Community Broadband Bits

We’ve written a lot about RS Fiber, a broadband cooperative operating in two rural counties in south-central Minnesota. This week on the podcast Christopher talks with two representatives from the cooperative which serves almost three thousand members in Renville and Sibley counties. Our first guest is Jake Reiki, a corn and soybean farmer and Board Chair for … Continue reading "The Truth is in the Numbers: How RS Fiber Brings Broadband to the Farms and Families of Rural Minnesota – Episode 440 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Michelle Barber and Andre Lortz. Both serve on the Kaysville City Council and are members of the group Citizens for Kaysville Fiber, but today they join us to talk as regular citizens of the city of 30,000 in Utah. Kaysville has been working to improve Internet access … Continue reading "Organizing for Change in Kaysville, Utah – Episode 439 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Steve Lange, IT Manager for the city of Wadsworth (pop. 26,000) in eastern Ohio, which built its hybrid fiber-coax municipal network CityLink back in 1997.  The two talk about the history of the network, its push to bring more competition to the town, and its operational structure — the … Continue reading "Building Momentum with CityLink in Wadsworth, Ohio – Episode 438 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Jennifer Hawkins, President and Executive Director of One Neighborhood Builders (ONB), a community development organization based out of Rhode Island. She talks about about the Olneyville neighborhood, situated on the west side of Providence, and how significant health disparities in that community led her organization to jump … Continue reading "Broadband Access is a Health and Social Justice Issue — Episode 437 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast, Christopher talks with Maureen Neighbors, Energy Division Chief of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, about the state’s one-of-a-kind, $100 million voucher program designed and deployed for the current school year to help get and keep economically vulnerable students connected.  She tells Christopher how, with the help of CTC … Continue reading "Alabama Makes a $100 Million Commitment to Getting Students Online — Episode 436 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

Despite repeated reminders from the rest of us that Hollywood will only ever give the late night slots to guys named James, Stephen, or Conan, Christopher is determined that if he just hosts enough things he’ll be able to break into the business and leave us all behind. In that spirit comes a new series … Continue reading "Episode 1 of Connect This! – Community Broadband Bits Podcast Bonus Episode" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Catherine Nicolaou, External Affairs and Marketing Manager for Sacred Wind Communications, a rural local exchange carrier in NW New Mexico that has been focused on serving the Navajo Nation communities there. She shares the history of Sacred Wind, from buying copper infrastructure from Century Link 13 years ago … Continue reading "Sacred Wind Goes Technology Agnostic To Serve the Navajo Nation — Episode 435 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with the city of Sandwich, New Hampshire’s Broadband Advisory Committee Chair Julie Dolan and member Richard Knox. The join us to discuss the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative’s recent vote to add broadband to its charter. Sandwich is particularly poorly served in NH and they have been seeking solutions for a … Continue reading "A Grassroots Effort Pushed the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative to Add Broadband to Its Charter — Episode 434 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Stacy Cantrell, Vice President of Engineering at Huntville Utilities in Alabama. Huntsville’s (pop. 197,000) municipal utility serves well beyond the city boundaries, and its electric department built a major network that gets close to every house within the city limits.  Stacy shares how the 1,100-mile fiber project … Continue reading "Dark Fiber Will Bring Value to Huntsville for Decades to Come — Episode 433 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast" ★ Support this podcast ★

A little over three years ago in Episode 232 we heard from Lyndon Township, Michigan just after a ballot initiative passed to fund and build a municipal network. 43% of the community turned out for the vote, and the measure passed by a ratio of two to one.  Today we revisit Lyndon Township Broadband, with Christopher joined by … Continue reading "Lessons Learned with Lyndon Township — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 432" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher welcomes back Lee Brown, President and CEO of Erwin Utilities, to talk about what’s been going on since we last spoke with them more than three and a half years ago. Erwin is a town of around 6,000 and the county seat of Unicoi County, Tennessee, along the state’s eastern border.  The … Continue reading "In Erwin, Tennessee, an Incremental Approach Has Brought Success — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 431" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher welcomes back Will Aycock, General Manager of Wilson, North Carolina’s municipal network Greenlight, and Rebecca Agner, Communications and Marketing Director for the city of Wilson. Christopher talks with the duo about what it took for the city to be named one of the ten best small towns in the country … Continue reading "Twelve Years After Launch, Wilson, North Carolina’s Greenlight Network Continues to Innovate — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 430" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with IT Manager John Leary and Customer Experience, Marketing, & Communications Manager Lisa Stowe from Westfield Gas & Electric, the municipal utility for the city of 40,000 in the southwestern quadrant of the Massachusetts. The topic of the day is Westfield’s municipally owned fiber arm — Whip City Fiber … Continue reading "Whip City Fiber’s Next Phase: Connecting Hill Towns in Western Massachusetts — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 429" ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode of the podcast Christopher talks with Jeff O’Neill, City Administrator of Monticello, MN, about FiberNet, which is owned by the city but operates in a public-private partnership with local telecommunications provider Arvig.  Christopher and Jeff delve into the history and development of the network over the last fifteen years. They discuss how … Continue reading "How Monticello, MN’s FiberNet Weathered the Storm and Brought Community Savings — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 428" ★ Support this podcast ★

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed with stark clarity the impact of the digital divide across the country, and exacerbated the problem especially among the economically disadvantaged and in communities of color. With the onset of a new school year, school boards, city councils, and local governments have been distributing hotspots, equipping buses with Wi-Fi, and … Continue reading "Connecting A Neighborhood in Need in San Rafael, California – Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 427" ★ Support this podcast ★

In July we wrote about West Des Moines’ announcement that it would build an open access citywide conduit system to spur broadband infrastructure investment, and how Google Fiber became the Iowa city’s first partner.  In this episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, Christopher is joined by Jamie Letzring, Deputy City Manager for West Des Moines, … Continue reading "West Des Moines is Building a Citywide Conduit System and Google Fiber is First in the Door – Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 426" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Jill Levine, Chief of Innovation and Choice at Hamilton County Schools in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Evan Freeman, Director of Government Relations at the city’s municipal electric and fiber utility, EPB, and Deb Socia, President of the Enterprise Center. Together, the group discusses the recent landmark announcement by Hamilton County Schools … Continue reading "How One City Came Together to Provide Free Broadband To Those Who Needed It Most – Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 425" ★ Support this podcast ★

For communities looking to improve Internet access for their citizens but that might be wary of becoming full-fledged Internet Service Providers (ISPs) themselves, open access networks offer a practical model for the future. Like roads, open access networks serve as publicly owned byways that telecommunications providers can then lease bandwidth on and offer a wide array of … Continue reading "Is Open Access the Future? – Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 424" ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Ron Barnes, President and CEO Biloxi-based Coast Electric Power, an electric cooperative in Mississippi area, and Jon Chambers, Partner at Conexon, a consulting agency working with rural electric cooperatives to bring fiber to communities around the country.  In January of 2019 Mississippi state law changed to allow electric cooperatives … Continue reading "How Electric Cooperatives in Mississippi Have Taken the Lead in Broadband Expansion — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 423" ★ Support this podcast ★

Today on the podcast we welcome Angela Siefer and Craig Settles. Angela is the founder and Executive Director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and a tireless digital equity and inclusion advocate whose has worked to connect communities for over two decades. Craig is a nationally recognized consultant who works with public- and private-sector clients to … Continue reading "“We Can’t Build It and Just Assume People Will Come”: Digital Inclusion and Equity Today — Community Broadband Bits Podcast Episode 422" ★ Support this podcast ★