Mapping the Future: How Community Networks Are Expanding Broadband - Episode 615 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Christopher Mitchell (00:08):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Alliance in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I'm here with Sean Gonsalves, who I just made crack up. How you doing, Sean?

Sean Gonsalves (00:25):
I'm back like the Terminator. I'm good. I'm good. Summer's almost [00:00:30] terminated, but out here on Cape Cod, we've had a great weather this summer and what they call the shoulder seasons, they're usually pretty nice, so I'm looking forward to the fall.

Christopher Mitchell (00:40):
Yeah, it looks like you might have long sleeves on.

Sean Gonsalves (00:43):
No, no, no, no, no short

Christopher Mitchell (00:45):
Sleeves. Sean, what do you do around here?

Sean Gonsalves (00:48):
Oh, man. What do I do around, I better have a good quick answer for this before you start doubting my patio. So I handle the communication stuff. My official [00:01:00] title is the Associate Director for Communications, which means I try to get our work out there, which also involves doing some writing, well, not some writing, a lot of writing for the website. Karl and I do a lot of the writing.

Christopher Mitchell (01:14):
It seems like we're mostly going to talk about Karl's stories today. I mean, I'm not saying that he's doing more than you, but

Sean Gonsalves (01:20):
Yeah, I think I got one in there. But listen, just like with plays and movies, Karl at times may [00:01:30] be the main character that propels the story for it, but the directors matter.

Christopher Mitchell (01:35):
Yeah, no, and I did want to, actually, I just poked you on that. I wanted to thank Karl. Karl Bode's been doing a lot of writing for us. It's been terrific, and we've got some great stories that we wanted to talk about that really you and he wrote about recently. And so that's going to be today's episode. We're going to talk a bit. I'm just going to open up with a briefing about California's Fiber Fund Account [00:02:00] or Federal Funds Account. Then we're going to talk about Paul Bunyan Cooperative, one of the coolest names cooperatives in Minnesota. They're doing some cool stuff. We're going to talk about the rescue plan and what's up with money that has to be obligated soon. And that's going to lead us into a short discussion about a cool partnership in Harrison County, Texas. And then we're going to wrap up talking about revisions and a new design for our map for the community [00:02:30] map, which is really focused on municipal networks right now. But I think we have still grander plans over time.

Sean Gonsalves (02:36):
Oh

Christopher Mitchell (02:36):
Yeah, that's the roadmap for today, and you should know you came up with it

Sean Gonsalves (02:42):
Buckle

Christopher Mitchell (02:43):
Up. So I did want to start off by noting that on our team, Jess, our has been tracking what's happening with the Federal Funds Account in California, which I believe is Rescue Plan dollars might be a mix of a couple different buckets, but it's money that the state [00:03:00] of California has put into an innovative program. It is being distributed by the California Public Utilities Commission, and many counties have sought funding for that. This is a very ambitious open access joint project. Some of those are getting awarded and the awards are kind of dribbling out. The way it works is that awards are first recommended, and then after a comment period, the public utility commission can approve them. And Jess has been tracking all of [00:03:30] this in his spreadsheet, and I'd asked her about the tribes because it seemed like some of the tribes that we've worked with in Tribal Broadband Bootcamps have been funded.

(03:41):
We're really excited about that. But she says that eight tribes applied for funding for themselves. There's a few tribes that are working with others like AT&T or someone else, but eight tribes applied for funding for them to build the network. Three of those have been funded, four of them have been recommended for funding [00:04:00] and will likely pass we think in the next round when the CPUC votes and one cold springs is waiting. And so there's still a lot of hope that all of the tribes who applied will get funded by the state. So that was really good, and I thought it would start off on a high note.

Sean Gonsalves (04:15):
Yeah, exactly. It's terrific news. And so far I feel the CPUC and the federal funding, this last mile grant program, it's about 2 billion in it. I forget what round they're in right now, maybe five or six or whatever. And [00:04:30] as you said, they kind of dribble out or what have you. But for community networks generally, it's been pretty good so far for projects that have applied. Although I think there are some projects in and around LA County that we haven't seen any real action on yet.

Christopher Mitchell (04:44):
Right. Yeah, we're very hopeful. I mean, these are very important projects. We thought that they were quite competitive, so we still have high hopes there. That's right. Good point. So just, we spent a lot of time on that, and frankly, you and Karl are doing a lot of coverage of those awards. [00:05:00] So people should be reading CommunityNets.org checking out our newsletter and I don't know, following us on social media, I don't know, but they should. Anyway, you should be hanging on our every word. That's what it comes down to. If I have a recommendation for you, it's miss anything that Sean writes or I say.

Sean Gonsalves (05:19):
Right? However you find this. All roads lead to community

Christopher Mitchell (05:22):
Nets. So Paul Bunyan is a cooperative, been around for a long time in Minnesota up north. [00:05:30] Pretty sweet. Why are we talking about them today?

Sean Gonsalves (05:32):
Because in August, they announced a payout to members, which it is technically called the capital credit requirement. So they just announced in August that they're going to be giving back 3 million to their over 30,000 members members get what they call these eligible shares. So I think they vary depending on how long you've been a member, et cetera. Anybody that had their share was a hundred dollars or less, they would get a credit on their August bill. And for everyone [00:06:00] else, they were actually cutting checks. And so it's not the first time that they did it, and it's not their largest. In 2022, they gave back 6.3 million, and in 2018 it was 2.2 million. So I just love this story because you want money,

Christopher Mitchell (06:14):
You want money for using the Internet, you want someone to pay you to use the Internet.

Sean Gonsalves (06:18):
Well, I think it highlights something that's very unique about community networks, be they municipal networks or cooperative networks. Now, look, not every network community network can do something like this or will [00:06:30] do something like this, but I think it sort of speaks to the different mindset and model and the position that it puts communities in who have these kind of networks. And so that's why I really like this story because this money is staying within the local economy and not going off to shareholders in far flung places. And so to me, it's really cool.

Christopher Mitchell (06:52):
You don't know if there's going to be a tornado that hits, right? And so you set your rates to make sure that you have contingency funds and you're set [00:07:00] up for anything that will come down the line, sudden cost increases. But if those things don't come to happen, you come to a point where you're like, all right, we can return money to the people who paid it. That's cool, right? That's pretty exciting. And co-ops do that. I don't think Comcast does that.

Sean Gonsalves (07:19):
No, they do. No, they do. What do you call it? What's it called? Stock

Christopher Mitchell (07:23):
Buybacks or whatever. That benefits with me now that Travis taught me how to Travis and ride together taught me how to buy a stock. [00:07:30] I got some index funds, and so that does benefit me, I guess. But yeah, I like this approach better. And so you note also cases in which in that story, I think that was your story, right?

Sean Gonsalves (07:44):
Yeah, it was.

Christopher Mitchell (07:45):
So you noted that I should have known it was you because talk about Faron, and if there's a story where you can mention Faron, you always take that opportunity. You're the biggest cheerleader of Faron.

Sean Gonsalves (07:55):
I swear Faron gives me nothing for it. I just love that. I love that network. [00:08:00] Faron.

Christopher Mitchell (08:00):
So Faron had lowered their prices and increased their speeds. And so you note that one of the things that you also reminded us of yesterday in a staff meeting I brought up in a conversation I had with Chad Crager that will be on the podcast feed next week if everything goes to plan, is that they set 6% aside of their revenues. And that was a hardship. It is a hardship for low income. And he talks a little bit about some of the things that money pays for there. But these community enterprises are about very high [00:08:30] quality service to people. And that's in Fort Collins. I dunno if I mentioned Fort Collins, Colorado, these community networks, they provide excellent connectivity, but they provide all these other bonuses too. And so now I feel like we're doing a promotion of some sort, but it's amazing. It's cool to highlight this.

Sean Gonsalves (08:47):
It is, it is. It's worth highlighting because I think these are the type of things that make this approach increasingly appealing to communities who are kicking the tires on these things and looking at it because [00:09:00] all of these possibilities and potential benefits for communities really matter to folks. Before we move on, let me just say one other cool thing. In doing the reporting on Paul Bunyan telecommunications, that was cool that I didn't know. They host this giga zone gaming championship every year that, and I saw pictures and it's like thousands of people come to this. Have you ever

Christopher Mitchell (09:24):
Been, I haven't gone to it. I think I'm going to keep an eye out for it. I've been looking for more things to do in the great [00:09:30] Minnesota Northland, and I was just up in Upper Peninsula, Michigan, had wonderful weather and reminding myself how great the northern border is of the United States.

Sean Gonsalves (09:42):
Yeah, I mean, it seems like a cool venue. And they started doing it in 2016, I think probably. I'm pretty sure they took a bit of a break around the lockdown times and all that, but I know in April of this past year, they just did it again. So

Christopher Mitchell (09:56):
Just look, check what games they're playing. I got my Pokemon Go. I [00:10:00] got some dynamax happening right now, so maybe I'll go and lose. That would be fun up there. I did want to note also, I just love this. They've been doing this for 70 years running this telecom network. The giga zone is more recent, obviously with the gigabit fiber optic service. But it's just like Dave Schultz, the chief financial officer, had a press statement and notes that joining Paul Bunyan is free to be a member of the co-op. You just take service, you just pay [00:10:30] a bill and you pay a lower bill than you probably would otherwise. And then you get money back occasionally

Sean Gonsalves (10:35):
80 bucks a month for a gig connection. I mean, that's

Christopher Mitchell (10:37):
Pretty good. That's better than people paying many urban areas know's a number of co-ops that have figured out how to get cost lower. But the last thing I did want to say is that different co-ops have different approaches in terms of if they're building out to an area. In some cases, new people that get serviced aren't members of the co-op, but more co-ops I feel like are making [00:11:00] sure that as they expand, the new people are members. And I think that's important. Over time, we don't want to have two class systems. There might be a delay while, because if it costs $10,000 to connect a home, maybe you don't get that next profit sharing. Maybe it takes a few years before you get that capital credit amount. But anyway, we didn't move on. Paul Bunyan is huge, but in many ways, I want to talk about this next, I want to talk about your editing [00:11:30] of Karl's story, about the rescue plan. You wrote ARPA, and it's a little bugaboo of mine. ARPA is an advanced research projects agency, and I'm annoyed that if you Google ARPA it no longer the rescue plan has taken it over because they reused that acronym.

(11:48):
So we're going to talk about the rescue plan, and I'm going to call it the rescue plan. If you say ARPA, yeah, let's the rescue plan. I'm going to put a buzzer sound.

Sean Gonsalves (11:54):
Listen, I'm with you. I'm not a fan of acronyms myself. And so anyhow, let's just call it the rescue [00:12:00] plan. Alright,

Christopher Mitchell (12:01):
So what's happening with the rescue plan?

Sean Gonsalves (12:03):
Karl wrote the story, and actually when I looked at the numbers, this is actually our most red story of the month of August. Kudos. Yeah, we're in September. So yeah, in August. And this is just about how it's reminding people Now, look, most of the people that we work with are well aware of these things, but it's still a good reminder I think, to look at a few things. So there's the deadline, or as I say in the headline, the shot clocks winding [00:12:30] down on spending this. And the reason why this is important to me is because the rescue plan dollars is where community networks have made the most. Hey, the rules around spending these dollars are much more flexible. And for me, the big takeaway really is that when this program goes away, I think we're going to see sort of this blistering breakneck speed that we've been seeing with community networks kind of abate a bit because most of the funding that's really fueling [00:13:00] a lot of these projects are coming from these funds.

Christopher Mitchell (13:02):
I don't want pessimistic Sean on this show.

Sean Gonsalves (13:04):
Well, I don't think it's pessimistic. I think of it as realistic, but we'll see. We'll see. But it's something to track. But the point of the story is just to look at the fact that these funds have to be obligated by the end of the year, and the keyword is obligate. They to be, the funds have to be spent by the end of December, 2026,

Christopher Mitchell (13:25):
Pick up that Oxford English dictionary for what obligated means.

Sean Gonsalves (13:29):
Well, [00:13:30] or you can actually look at how they define it in the law itself, which Karl did. And so I'm looking at the story here. Obligation of ARPA funds is not the same thing as budgeting those funds. So in the exact wording of the law, obligation means an order place for property and services and entering into contracts and similar transactions that require payment. Now, one of the reasons why we were kind of spurred, [00:14:00] well, at least I was spurred for us to do the story, is I came across a story in the New Hampshire Business Review because they were kind of looking at what was going on in

Christopher Mitchell (14:09):
New Hampshire. Yeah, it's one of your favorite magazines. I know.

Sean Gonsalves (14:12):
Yeah, right, right. Oh man. Thank God for Google Alerts.

Christopher Mitchell (14:18):
You weren't just reading it on a casual Sunday in the park.

Sean Gonsalves (14:21):
Yeah, yeah. Some chess reading

Christopher Mitchell (14:24):
The paper.

Sean Gonsalves (14:25):
Yeah, yeah. The New Hampshire Business Review. But they had an example in there about how a town deciding [00:14:30] to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a firetruck budgeting those funds, but that under the APA rules, those funds wouldn't be considered obligated by the federal government until an actual contract existed to purchase the truck for that amount with the company selling it. And so to me, it raises this question and worth keeping our eye to a degree is for communities that are using rescue plan dollars for broadband projects, have the funds been actually [00:15:00] obligated, and what does obligated mean?

Christopher Mitchell (15:02):
Want to have contracts? Not a plan, but actual contracts with people to have with a timeline and things like that.

Sean Gonsalves (15:11):
And we should note that Karl spoke to Doug Dawson, who's a good friend of the program, a regular on Connect this, and Doug Dawson, of course, works with a lot of communities all over the country on improving local broadband infrastructure, and he said that everyone that he works with is well aware, but he did say [00:15:30] that he wasn't sure if as it relates to this obligation thing, how did he put it? He said they're all working right now to define who will win those grants, but I don't know if that also means having a contract with each ISP.

Christopher Mitchell (15:45):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if you have a grant process and you've selected a winner, I don't know at what point that moves into obligation.

Sean Gonsalves (15:52):
Right. Well, and again, with the shot clock coming down to it, the reason why these questions are more than just hair splitting [00:16:00] is if it doesn't meet the federal definition of obligation, those funds are going back.

Christopher Mitchell (16:06):
One of the things that I thought was interesting in this story was 21,000 local governments are participating in the state and local fiscal recovery fund, which we all know is slur frf. I've written about, I've talked extensively about,

Sean Gonsalves (16:19):
I think you coined it. It's a great way to get around that weird acronym.

Christopher Mitchell (16:26):
And so those 21,000 local governments reported [00:16:30] nearly 320 billion in loss from the pandemic, and they've offset 131 billion of that with the slur for funding. So it's made a difference. I love that. We've had this experiment of having loose restrictions, giving the money out and allowing localities to prioritize it. Treasury has a dashboard that Karl weighted into. Apparently the recipients have budgeted more than 8.2 billion for [00:17:00] more than 1400 broadband deployment projects nationwide. So 1,400 projects, which is more than I thought, coming in at about 8.2 billion so far is what was spent now three 50 billion. I mean, I'll say that I think it's a disappointment. I feel that local governments, many local governments have missed opportunities. They should have taken our next story. We'll talk about one that did not, but I just feel like it's worth noting. I think that's good, but there's a lot of places who are going [00:17:30] to be sitting there being like, oh, man, why don't we have better broadband if only someone had given us a big check to do something, and we had taken advantage of that.

Sean Gonsalves (17:39):
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's one of the things and dear to my heart, because I've been trying to, in talking to various communities, remind them that the rescue plan dollars, I hope you don't let this opportunity get by you on the broadband front because you may be in for a rude awakening as it relates to BEAD and all it'll take to get [00:18:00] access to those grants or even anyhow, the rescue plan dollars. I think from our perspective as it relates particularly to municipal networks, that's where I think a lot of the action is. And by the way, that story also pointed out something that as it relates to rescue plan dollars, because there's this other bucket of rescue plan dollars, the Capital Project Fund, which a lot of states have been using for broadband, and some states have really set up some really good municipal [00:18:30] broadband grant programs using that money. My state, Massachusetts has so far given most of it to Verizon, but New York, California, Vermont, they've been leveraging these rescue plan dollars to fund municipal broadband networks all over those states. So that's off to those states for recognizing the opportunity and making something specific for it, and not just lumping it all together in with

Christopher Mitchell (18:54):
Good news. If you haven't seen it yet, Verizon's looking to buy Frontier, which should make for some good jokes over the next few months [00:19:00] if that actually starts moving forward. We'll be covering that in connect this, I'm sure for those of you who have been paying attention, frontier bought all the worst assets of Verizon and promptly went bankrupt not too long ago. So it's a never ending dance of games around bad policy and what these corporations will do. We're not going to get into that right now. I want to zoom in on the rescue plan to one county that we wrote about. I think Karl wrote this story about Harrison County, [00:19:30] so what's up with Harrison County? They're in East Texas.

Sean Gonsalves (19:34):
We write a lot about Public-Private partnerships, but I guess this would be considered a public

Christopher Mitchell (19:38):
Partnership. I mean, I think would often consider themselves private. It's sort of weird. They're a mutual association in such a way, and so I mean, in some ways they would consider themselves public in some ways they consider themselves private, so yeah, you could say that and they might also take offense at it. You never know.

Sean Gonsalves (19:59):
That's right. [00:20:00] And we don't want to offend the good folks of East Texas, which is where Harrison County is. So they entered into this partnership with Etex Communications, which is a subsidiary of the Etex Telephone Cooperative. They've got, what, a little over 12,000 members across 710 square mile service territory, mostly rural, and so the county decided to use 1.5 million of their rescue plan dollars. Etex is throwing [00:20:30] in 3 million, and they're going to be building out fiber to members across the eastern part of their county as they're waiting for charter who got RDOF funds to build out in the eastern part of the county. That hasn't happened

Christopher Mitchell (20:43):
Yet. Yeah, no charter can delay that for a while still.

Sean Gonsalves (20:46):
Yeah. The thing about the story that stood out to me is something that Harrison County Judge Chad Sims, and I don't know how local government offices work in the counties out

Christopher Mitchell (20:57):
There. The judge is the administrator of the county.

Sean Gonsalves (21:00):
[00:21:00] Right. That's what I thought. I wasn't picturing him with black robe and a gavel, Sid Curly white hair, but he said something interesting, which is that they spoke to a number of ISPs and they spoke at link to the broadband office and that the broadband office said, give that money. Don't give that money to private broadband or private broadband provider. Give it to the co-ops.

Christopher Mitchell (21:26):
That is what SIM said. That's what SIM [00:21:30] said, and I'll just say that I feel like the Texas Broadband Office, I think is committed to everyone having an opportunity at funds. I suspect that they were like, Hey, if you've got a great, great deal with a co-op, you want to take that? So I think it's great, and it's a sign I think of culture shifting as people recognize that the co-ops do the best job,

Sean Gonsalves (21:56):
Especially in rural areas. I mean, if they're there, they're already sort of in a prime position to [00:22:00] carry it out. I mean, they've already brought wires to homes all over, whether it's electricity or telephone wire,

Christopher Mitchell (22:06):
It's, it's great to hear that. You always worry, and there's a part of me that always worries a little bit about publicizing that sort thing. You just don't, the broadband office, I'm sure is not picking winners and losers, right? They're giving candid advice about how to trade off different decisions about this, but I think more and more people [00:22:30] recognize just that if you can cut a deal with someone that has a good track record and is local, that's going to be your best bet.

(22:38):
The thing that I thought was interesting, and I don't know, Chad Sims was this quote too, and this was I think to a local paper. He said, the rescue plan funding can only be used on water sewer broadband or like, we don't have any covid expenses. We don't operate water supplies. Although they did give some money to some of the entities that do operate water in the area, and [00:23:00] they were like, we don't make garbage collections, so we don't have anything else we can spend it on. I felt like it was like, yeah, I guess broadband okay. It is better than giving it back. It wasn't like, yes, we've been waiting for this for so long. It was like, yeah, we tried to figure out how to put it into garbage, but we couldn't. I'm totally reading between the lines, and it's funny how these things really work out at the local level

Sean Gonsalves (23:27):
To be real about this. As [00:23:30] important as we think broadband is and as important as broadband actually is, right? We are right. No, exactly. Let's start there. However, I think a lot of state and local officials who are looking at and juggling various needs, broadband is still not at the top of the list of, oh, we need to do this. No,

Christopher Mitchell (23:50):
Henry Ford, he said, if I asked people what they wanted, they would've said Faster horses.

Sean Gonsalves (23:56):
Yeah, right,

Christopher Mitchell (23:58):
Exactly. And so if you're a local official and people [00:24:00] are like, I'm really annoyed that this neighbor's dogs are barking all the time and my trash pickup hasn't been on time and up here in Minnesota, why is the alley never plowed? Or whatever. Those are the things you're hearing about and it's hard to prioritize a generational investment that leaves us with a new map, which I think came out yesterday or today, and people are listening to the podcast immediately. I don't know. I don't know. I've been on vacation, so what's happening, [00:24:30] Sean,

Sean Gonsalves (24:31):
If all goals according to plan, it will be released on September 10th, Tuesday.

Christopher Mitchell (24:38):
Alright. Jordan will have pushed this show up on Tuesday, so we've hit it on the head. So what do we do today, Sean?

Sean Gonsalves (24:48):
Oh my goodness. My powers of future from telling are incredible. We are releasing our new community networks map, and Chris, you know better than anyone [00:25:00] that this initiative really began around this map.

Christopher Mitchell (25:03):
We went from being a nobody, to me being world famous when Ford Foundation said, Chris, what we need is a map of municipal broadband, and then allowed me to bring on Lisa and Eric James, who's been doing our web design ever since. Yeah, no, but seriously, I feel like people took notice with the map. The map has been the most popular thing that we have done month after month since [00:25:30] we did it.

Sean Gonsalves (25:31):
That's right. I mean, even to this day, I look at the numbers of what people are looking at on the website, and if we don't mention the map, which we don't do a lot, frankly, it's still one of the most popular things that people look at, but this map pinpoints where municipal networks are located across the country, but it's an interactive map, and so it tells a story, and there's a lot of data embedded in the map where you can hover over the dots, locations where these [00:26:00] networks are. There's different layers that you can look at. You can look at which of these networks are retail, citywide, open access, conduit only, these kinds of things when they were built. We've got for a lot of these networks, information on how many people are served by these networks, and so the new map, I think, shout out Tory

Christopher Mitchell (26:20):
And Christine. No, I was just going to say that I alone built this. It's been me. I haven't been sleeping, I've just been working on it. I did the coating for the [00:26:30] design of how it looks unless it doesn't work. In that case, I subbed it

Sean Gonsalves (26:34):
Out. You pick the colors.

Christopher Mitchell (26:36):
No, yeah, such a

Sean Gonsalves (26:37):
Great eye. You have such a great

Christopher Mitchell (26:39):
Palette. Let's run. So Rye has led a massive effort behind the scenes to organize data that we had in multiple locations to be able to present more information, and then Christine has certainly put in a lot of effort. Eric has done the technical work to make it us able to click around in it and that sort of a thing. The whole team is involved with [00:27:00] improving these things, but at the same time, I feel like Rise had the most headaches he's had to deal with around it.

Sean Gonsalves (27:08):
For sure. For sure. When this podcast airs, he'll be coming off of a Well-deserved

Christopher Mitchell (27:14):
If he comes back, I mean, if I was him,

Sean Gonsalves (27:16):
He may just say, you know what? I'm, the new map is going to be my legacy.

Christopher Mitchell (27:20):
Yeah. I mean, ILSR policy is, if you have to work with me, you get extra vacation days, so miserable, and so I'm sure if he's going to take those or not,

Sean Gonsalves (27:30):
[00:27:30] But this map, I think I'm excited about it because not only does it look really good, it's just really interesting to me that I think the first thing that you see when you look at is you say, man, look at how many municipal networks there are across the country. We should note by the way that this map, and you alluded to this earlier, this map that we're releasing right now will get more in depth and bigger, because right now this just reflects municipal networks. We haven't yet added electric cooperatives or tribal networks. [00:28:00] Those are coming, but when you look at the close to 450 municipal networks across the country, it's pretty impressive to see them spread out and you can see where they are, what states they're in.

Christopher Mitchell (28:12):
So you said four 50 distinct municipal networks, well over 650 communities that are covered. We are now including institutional networks where the city provides service to itself and maybe the schools, but doesn't make it available to residents or businesses. We don't [00:28:30] have all of those on there yet. We have all the ones that we're aware of. There's still more out there, so if there are errors, people should share them with us if there's omissions or if there's anything else that people note.

Sean Gonsalves (28:43):
We have an informal community Nets challenge process, but I think we're a lot more open than the FCC in terms of updating the map and making it as accurate as possible, but

Christopher Mitchell (28:56):
You have to do a speed test under the blue Moon, [00:29:00] and then like you said, we really want to get the co-ops this. I mean, my dream has long been because co-ops are so large and cover so much area, I would like it to be shaded rather than with the municipalities. We do pinpoints because it's often a community and often the entire community or a significant part of it within the political boundaries of that town or city, but when it comes to the co-ops boundaries are so weird. I don't think pins [00:29:30] would really cover it as well. We had done pins for electric co-ops in the past for some number. We haven't been updating it, and every time I looked at it, I felt bad because I knew that the information wasn't accurate anymore. It is outdated, and so I'm just so excited that the team pulled this map together. We have a new map that we can be proud of, we can build to put new things on it, and so would love if people want to send comments to us about it. Please do.

Sean Gonsalves (29:55):
Before we wrap up, I do want to highlight a couple of things that this map now makes possible. [00:30:00] When you dig into it, you can extract and notice different trends that we're seeing, and so for reporters or researchers, this might be sort of an extra bonus. For example, between 2001 and 2008, there were an average of six municipal networks that came online per year. Contrast that with the last 10 years where there was an average of 15 new networks per year, so that I think is interesting.

Christopher Mitchell (30:27):
What I'd like to see is a histogram. I mean, I'm a histogram guy, so [00:30:30] a bar chart with the number of new networks each year. It's an interesting way to look at it, but I did want to say that the interview next week with Chad Craiger from Fort Collins, we also talk about how, as we've sped up, as we've added more municipal networks, they've often faced more competition, and we thought that that might result in lower take rates and more challenges, and it hasn't. They've actually even done better it feels like, despite the fact that people [00:31:00] have more options than ever, community networks seem to be doing better than

Sean Gonsalves (31:03):
Ever. That's right. There's a few other trends that we should highlight that we're seeing when you dig into the map, which is that it's not all about size. Iowa, Massachusetts and Tennessee are three states that have the highest number of municipal networks in the nation, although in Iowa and Massachusetts, they're mostly smaller networks. Tennessee has actually the two biggest municipal networks with the exception of UTOPIA, but [00:31:30] Tennessee's got obviously EPB in Chattanooga, and then the massive one that KUB is building in Knoxville, which they've just sort of started. It'll be, I think, not done for almost another eight years or so. But the other thing we're seeing is open access networks are on the rise today. Almost 200 communities are served by an open access network. There's just that type of stuff. It's not just a map. It's not just the dots that you see and go, oh my God, look how many there are. [00:32:00] You can do some exploration of the layers of data that are in it and really find some interesting things, particularly if you want to kind of get a more in depth sense of what the landscape looks like for a community network or municipal networks, I

Christopher Mitchell (32:14):
Should say. Yeah, it's exciting, and maybe we can figure out how to make it into a video game and get it entered into the Paul Bunyan Giga Zone gaming challenge. That's right.

Sean Gonsalves (32:24):
That's right. You Ryan. Christine can go at it.

Christopher Mitchell (32:30):
[00:32:30] I'm not even sure what kind of game it would be, but there's got to be some opportunity there. There's a lot of stuff happening. It's exciting. I feel like we made it through the summer. I hope we recharge some batteries. We're going to come charging out here. We've got some cool projects we've been working on that we're excited to share and to do some really cool work.

Sean Gonsalves (32:51):
Yeah, I'm still pumped, even though the summer is winding down. I'm still excited. I love the

Christopher Mitchell (32:55):
Fall though. It's good. Alright. Thank you, Sean. Always a pleasure catching up. Thank

Sean Gonsalves (32:59):
You.

Ry Marcattilio (33:00):
[00:33:00] We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available@communitynets.org slash broadbandbits. Email us@podcastmuninetworks.org with your ideas for the show. Follow Chris on Twitter. His handle is at Community nets. Follow community nets.org stories on Twitter, the handles at muni networks. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. [00:33:30] You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter@ilsr.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Sby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.