In the most recent podcast from Community Matters, Fran Stoddard interviews Chris Mitchell and Billy Ray, from the Glasgow Electric Plant Board. The interview touches on the benefits of community networks, their critical role in the health of local communities, and provides info on getting a local initiative started.

Glasgow, the first municipal network in the country, pioneered the idea of the publicly owned broadband network. Billy Ray, Superintendent of Glasgow's Electric Plant Board shared a detailed account of the community's strategy in episode 74 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. He also helped us to develop a video on the network (soon to be released!).

Community Matters also provides notes from the show, detailing questions and answers. The show runs just under an hour.

The possible merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable and the FCC's recent announcement to review state barriers have created a significant buzz in the world of telecommunications. Two recent NPR interviews with Susan Crawford and Jim Baller provide insight into how the merger may affect consumers and why a new light is shining on municipal networks.

Crawford spoke with Brooke Gladstone for a recent interview for On the Media. The two addressed some of the consequences of the potential merger. Crawford also discussed the option of municipal broadband investment is an alternative gaining traction. As our readers know, Crawford authored Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. Crawford joined us in a past episode of the Communiy Broadband Bits podcast.

Jim Baller, President of the Baller Herbst Law Group, also joined On the Media when he spoke with Bob Garfield. Baller and Garfield talked about the cable and telecom lobby's efforts to block municipal authority to build networks. Baller supplied a few of the many examples of successful communities that have blossomed as a result of their investment. We have interviewed Baller three times for our podcast.  

Each interview is a little over six minutes.

On February 13, KKFI Community Radio from Kansas City, Missouri, interviewed ILSR's Chris Mitchell and Todd O'Boyle from Common Cause. Tom Klammer, host of the "Tell Somebody" show covered Kansas legislation SB 304 aimed at preventing municipalities from investing in their own broadband networks.

Klammer writes on the program website:

Recently Todd O’Boyle of Common Cause brought my attention to a Kansas Senate bill, authored by a cable industry lobbyist, which would outlaw community broadband in Kansas.  Subsequently I came across an article online written by O’Boyle’s colleague Christopher Mitchell who wrote that the bill in question, if passed, would create some of the most draconian limits on building networks that we have seen in any state.

You can listen to the interview from the program website. The interview is a little under one hour.