Predictions for 2026: CBN Edition - Episode 673 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Christopher Mitchell (00:12)
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Got to think of a new name for the new combined show and I'm going have to come up with a new entrance, I guess, because we'll see what happens. definitely kudos to the old Leroy Jenkins video clip, if you're not familiar with it, for the cadence on that. It's a great memory. It's more than 20 years old now, hard to believe.

Ry Marcattilio (00:37)
We're getting old.

Christopher Mitchell (00:38)
It might be around 20 years. I guess no, it's probably about 19/20 years old. right, Ry welcome to the show. We're talking about what we expect to happen today. We're gonna make some predictions, but really we'll be chatting a bit about what's coming in the coming year. We got four of us here, predictions from another one or two, and we're gonna make it work. Ry Marcattilio welcome to the show.

Ry Marcattilio (00:58)
Thank you, Chris. Good to be here with you all.

Christopher Mitchell (01:00)
And then we got Sean Gonsalves, how you doing?

Sean Gonsalves (01:02)
I'm here, I'm holding, I'm ready to predict, I guess.

Christopher Mitchell (01:05)
Yes. You're feeling you got your soothsaying hair on. Your soothsaying hair.

Sean Gonsalves (01:09)
Yeah, Sue

sang. I you said Sue something. Okay. Yeah, Sue sang.

Christopher Mitchell (01:13)
You know, the

S's aren't great for me. didn't figure that out until my, they told my son he has a lisp and I was like, what are you talking about? and we got Christine, the mapping maven and data witch. Welcome.

Sean Gonsalves (01:19)
Yeah

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (01:24)
Thank you, Chris. Good to be here.

Christopher Mitchell (01:26)
So Sean, think you wanted to start off with the local, think in terms of like not necessarily the local, the local to our knowledge, like the very focused knowledge that we do. We're going to start narrowly in our field of study with community broadband and then widen it out to larger tech and perhaps trust issues. When I say 2026, what do you think about Sean?

Sean Gonsalves (01:45)
Well, I think about what a fool's errand it is to try to do predictions, but it's fun. It's fun.

Christopher Mitchell (01:50)
Right, I

can't predict what's gonna happen today, right? We're literally recording this Tuesday morning. I think Jordan will probably work his butt off to get it off this afternoon. And by then we might be at war with Europe.

Sean Gonsalves (02:00)
Exactly.

it's like doing these things are fun. And it's a good exercise in remembering like, unpredictability and uncertainty is like, especially right now is central to like life in general. So having said that,

Christopher Mitchell (02:15)
You're

going to bring some humility, now you're going to jump into saying what the future is.

Sean Gonsalves (02:18)
Having said

that, I'm gonna still step into the arena and I think I wanna start with our particular wheelhouse. mean, we're in many, we have a lot of fingers in different pots, but when it comes to municipal broadband, I feel like that's one of our lanes. And so I felt like we should go there first. So.

Christopher Mitchell (02:39)
Yes,

we are less ignorant about municipal broadband than other things.

Sean Gonsalves (02:42)
Exactly.

So this week, Ry published a story, it was a centerpiece about the new municipal networks that came online this year. There were seven total, which keeps this trend that we've seen really this explosion since the pandemic in municipal broadband. So looking at 2026, I'm going to predict there were seven new networks last year.

I'm going to predict that there will be less than seven in 2026, maybe three or four that come online in this year. And looking further out, it feels like municipal broadband could be at a bit of a crossroads in the sense that I don't think a lot of municipal broadband networks or municipal broadband plans are gonna be getting federal funds outside of, you know, the existing municipal programs and say the state of New York or California. So.

I'm gonna go ahead and say maybe three or four new networks in 2026.

Christopher Mitchell (03:34)
Okay. I'm going to say, I think there's going to be more technically, cause I think we're going to see some of these California ones start up, but that could also be 2027. We'll see. It depends on whether they, they start off very small or they wait till they hit more of critical mass and it take longer to get going. I do think we're in a lull and I think that's natural. Uh, but I also think, you know, in 2010, when there was a big, um, pushback against Obama, uh, what happened was, um, people,

voted for more conservative people all across the ballot, right? And so city councils, school boards, all kinds of things. We saw a wave and I think the people that are going to be getting elected in the wave that we're seeing right now in local, they're going to be more interested in municipal networks. So I don't think this is like a permanent decline. I feel like we are going to see more interest, not necessarily in a Chattanooga, right? We're not going to necessarily see a city of like 500,000 building out suddenly to everyone.

But I think we're going to see more targeted municipal investments in the future. So I do think we're going to have a lull. I would say probably less than 10. So I guess I'm in that seven to 10 range is what I'm thinking. Ry, what are you thinking?

Ry Marcattilio (04:37)
Are we talking retail networks or do inets come too?

Christopher Mitchell (04:40)
I'm thinking networks that we add that are offering some service to the public. So that could be open access. It could be retail, but it will be, we're not talking about a service to like, you know, the, the municipal facilities.

Ry Marcattilio (04:46)
I'm out of here, business.

Yeah,

yeah, okay. Yeah, then I'll revise downward a little bit. say, I think you guys are both a little bit low too still. I might say 12 to 15. Yeah, yeah, I think, know, we're certainly in a low, but the last two years have been, you know, particularly slow years. We got to enjoy a few, you know, ARPA funded years, the couple of years before that. And so I think we're, you know, back on the rise.

Sean Gonsalves (04:59)
Wow.

Christopher Mitchell (05:11)
Christine.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (05:11)
be the dead weight and say two.

Christopher Mitchell (05:14)
All right.

Ry Marcattilio (05:14)
you

Sean Gonsalves (05:14)
There you go.

Christopher Mitchell (05:15)
The thing that I think I appreciate also is just that like most of the municipal networks were not built with federal dollars. And so it certainly helped and made it easier for some communities. But

Sean Gonsalves (05:25)
Well, I mean,

that's a good thing to point out because I don't want to create the impression nor should we. And actually one of the things we should probably be doing throughout the year is reminding people that you don't necessarily need federal funds or BEAD dollars to build a municipal network. I do think that that sort of, I've come across it a little bit and like talking to different communities who kind of feel like their only shot is to get some kind of like federal funding.

Christopher Mitchell (05:49)
Yep, all right, who wants to step into the void? Are we gonna let Sean do another one or are we gonna throw out a different topic? Christine.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (05:53)
Well, that kind of was

a good segue for my only kind of vague prediction in that. Like in terms of continued infrastructure development, I think we're going to see it most happening in states that have plans and funding in place that are independent from federal funding. So like Maine, I think Vermont, and I don't know about the rest of the states, but that's kind of my like, you know, we're going to see really

strong pushes with the more localized sources of funding.

Ry Marcattilio (06:23)
Yeah, I like that prediction.

Christopher Mitchell (06:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's definitely going to be the case. I think we're going to see that in a lot of areas, actually. I I think some of the things we'll talk about regarding the AI and things like that, I think we're going to see, I think we're continuing to see this distrust of centralized power that is frankly built into Americans properly. And, you know, I feel like if we have immigrants that come here, they quickly learn that they should distrust centralized power. It's like one of the things that we do well. So, ⁓

Sean Gonsalves (06:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

it's a good one. I mean one state I think it'll be interesting to kind of follow Vermont Because I don't know how well they're make out with beat even though they're like perfect for B because it's such a rural state But but but also, you know, we've got a story posted this morning about how do you pronounce? Is it Lemma? Lemma ill Lamoille Lemoyle Lemoyle CUD just finished their network I feel like there's a couple of CUDs that have finished or close to being finished and so

Ry Marcattilio (07:05)
The boil.

Sean Gonsalves (07:13)
I mean, there's a lot more work that still is left to be done in Vermont, but it'll be interesting, especially because that's a state that pretty much has centered a community broadband approach in their state plan.

Christopher Mitchell (07:23)
Right.

My understanding is, that they're taking some grief. NTIA is trying to figure out how to hamstring them in Washington. Let's talk about BEAD a little bit and our senses around that because, you know, BEAD just, once again, NTIA has broken with both tradition and law in changing the rules of the program to require that states suspend ⁓ certain laws that may have

Sean Gonsalves (07:27)
Thank you.

Christopher Mitchell (07:45)
that may touch on certain areas such as net neutrality and a variety of other things. We haven't done deep reporting on this because my city is under occupation so I'm a little distracted. we are, it looks to me like it is a significant overreach and I'll be curious to see how states are reacting. I don't know that there is a legal mechanism for the state broadband officer to become the dictator of the state and say, we've just decided these laws don't apply anymore. Legislatures may have to act and

Sean Gonsalves (08:09)
you

Christopher Mitchell (08:12)
⁓ Some states don't even have legislatures that meet this year. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens with this. But I think my prediction would be that we will get through this calendar year and more than five states will have no BEAD dollars yet.

Ry Marcattilio (08:25)
Hmm interesting

Christopher Mitchell (08:26)
I wasn't

sure if I was saying that, if that was aggressive or not, but I think... ⁓

Ry Marcattilio (08:29)
I'll take it one more.

This is more of a hopeful prediction than anything. It's that one state will refuse BEAD funding on these grounds that they are not just going to give a handout to the Amazon LEOs and the Starlinks of the world. One state will refuse BEAD funding.

Christopher Mitchell (08:43)
All right, Christine, BEAD.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (08:44)
What was yours, Chris? More than...

Christopher Mitchell (08:45)
Mine was

at least five states will not have received any bid funding by the end of the year.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (08:49)
feel like it's going to be more than that. I would say.

Christopher Mitchell (08:52)
I think it might be, I'm

cautious, I gotta say.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (08:55)
to say more than 10.

Christopher Mitchell (08:56)
Yeah. I think it's going to be like 20 and we're going to be like, Sean, what are you, what are you going to say? Jordan's coming in at 48. I'm just going to put Jordan down for 48 again. We're going to make this a tradition.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (08:59)
We both went.

Ry Marcattilio (09:02)
You

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (09:03)
Hahaha!

Sean Gonsalves (09:04)
I was trying to quickly count how many quote-unquote blue states there are because I was going to guess around that number so

Christopher Mitchell (09:12)
Well,

are you saying that Minnesota, which by the way has an estimated 130,000 immigrants here without papers compared to other states that have more than a million, that blue states are somehow being targeted in ways that other states aren't?

Sean Gonsalves (09:23)
You

Man, targeted. mean, it's our bullseyes, you know, seriously right now. I'm gonna put it around the states that don't get their BEAD for a variety of reasons at around 15. And some are gonna just flat out say like, Ry suggested that we don't even want it or whatever. And I'm gonna say that California is gonna be that state.

Christopher Mitchell (09:45)
Yeah. All right. So you got 15 and California is one of them. I, we talked about this a little bit internally and I, would say that that would be a slam dunk if not for the budget deficit. Like California has such a financial hole. I'm curious to see how that changes. Plus we got Newsom wants to be governor. So whatever's going to be good for, for, sorry, he has governor. He wants to be governor and he has further ambitions beyond that to be president. Yes. Thank you, Ry.

Sean Gonsalves (09:48)
Mm-hmm who says

Ry Marcattilio (10:03)
president.

Christopher Mitchell (10:08)
All right, anything else on BEAD?

Sean Gonsalves (10:10)
I'll just say one last thing is that when it comes to BEAD and the reason why BEAD predictions in particular are so difficult, but this is why predictions right now are so difficult is because in order to even really try to predict, you kind of have to assume rules and laws and policies are going to be followed. And in this day and age, it's like rules, laws, what are those? I mean, it just makes it almost impossible to be right about any of these things because

You

Christopher Mitchell (10:37)
Yeah. No, my dad, he, ⁓ back before poker was cool and on TV, he was in the Navy and I learned a lot about playing poker is an important part of serving in the Navy. My understanding. And, he told me a million times that I was growing up. You can't play strategy with a fool. And, yeah, that's a very related sentiment to what you're saying. It's hard to predict when, I don't know when we're about to go to war over Greenland. you know, what timeline is this? ⁓ BEAD, Ry? Anything else?

Sean Gonsalves (10:56)
Bye.

Hmm.

Ry Marcattilio (11:03)
Nope,

I used my BEAD one up.

Christopher Mitchell (11:05)
All right. So I have one for Leo. ⁓ Christine, mentioned Leo and, or no, was it, no, Ry did. Ry mentioned the Amazon and Kuiper and stuff like that, I think. All right. Am I just not even paying attention to this show? ⁓ So I made a prediction. I made this prediction in December and I was so excited to share it. And then SpaceX decided to do something that makes it far less likely to happen, which is good for humanity, good for science, good for all of us, but bad for my prediction.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (11:10)
Did I? Nope.

Ry Marcattilio (11:14)
Yeah, you did.

Christopher Mitchell (11:31)
which is that I predicted that there would be a low earth orbit collision in 2026. But then they decided to move 5,000 or roughly half of their satellites down below, I believe it's 500 kilometers. And in order to try to deal with this. In fact, this is a good time to talk about it because there was a major event on the sun yesterday, I believe, a magnetic pulse. I don't know how the physics of it really work, but like a solar storm.

And in the event of an excessively large one, not just like one that's large for 20 years, but one that is large for 200 or 500 years, we would lose contact with satellites for a long period of time, like hours to days. And in that time, we would not be able to do course corrections. So I think rational minds are prevailing and trying to minimize the danger because these collisions would be bad. It would not be as bad as if it was in higher orbit, but it would certainly be bad.

And I think there's also the possibility of an intentional collision from Russia or China or something as these different countries try to throw their weight around up above us. So I'm predicting, I'm saying it with lower confidence than I did before and a bit of dread, but that there will be a collision in space and low Earth orbit satellites.

Sean Gonsalves (12:41)
⁓

Ry Marcattilio (12:42)
I think this is a good one. So there's a paper that just came out last week from led by Princeton University professor called an orbital house of cards, frequent mega constellation, close conjunctions. And so I'm going to read this quote from one of the more recent Starlink annual reports. It says quote, Starlink satellites made 144,404 collision avoidance maneuvers in the period from December 1st, 2024.

to May 31st, 2025, averaging 41 maneuvers per satellite per year and one collision avoidance maneuver every 1.8 minutes across the night constellation. So this paper from these folks introduced this idea of the crash clock. They say in 2018, that crash clock, what happens if we lose complete communication? There's 180 days until some unplanned collision between satellites. That was in 2018. They put the crash clock in January, 2026.

Christopher Mitchell (13:12)
Six months.

Ry Marcattilio (13:37)
at 5.5 days.

So I think we will not see a collision in 2026. I think we may see one in 2027, but I was gonna say we'll see a bunch of unplanned avoidance maneuvers, close calls that will make the news in 2026. Remember, it's expensive for them to move the satellites down, right, in the constellation. It's not a free thing to do. It lowers the lifespan of those satellites, which inevitably raises costs. And at a time when Starlake is burning through money trying to get as many satellites up in the.

sky as possible. It's not something they're just going to do for free.

Christopher Mitchell (14:07)
Yeah, I don't have a lot of other Musk stuff. let me plan that I'll probably throw in something negative about him. So in the meantime, I'll say SpaceX, you know, I think can afford to do that. It is going to cost them, but their service is working out well, right? I mean, it's really picking up in terms of the number of subscribers. It is a good service. I don't think they're going to be having, you know, as much success with the V3 satellites and getting them up.

Sean Gonsalves (14:13)
us.

Christopher Mitchell (14:33)
because of Starship. think Starship is going to continue to have setbacks. But I think it may be able to launch some of the V3 ⁓ larger satellites for SpaceX. we'll see what happens there. I do think I think it's really great that they are taking this hit to lower the chances of collision. I mean, think they're self-interested, but it's also in the interest of humanity, given that practically no one is actually in charge for them to be doing that. They're going to lose their satellites more rapidly.

because they will be getting more orbital drag from the atmosphere being a little closer to the planet. So it's certainly ⁓ something that ⁓ I'm glad they're doing. Sean, were you going add anything?

Sean Gonsalves (15:07)
I'm going to,

yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to go with Ry Well, actually I appreciate this, this one. I, I wasn't, I wasn't planning on making a prediction in this area, but it gives me the one opportunity to say one optimistic prediction for 2026, which is to agree with Ry that there will not be one. And it's mostly just because I don't want there to be one and not because I love Starlink. It's because it is tied to my

biggest fear, which is in that movie, Gravity, when the satellite thing breaks up and it messes them up and Sandra Bullock is flipping into outer space like by herself, like that is horrifying to me. That's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen in my life. so I'm gonna...

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (15:42)
you

Christopher Mitchell (15:49)
I also

love Sandra Bullock. I was horrified at the idea of losing her. I misunderstanding your point? No, I'm just kidding.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (15:52)
you

Sean Gonsalves (15:55)
I love Sandra Bullock too though. A lot.

Christopher Mitchell (15:58)
I don't know why we don't just like, mean, the federal government should be paying her and what's his name? The guy from the proposal who I love, Ryan, my camera was named Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds. The two of them should just make movies. Like they should release three movies a year. I would watch them all. Christine, anything else on SpaceX?

Ry Marcattilio (16:06)
Reynolds.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (16:11)
You

I guess I, when you said, I think Ry said something about seeing this in the news, I challenge that I don't think we will. I feel like that's just not a topic that's gonna be hot.

Ry Marcattilio (16:24)
Yeah, I may have said, I should have said not the

mainstream news, but the, you know, yeah. You're right. Yeah.

Sean Gonsalves (16:30)
trade publications.

Christopher Mitchell (16:31)
Or is it Technica?

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (16:32)
the

techie. Okay.

Christopher Mitchell (16:34)
⁓ what do you all think about the importance of Internet access in this year? mean, last year, you know, I talked about how I do feel like it was very clear that this has fallen off the radar. Many, many people who have like, you know, portfolios responsibility don't even think about this as an issue. It's not a priority. you know, from what, Christine was just saying about, you know, making the joke about whether or not the, the spattle, the satellite stuff will be up there.

Are we going to see a continued, are we going to see it stay same? We're going to see it drop off in priority or we're going to see it increase in priority.

Sean Gonsalves (17:04)
I have a prediction there. This is gonna surprise you maybe, which is that I think we've seen the drop off and I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to sort of be like, there's so many problems in the world, that's the least of our worries kind of a thing. We got bigger fish to fry, but I'm gonna say that we're gonna see an uptick because of the pandemic that is now ravaging the country, which is ICE fluenza and.

people are afraid to go outside, seriously, are afraid to go places. And so like the pandemic, I think people will be spending a lot more time at home and Internet access is going to be super important for folks. I'm gonna say we'll

Christopher Mitchell (17:39)
You know, I do

see a lot more face coverings up here.

Sean Gonsalves (17:41)
Yeah. Yeah, so.

Ry Marcattilio (17:41)
you

Christopher Mitchell (17:43)
Yeah, okay. So you think it's gonna go up? I think it's gonna be about the same. I don't know how we're gonna measure this. This is gonna be pure sentimental analysis at the end of the year, I think Christine.

Sean Gonsalves (17:49)
hmm vibes

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (17:52)
Is this like interest

in development? Like infrastructure development?

Sean Gonsalves (17:53)
man

Christopher Mitchell (17:56)
It could be.

think it's just more and more of a sense of like, you know, the zeitgeist.

Sean Gonsalves (18:00)
Right. The vibes.

Ry Marcattilio (18:01)
So impossible to measure.

Christopher Mitchell (18:02)
Yes.

Ry Marcattilio (18:02)
So say it whatever you want, Christine.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (18:04)
My favorite kind of prediction.

guess my thinking was more towards the digital skills, digital equity side of things and how that's going to just continue to like skyrocket in importance. The ability of people to get those things, I don't know. I think there are groups out there that are really continuing to try and work on that, but there's groups here in Maine.

Sean Gonsalves (18:06)
You can make it right next year.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (18:28)
But I think, you know, especially in the age of AI and like understanding what people are seeing and if it's real and not and just how to navigate these digital systems like, and like Sean said, like people are not wanting to leave their homes are going to rely on like, you know, having to order grocery services or do other things to like, just continue living and yeah, so I think that side of things is going to continue to really increase in importance.

Christopher Mitchell (18:54)
I think it's going increase in importance, but I don't know if we're going to see the federal state or even most local governments increasing their investments into this space. I feel like it's like that silent thing. I mean, it's like, if you're, if you don't know much about healthcare, right. And like you're, you're concerned about the rising cost of healthcare. and then you dig into it you start to learn about it you're like, wow. Like most of these costs are driven by, dementia related.

illnesses and disease, as well as ⁓ diabetes. And you could start to get a sense of like, like we could really make a big dent, but just by focusing on these things, or if you go about even further to like the seven, seven different chronic conditions, you know, we talked about that in the report that you wrote, Ry, with the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative ⁓ on, you know, what would move the needle in terms of healthcare impacts on people. And

not to lose the thread, I'm in dangerous of doing right now. like the sense of the thing is, is that like, if you don't pay attention to underlying things, you don't get a sense of why costs are going up, right? Like, why is it going to be more costly to, ⁓ administer health and human services in the future? Well, because we don't have people that have digital skills that are taking those services, right? Because they have to go somewhere to be in a physical office. They have to wait in line for a person that is going to be using their time inefficiently to serve people face to face when

a symmetric online technology could help in many cases. Not all cases. We can't get rid of everything. But like, you similarly, our health care costs are going to rise because veterans have less access to telemedicine. Right. Like we're going to see those costs increase. And I don't think people are going to in 2026. I don't think we're going to see policymakers making that connection yet. I just I feel like as as we try to get them to understand that they need to invest in this, we need to have a digital equity act to support.

the more efficient federal services where the costs really are. I think people don't get it and I'm afraid they still won't by the end of this year, although we'll be working at it. We'll be trying to be creative about it.

Sean Gonsalves (20:42)
That's a good point and I have a prediction sort of related to that I think. So we can get to that if we want to but I take it.

Christopher Mitchell (20:50)
Well, I want to see what Jordan,

but I think we still had Ry left on the old prediction, which was, I'm forgetting now. Yeah, yeah, is it going to be important?

Sean Gonsalves (20:55)
Internet, whether or not Internet.

Ry Marcattilio (20:58)
Yeah, I

think it's about the same. I don't really see. Right. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (21:01)
Okay, let's go to Sean then.

Sean Gonsalves (21:02)
So because of what you just said, not because of what you just said, but related to what you just said, that, so I've already predicted that I think interest in Internet access will increase a bit. But I do agree with you that we won't see the kind of, you know, investments and attention to this from federal and state and even local officials to some degree. So that's why I'm going to make a prediction about fixed wireless, which I feel like...

Especially in urban areas, it can be a really good solution. It's quicker and cheaper to deploy than fiber. So I think that this growth that we've seen with FWA, what's about, I think I saw something about 14 million subscribers at the end of 2025 in that neck of the woods. So I'm going to say using that as kind of a baseline, I'm going to say that that number will grow, but not by much. In 2026, I think the growth in FWA will taper off.

and will be only about one and a half to two million new subscribers. And I can tell you why, but I'll just leave it at that prediction right there.

Christopher Mitchell (21:59)
I'm with you. I'm with you on that. I just want to I want to say that if I was making a prop bet in the parlance of our time now where our economy is entirely based on betting and crypto and stuff like that. ⁓ If the if we do in fact see like there's a there's a scenario in which in two weeks we have a significant economic spiral because of the European Union and Greenland and stuff like that. And like I do think if the economy tanks FWA takes off.

Sean Gonsalves (22:06)
Okay, polymark. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (22:23)
And I think we have more than 20 million subscribers by the end of the year, just because people are like really concerned. They're cutting their budget. They're taking a slower service and they're just going to deal with it, you know, less reliability, but they would need to save that like 40 or 50 bucks a month. They're going to save by going to it.

Sean Gonsalves (22:36)
So are you predicting that that will happen? Predicated on.

Christopher Mitchell (22:39)
Well, that's

the thing about that. A prop bet is like a bet that like, it's not just like a single thing, right? It's like a multi, it was a different word for it maybe, I don't know.

Sean Gonsalves (22:44)
Right, right. ⁓ That's

what I mean. Are you really predicting that... ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (22:51)
Yes,

I do think that is going to happen. I will make that prediction and I sure hope that I'm wrong. This is one of those things where like, hey, if I'm right, like I'm a genius and if I'm wrong, well then I'm economically secure. So like win-win, you know?

Sean Gonsalves (23:03)
Yeah, yeah.

Ry Marcattilio (23:04)
I think we'll see more FWA gains in the next year. I don't think we'll come close to eight million more, but I think there's plenty of space for them to continue to take market share. I think they are continuing to be aggressive about it. So yeah, we'll see a bunch more FWA. But I'll point out, John, you said quicker and cheaper than fiber And the, you know, the keystone of that is the second half of that sentence, is in the short term.

Sean Gonsalves (23:26)
In the short term, yes, I should have said that exactly. And I should have said to deploy.

Christopher Mitchell (23:30)
Christine.

So one of the persons, one of the people who lives in a smaller community and has more, more, more familiarity, at least with some of the, options. ⁓

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (23:34)
you

Yeah, think I mean, I know in Maine they're evaluating like cell service availability across the state to improve that because there are.

you know, I can walk down the road and lose service. And it's very unreliable and spotty throughout the state. It's pretty consistent in that way. So I think, especially in more rural places, we're going to see an increase. And this is actually something Ryan and I have talked about a little bit lately, but I think we're going to see cooperatives continue to expand their use of that tool as a way to expand their footprint and just have another offering for their customers.

Christopher Mitchell (24:14)
Yeah, think that makes sense, particularly the co-ops that have been at it longer, right? Cause like if you're five years into a build, you're still struggling and not sleeping at night. Whereas if you're 10 years into a build, you might be pulling in, you know, net income that then you can put into another business in order to ⁓ improve the lives of your member owners. So, yeah, I could certainly see some of the earlier co-ops having more freedom to do that sort of a thing.

Okay. I want to do Jordan's Jordan says something we've talked about this before, but, uh, there is a movement against AI. Uh, it ranges from people who are really concerned about computers for all kinds of reasons from like, you know, detailed, well thought out economic analysis to having watched the Terminator series of movies. Uh, there's a variety of reasons for why people are concerned about, about this. Um, but there is an anti AI movement. There's a lot of anti data centers. There's concerns about, um, data centers for a variety of reasons.

⁓ But there is undoubtedly a growing movement of concern about that. Jordan says that those folks will continue to grow and we will see this movement going more anti-tech. And that will be forcing more of a move by the time of the election for I think both posturing and legislation to rein in some of the power of the big tech companies.

Ry Marcattilio (25:28)
Mmm.

Sean Gonsalves (25:28)
solid prediction.

Ry Marcattilio (25:29)
Yeah, I like the main thrust there. think we had our chance to reign in the power of Google and Meta recently and decided mostly to let that just fizzle out and do the bare minimum.

Christopher Mitchell (25:40)
Did we decide that right? Cause like my recollection is that there was like, there was different concerns, right? I mean, this is one of those things, right? When a president, when someone's asked that the president on the right track or wrong track, there's inevitably some number of people who are like, it's on the wrong track cause he's killing the country. And on the other side, there's people who are like, he's on the wrong track cause he's not doing it fast enough, you know? And so like, uh, there's this question of like, where were we with the tech companies a year ago? I feel like a year ago, the, the Republicans thought the tech companies were terrible and were killing this nation because they were

They were allowing, you know, woke snowflakes to control everything. On January 20th, all the tech giants sat behind President Trump. A lot of them have funneled money to him personally and then publicly as well. And the tech companies seem like they're on the side of the right now. And so now more people on the left are like, are ⁓ opposed to them in part just because of that appearance, I think. So

⁓ like there's a little bit of like, real honest analysis on both sides as to like frustrations, but there's also some just of the musical chairs of like, of like, well, this guy is with other people I don't like. So now I don't like them. So anyway, I just want, I just want to complicate that a little bit, cause I feel like it's worth remembering how messy these things really are in terms of like, lots of people can hate Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, ⁓ Amazon for different reasons. ⁓ and.

Sean Gonsalves (26:47)
Thanks

Christopher Mitchell (26:57)
to fix the problem for some of them makes it worse for other ones, which is interesting.

Sean Gonsalves (27:01)
Yeah.

Ry Marcattilio (27:01)
true.

I was more talking about the Facebook Meta Monopoly trial that's been going on for years and years and years. And the Google Chrome divestment trials was also going on for more than a year. So that side of things is more what I was talking about. We had our chance to implement structural solutions, and instead we decided not to.

Christopher Mitchell (27:19)
Do you think that's in the past? you've given, you know a lot about tech history. Do you feel like that's an opening salvo or like a missed opportunity that we will rue?

Ry Marcattilio (27:26)
missed opportunity that we will rule. They were big, yeah, I don't see another, you know, handful of trials of that size and scope in the next couple of years, certainly.

Christopher Mitchell (27:27)
Okay.

Sean Gonsalves (27:36)
I'm going to agree with Jordan generally, but I've got a, you know, AI related prediction, which is that it's actually, I'm going to agree with one of my favorite writers and thinkers, you know him well, Chris, Cory Doctorow, who wrote a great piece in The Guardian last week about this AI bubble. And he said AI is a bubble and it will burst. I'm going to say that in, and I'm going to agree with him. And I'm going to say that in 2026,

It will be the year where there will be a significant correction or deflation of the AI bubble where we'll see the shift from the over the top investment hype that we're seeing now to a show me the money phase. And so I think there's going to be a reckoning there. Right now, I looked up there's 576 operating.

data centers, hyperscalers, I would think, ⁓ in the United States, there's 658 planned projects. I think that number of planned projects will go down because we're gonna be entering a show me the money phase. And just this morning, I heard a little snippet from who's the woman who was one of the founders of Signal, the app.

Christopher Mitchell (28:37)
boy, Yeah. Meredith, you're coming around.

Sean Gonsalves (28:38)
can't think of her name, but she said that, I mean, obviously it's too late

now, but so much of AI is like a whole marketing thing and a scheme. And she even said that even the term artificial intelligence is marketing. It should be called machine learning, but I mean, it's kind of like too late for that now. But anyway, I thought that was kind of an interesting observation, but I'm going to say this 2026 will be a year of reckoning. The AI bubble will deflate some, and we're going to enter into the show me the money face.

Christopher Mitchell (29:04)
So I want to say that as we get better at what we do, we're going to have a point at which when Sean says, show me the money, we actually insert the clip from Jerry Maguire. And we actually make this a little more fun. That's our future, I hope, for us internally. Christine, what do you think about AI?

Sean Gonsalves (29:14)
Please do. Yes, I hope so too.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (29:20)
I was gonna ask Sean, how do you... how do we tell that it's deflating? Like what measures are you looking for?

Sean Gonsalves (29:27)
So I don't, that's a good question. That's why I was trying to go by, like, that's why I looked up like how many planned data center projects there were. And so if that number goes, goes down, I think that will be one indication that.

Christopher Mitchell (29:40)
I think it's gonna be cut in half or more so.

I mean, what did you find Sean? I'm thinking the number of planned data centers. It's in like, that's hard to say because there's so many different ones. Sorry, go ahead.

Sean Gonsalves (29:44)
658

plan projects.

Christopher Mitchell (29:50)
Okay. Yeah. would say fewer than 200 of them are like have broken ground and are moving forward. Um, you know, after the bubble burst and maybe even fewer than that.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (29:58)
I guess.

Sean Gonsalves (29:58)
And I should

say though that some of those planned projects, of course, you know, they're planned to say start construction, but not finish until whatever 2029, 2031 and stuff like that. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (30:05)
Right. Yeah, we'll be talking about starts. Go ahead, Christine.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (30:08)
I guess I'm just thinking like, you know, AI has been woven into like every aspect of our lives at this point. And so do we see it actually like starting to be removed from things in that form of a decline? Because like it's existing off of our current infrastructure already without having more projects built. So do we see those projects not get built and then like things scaled back or? mean, that'd be nice, but.

Christopher Mitchell (30:32)
Well, so let's, let's step back for a second. That's a

really good question, Christine. I had not thought about that, but it really goes right into a direction that I wanted to go as well, which is if you go back to the Internet boom, there was people who said the Internet is going to have a big bust, right? There was an over investment. There was exuberance. There's too much money chasing too few good projects. And this is going to fall. Other people said there's an Internet bust that's coming. The bubble is going to burst and then we won't use it anymore. It's, it's, this whole thing is wasted. Right? I feel like.

Sean Gonsalves (30:59)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Mitchell (31:01)
this we are going to see an AI bubble burst, but it is just going to be like it's going to be a decline and then we're going to see it ramp back up again. I think we're absolutely going to keep having more of these tools. But let me ask you, because I think everyone should answer this. If you had to pay for every AI usage in over the next month, rather than just being able to do it for free, would you use it at all? Less so or the same amount?

Sean Gonsalves (31:24)
Wow, that's a good question.

Christopher Mitchell (31:25)
Cause I would

use much less if I had to pay even $5 a week. I would use it much less if I had to pay $5 a week. So let's put it there, $5 a week. What's it worth to you? Christine, how often do you use it? You probably use it the most out of all of us.

Sean Gonsalves (31:31)
Yeah.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (31:35)
⁓ You

tell me time is money so I say I would pay for it.

Christopher Mitchell (31:39)
⁓ that's such a good answer. my

god. Like I just feel so good right now.

Sean Gonsalves (31:41)
You

I'm right there

with

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (31:46)
It helps with my job, so

Christopher Mitchell (31:48)
Yes.

Yes. If it saves you time, want, I want to pay for you. I want to pay for your scarce time, Christine. Exactly. You're right. But you're using, yeah, you're not, you're using it for productive things. Whereas I'm more like, you know, like trying to figure out like a correlation between like, ⁓ corner kicks and something else in soccer or something. Cause I had a stupid thought. Right. What about you? Right.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (31:49)
I don't lean on it strongly, but yeah. I don't have a coding coworker, so.

I mean at home I'm asking for meal plan ideas so

I would probably not do that.

Ry Marcattilio (32:12)
Yeah, I'm not paying to use it. I would use it way less. Yeah.

Sean Gonsalves (32:17)
yeah, I'm with Christine. would pay the five bucks.

Christopher Mitchell (32:19)
Yeah. So I was listening to a show and it was funny because I've heard other people do variations of that question over the past few months. And usually people are like, nah, I don't really like it's it's all right. And it's nice. like, but I was, I was sitting on, was one of the tech, the big tech, not this big technology podcast that I think is pretty good. But I think it was actually may have been the, New York times one. What's it called? Whatever their tech show is, I can't remember now, but they were like, yeah, like I couldn't live without it. Like I would pay like any amount of money basically. And I was like, are you serious? Like for real.

Sean Gonsalves (32:46)
Yeah, that's crazy.

Well, you know, I should say that when I say that I pay five bucks a week, you're also talking to a person that has a gym membership. Guess how many times I've been to the gym in the past year.

Christopher Mitchell (32:53)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (32:57)
I would say

it would be contingent on it continuing to work well because I think something that, you know, the tech people are realizing, like, there is so much AI produced, generated stuff that's on the Internet and those things, as that continues to get fed into the AI and to the models, like it's not going to improve it anymore. Like it's going to stop learning at some point unless it ingests more human information. So.

Ultimately, it's dependent on us.

Christopher Mitchell (33:25)
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Um, this is, uh, you know, this is like where it's interesting living through this cycle. If you read about like what happened for the hundreds of years after books were introduced or after the magazines and newspapers were introduced in pamphlets and stuff like that, in terms of how we had like, you know, people started believing crazy things and like, you know, and certainly you see panics like the Salem witch trials. It's not fully technology based, but, but you just have these, uh, manias and then people get used to, uh, this sort of thing. Um,

So anyway, like I just, feel like we're in this cycle right now. That's, it's hard to get a sense of that, but there's a lot of people who believe crazy things, right? I mean, like who would have thought that in 2026 would like, have hot air balloons as well as other things. People are still arguing about whether or not the earth is a giant sphere or not.

Sean Gonsalves (34:12)
Or if you've ever been

to every, or we've ever been to the moon, actually. But I want to ask Christine about your prediction or your observation about AI being dependent on us. Are you predicting that we're going to be in the matrix soon and they're going to start plugging us into.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (34:24)
you

Ry Marcattilio (34:25)
I think it's long disproven that the human body is a terrible power generation machine.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (34:29)
I mean.

Sean Gonsalves (34:30)
Yeah, but not for energy, for information.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (34:32)
I mean, they already are. There are so many apps now, and I think this is gonna be a big policy issue moving forward that you have to opt out of your data and usage in an app being used to feed their AI tools. And I know in Illinois, Facebook lost a lawsuit when they had facial recognition as an opt out instead of having to opt in. So I think we're gonna see policy implications from that and having to change that around because it is...

wild how much how many of these things now just automatically feed your data your information your usage into those programs

Sean Gonsalves (35:07)
Well, when these companies have such like an interest in like getting that for, you know, to feed their AI growth dreams and everything, does anybody feel confident that when you opt out, you're really opting out?

Christopher Mitchell (35:17)
Right, I these are people that wantonly violated ⁓ all kinds of copyright laws. After finding Jami Thomas, single mother in Duluth, know, like millions upon millions of dollars because her child stole, used the song without authorization downloading it off the Internet, know, like copyright was so important, we had to bankrupt single mothers for the rest of their lives, send them into bankruptcy because we had to like respect those laws and then...

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (35:21)
you

Sean Gonsalves (35:36)
Mm.

Christopher Mitchell (35:41)
Facebook comes along and they're like, every book that's ever been written. Yes, thank you. I'm just going to put those into my model, right? Like this is, this is how the law works. Unfortunately, it feels like.

Sean Gonsalves (35:50)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (35:51)
I don't know, Ry, am I overstating that? feel like you're just sort of like, Chris is just off like.

Ry Marcattilio (35:54)
I got that wrong, right?

If I were to choose, have to choose an entity that could go up against the copyright lobby and win, it would be Google, Facebook.

Christopher Mitchell (36:05)
Right, but not because we think Google's view of copyright should work, but because we need a good balance. And it was out of balance before anyway.

Ry Marcattilio (36:11)
wow, well also because they're way, bigger. They already stole it. mean, do you know? Copy?

Christopher Mitchell (36:13)
Yeah, right.

Right.

No, no. So I mean, to Sean's point, like at this point, I mean, we've certainly seen suggestions that like you delete your account on Facebook and they're like, okay, delete it, you know, you know, and similarly, like people who've never had an account with Metta, Metta has created a massive profile on them based on their travels across the Internet, based on a variety of identifying characteristics of their, the platforms that they're using and things like that. So.

Sean Gonsalves (36:36)
Right?

What do they say? Anything that you put on the Internet is there forever, except that thing that you wrote a few years ago that you now really need to find. It's not there anymore.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (36:47)
you

Christopher Mitchell (36:47)
It's so true that I'm like convinced that I just misremember having written things because I can't find any evidence of it.

Any last predictions?

All right. Well, I have one, which is, uh, you know, more of an observation, which is that like, the government's going to be a heck of a lot less trusted, particularly the federal government. mean, you know, sitting here, um, I'll just talk a little bit more about Minnesota. I've thrown it in a couple of times, but like, you know, it's, it's a major part of, of our lives up here, you know, seeing, um, seeing Chong Li Tao, um, taken out of his house, an 80 year old man with health issues in a pair of Crocs and underwear.

you know, with a little towel draped over him, for something he didn't even do, right? These, this is, this is, incompetence, and malevolence at a scale that, we've not seen before, not in the, in this age in this country, right? mean, a hundred years ago, we saw similar things, right? We saw people that were organizing for labor, were lit on fire or, or abandoned in their underwear along train tracks in the winter.

⁓ right. mean, like the, federal government did horrible things to labor agonize, to labor agitators, as they were called back in those days. there wasn't television, there was newspaper accounts of them and things like that. we're in a time in which we can, we can see a lot of this and the federal government comes up and tells us that like, well, you know, we, we captured this person because he had committed these acts of barbarism against children. And of course it was a lie. All right. I mean, we have video evidence of Renee Good

⁓ and it's a horrible situation that happened very quickly. And some people, you know, are very focused on whether, the, officer, ⁓ the, the ICE officer, Jonathan, ⁓ was in fear of his life or not. but the thing is, is that she was definitely not a hostage who was intentionally trying to hit someone. Right. And that's what the federal government told us over and over again. Right. I mean, like there's some things that like, we can disagree with their interpretation, but like, there is no world in which that woman was a sleeper cell agent for, for anything. So.

Sean Gonsalves (38:24)
Exactly.

Christopher Mitchell (38:34)
⁓ I just feel like the level of like lying is, is just off the charts. And we saw this with like, you know, like remember the hurricane in Alabama and like drawing the extra circle with the Sharpie, like just like the lying. And, and I guess I'm frustrated that there's still some number of people that believe this, but we should take heart in the fact that most people don't. Right. I mean, like, like I look back at the civil rights era and like the things that they went through, which are far worse than what I'm encountering up here.

But like most people then were split on like whether Martin Luther King was a terrible person or a bad person, right? They were, they were arguing that like that he was a bad person. Muhammad Ali was a terrible person who should get what's coming to him, right? That's what the public thought. And right now we're in a time when like the vast majority, like 70 % of people don't believe this stuff, right? Some of the people that support what Donald Trump is doing in his administration do believe it, but most of them recognize that it's bad and they still want him in power, but they want him to be more restrained. And so like,

Sean Gonsalves (39:14)
this

Christopher Mitchell (39:28)
There's times when I feel really hopeless, but there's other times where I'm looking around and I'm like, people know that they're lying, right? And the question is, is sort of like, what do we do about that? And so like, I don't know, there's people out there, I think of it as the people who will watch Star Wars and be like, yeah, I love Luke, I'm so glad that the Rebels won and this and that.

And in their real life, if they were in that, they would be watching the Imperial News Network and they would be like Alderaan had it coming. And maybe those Jedi kids weren't even really in the temple, right? Like they would just be like, that didn't really happen. You know, they'd be coming up with all these things. We don't need to convince those people, right? There's always going to be some number of people who are going to be arguing about how the earth is flat, right? Our job is to ignore them and focus on like how we can build a better world. and so we are going to see less trust in government. think one of the things that means for us is that we have to

Build more trust, we have to do our jobs with integrity. We have to make sure that we are accurate in our claims and not just like try to run with something faster because it's convenient, right? We need to make sure we see the progress that's happening. ⁓ One of the things that I took part in last week was I helped protect middle-aged school students who marched to the Capitol from a mile away.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (40:35)
you

Christopher Mitchell (40:39)
And it was like 15 degree weather, but a vicious wind out of the North that made it feel like it was zero degrees. And a lot of fricking Minnesotans, man, you know, like, God bless them. Half of these kids have coats, but they didn't wear them because they had a hoodie, right? Like that's a Minnesotan for you. ⁓ one kid had shorts, one kid had short sleeves, right? These are kids that are like 12, 13, 14 years old. But the thing that you got to look at in something like that is the fact that those kids look around and they look around and they see that they've got mung kids. They've got black kids.

Mapping Maven And Data Witch (40:48)
.

Christopher Mitchell (41:05)
They've got some kids from Eastern Africa, Somalia, Eastern Ethiopia. They're all marching together, right? A lot of white kids of Irish backgrounds, St. Paul's a very Catholic city. And like they've got each other's backs and they know what kind of world they want to live in. And that's where I feel like we're going to come out with less trust for government, but like we're seeing good things happen and people are recognizing this. like good seeds are being planted. And I feel like that's the thing that's trying to keep my spirits up in these hard times.

Um, you know, it's just like, think at end of this year, I think we're going to be on the upsurge. Like I got to think that we're going to be, you know, saying, wow, that was hard and it was really shitty, but we're through the hardest part. We've got a lot of work to do and you know, that's laid out. We don't really know how we're going to do it. We don't know how we're going to fund it. We don't know what sacrifices we're going to have to make, but I think we're nearing the bottom.

Sean Gonsalves (41:52)
Well,

God bless you for your optimism. God bless you for your engagement. And I do agree with you about that whole trust piece and how vital that is for our community. And just to bring it sort of full circle in a sense is that that I think though that lack of trust in government is going to fuel a lot of the anti-tech backlash that we talked about earlier.

I mean, especially when you're seeing how technology is being used for how ICE is using different technologies and some of these big AI platforms and whatnot. all of that feeds into it.

Christopher Mitchell (42:22)
Yep. Yeah. And that's the thing we got to, people are right to be distrustful. Um, but like, you know, we need imbalance, right? This is what I feel like my whole life was like, I'm like, we need these things in balance.

Ry Marcattilio (42:32)
Yeah, that's good reminder to cities that they can't be passive agents in this whole thing. They need to be actively trying to build bridges and look for ways to improve the lives of the people living in their towns. That might be a municipal network. That might be a range of other things. But we trust our local governments more when we have more touch points with them and when we can see them trying to do things. They don't always have to succeed, but when we see them trying to do things to make our lives collectively.

Christopher Mitchell (42:57)
Anything, any last words, Christine?

All right, well, sure hope that we're all still around and Greenland is still green, although it's really actually covered in ICE. ⁓ Iceland is much more green than Greenland, I think is my understanding of things. I don't know, not been to either one yet. We'll see what happens at the end of the year. I'll tell you this, there's gonna be a bunch of stuff we didn't predict. Probably by the end of the week.

Ry Marcattilio (43:15)
Yes, there will.

Christopher Mitchell (43:17)
let alone the end of the year. So

Sean Gonsalves (43:19)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Mitchell (43:19)
I want to thank everyone who's tuning in. I want to thank you. If you're listening to this show, it's because you're trying to build a better world. And we appreciate that and appreciate your work. You know, there's so many good video games out there is very easy to just focus on that and not trying to make your neighborhood better. But we need these things in balance, right? You got to have video game night and you got to have improve your neighborhood night. So I hope you're out there doing that. And thank you all.

Let's hope that this year is way better than we're expecting right now.

Ry Marcattilio (43:43)
Amen.