missouri’s “Bootheel” region.

Harvard Professor, author, and broadband champion Susan Crawford has been incredibly busy ever since she released her latest book Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution — And Why America Might Miss It. Fortunately for us and our listeners, she hasn’t been too busy to take some time for Community Broadband Bits listeners. She’s here this week to talk about the book, her experiences researching it, and discussing policy recommendations aimed at bringing better connectivity to rural and urban areas.

While in North Carolina at the recent Let’s Connect! speaking tour, Christopher sat down with Greg Coltrain, Vice President of Business Development of RiverStreet Networks. Greg participated in panel discussions in all three communities where the community meetings occurred: Albemarle, Fuquay-Varina, and Jacksonville.

It’s cold in our Minneapolis office this week, but two of our staff — Christopher Mitchell and Katie Kienbaum — are off enjoying mild January weather in North Carolina. They’re conversing with the good folks in three different communities, where they also met up with this week’s podcast interviewee, Alan Fitzpatrick, CEO of Open Broadband.

Before the Oregon communities of Monmouth and Independence banded together to form MINET, many people in the community were accessing the Internet via old dial-up connections. This week, MINET’s General Manager Don Patten comes on the show to discuss the past, present, and future of the network that has revolutionized connectivity in the far western cities near Salem and Portland.

In September 2018, we announced that we would begin working with NEO Partners LLC to bring the Community Networks Quickstart Program to local communities interested in exploring the possibilities of publicly owned broadband networks. For this week’s podcast, Christopher talks with the people behind the program, Glenn Fishbine and Nancy DeGidio.

Many of us are accustomed to Internet access from companies that own the infrastructure, offer only a few options, and are one of a small number of providers. For the most part, we've learned to accept that model, but will it ever change? This week’s guest, President of EntryPoint Networks Jeff Christensen, explains why that model is broken and how we can fix it through software defined networks (SDNs). We can turn that model around to put control in the hands of users.

We left our crystal ball, tarot cards, and astrology charts at home, but that won’t stop us from trying to predict what will happen in 2019 for this week’s annual predictions podcast. Each year, we reflect on the important events related to publicly owned broadband networks and local connectivity that occurred during the year and share our impressions for what we expect to see in the next twelve months. As usual, the discussion is spirited and revealing.

Many of our regular listeners will recognize this week’s guest voice. Craig Settles has been operating as an industry analyst and consultant since 2006. He’s also host of the Gigabit Nation radio talk show and Director of Communities United for Broadband. In recent years, Craig has focused much of his attention on telehealth and the ways communities large and small can use their broadband infrastructure to implement telehealth applications. The ability to use high-quality connectivity to deliver healthcare has expanded as access to broadband and innovation has increased. Craig describes the ways “telemedicine” has evolved into “telehealth.” In this discussion, Craig and Christopher discuss the ways that telehealth positively impact residents and their healthcare providers. Communities are also discovering that access to online medical care and related applications can spur economic development in rural and urban settings.

By the time a local community is ready to light up their municipal fiber optic network, they’ve already invested several years' worth of debate, investigation, and energy. While deploying a network is certainly a complicated task, educating the community, growing support, and helping elected officials determine the best approach is equally difficult. What’s it like in the early stages for those visionaries who feel that their city or town needs a publicly owned option?