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Community Broadband Bits 6 - Cheryl Leanza of Progressive States Network
Our sixth episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast features a discussion with Cheryl Leanza, broadband consultant with Progressive States Network. Cheryl has been very active in legislative battles at the state level, where she has helped to defend the public against anti-consumer deregulation led by AT&T, CenturyLink, and cable lobbyists.
We touched on the effort in Georgia to revoke local authority as well as once again noting the bad bills in North Carolina in 2011 and South Carolina in 2012.
We also spent time talking about the state-by-state effort to kill consumer protections, including the basic right to have a wireline telephone in your home.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 14 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!
Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 file directly from here.
Read the transcript of this episode here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.
Community Broadband Bits 5 - Catharine Rice of SEATOA
For our fifth episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, we have a discussion with Catharine Rice of SEATOA - the Southeastern Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. We discuss legislation in North and South Carolina designed to stop communities from building their own networks.
Catharine Rice has been a strong advocate for local authority, helping communities respond to the CenturyLink and Time Warner Cable lobbying Juggernaut in the state capitals. After many years of successfully stopping these big companies from enacting anti-competition legislation, North Carolina passed a bill in 2011 and South Carolina in 2012.
You can read our stories that touch on South Carolina here and North Carolina here.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 25 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via a different tool using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!
Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 file directly from here.
Read the transcript of this episode here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music.
Community Broadband Bits 4 - Kevin Kryzda, CIO of Martin County, Florida
The fourth episode of Community Broadband Bits features Kevin Kryzda from Martin County, Florida. We discuss their county-owned network that is saving millions of dollars for the community -- as detailed in our case study published last month.
Activists that want to encourage publicly owned broadband in their communities should familiarize themselves with the cost savings and advantages from Martin County's approach. Though Martin County is serving schools, libraries, and public safety, it does not serve residents and businesses with services directly. However, this could be the first step for other communities before they do offer such services to everyone.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 19 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via a different tool using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!
Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 directly from here.
Read the transcript of this episode here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music.
Community Broadband Bits 3 - UTOPIA and XMission
For the third Community Broadband Bits podcast, we decided to do a double interview, perhaps making up for skipping last week due to our Independence Day holiday. In this show, we talk with Todd Marriott from the UTOPIA open access network in Utah. The second interview is with a provider on the network: Pete Ashdown, the founder of XMission.
The UTOPIA web site is here. If you want to learn more about UTOPIA, an excellent site is Free UTOPIA, run by Jesse Harris. And Pete Ashdown writes about broadband issues at Transmission.Xmission.com.
We continue to be interested in your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is twenty minutes long and can be played below on this page or you can subscribe via iTunes or via a different tool using this feed. You can download the Mp3 directly from here.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music.
Community Broadband Bits 2 - Wired West Podcast
In our second podcast, we have interviewed Monica Webb with the Wired West Initiative in rural western Massachusetts. Like our first podcast, this should be an excellent resource for those who are still in the early stages of community broadband and seeking ideas or inspiration.
We continue to be interested in your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is fifteen minutes long and can be played below on this page or you can subscribe via iTunes or via a different tool using this feed. You can download the Mp3 file directly from here.
Read the transcript of this episode here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music.
Christopher Talks with Santa Cruz's KSCO 1080 AM
Michael Zwerling, of Santa Cruz’s KSCO 1080 AM, was looking for an expert on broadband so he contacted our own Christopher Mitchell. The June 2 conversation involved questions from Michael, his co-host, and listeners and covered municipal and community broadband, accessibility, WiFi networks, and more. The interview runs about 1 hour.
First Community Broadband Bits Podcast - Sibley County Fiber to the Farm
In our excitement to produce this podcast, we forgot to credit Fit and the Conniptions for the intro/outro music. Much thanks for releasing their music under a creative commons license that allows us to use it for this purpose. If you like their sound, buy an album! We have decided to start a podcast- a recurring audio program that you can listen to on your smartphone, iPod, computer, this web page, etc. We are calling it Community Broadband Bits and our plan is to offer short (10-15 minute) interviews with people doing interesting things to encourage community broadband networks. As this is our first attempt at such a show, we hope you will send feedback and suggestions. Eventually, we will get on a schedule, likely releasing every other week for the first few months. To subscribe with iTunes, click here. You can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Read the transcript of this episode here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. If you simply want the audio feed for the show, it is http://feeds.feedburner.com/BroadbandBits For our first show, we interviewed Linda Kramer with the Marketing Committee of the Sibley-Renville Fiber Project in rural Minnesota's Sibley County. In this ten minute interview, we discuss the need and demand for broadband in rural areas, as well as how the marketing committee has educated residents and demonstrated support for a County-owned fiber network.
Seattle's KUOW Discusses Wi-Fi and Fiber Optics with Christopher Mitchell
Christopher Mitchell recently spoke with Marcie Sillman on Seattle public radio KUOW's Weekday. Christopher and Marcie talked on May 8, 2012 about recent developments in local and national broadband, including the April 29th end to Seattle's free Wi-Fi network. Christopher and Marcie also discussed challenges and strategies involved in building a community network.
The interview is just about 13 minutes.
Beyond Access: Owning Community Broadband Audio Discussion
Two weeks ago, I joined a conference call hosted by the Media Action Grassroots Network discussing community ownership of broadband networks.
In the last few years local communities, governments, non-profit organizations and neighborhood residents from across the U.S. have successfully launched community broadband initiatives. 54 U.S. cities own citywide fiber networks and another 79 own citywide cable networks. These local initiatives, in rural and urban areas alike, have served as community scale infrastructures that are sustainable and allow participation and decisionmaking on the most local level.
Longmont Votes Again, Comcast Breaks Spending Record Opposing Referendum
Today is election day in Longmont, Colorado -- tomorrow we will find out if Comcast's record-breaking campaign of lies has scared enough voters to prevent the community from using its infrastructure to encourage broadband competition.
It looks like Comcast will break the $300,000 mark, funneling the money through the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association. Two years ago, it spent over $245,000 in a similar effort -- setting the record for most amount spent on a local election in Longmont. Comcast and its anti-competition allies will spend approximately 10x as much as the total amount spent on the entire mayoral campaign. All to stop the city from having an alternative to the cable/DSL duopoly.
In a recent news story about the absurd spending level, the present Mayor struck an indifferent tone:
“It doesn't really matter at this stage of the game,” Baum said. “It's going to the electorate. The electorate will vote. And we will know on Tuesday how they voted – if they believe a $300,000 ad campaign, or if they believe the people they've entrusted their votes to.” Both incumbents and challengers in the City Council race have unanimously endorsed 2A over the course of the campaign.The Boulder Weekly has even weighed in on Comcast's campaign of lies and misinformation, tying it to their efforts two years ago:
In 2009, a similar campaign called “No Blank Check” was bankrolled to the tune of nearly $250,000, primarily by the telecommunications industry. That campaign, which was successful in defeating the measure, was labeled as misleading by city officials because it claimed money would be taken from police and firefighters to fund city telecommunications services. “It was actually just the opposite of what No Blank Check was saying,” Tom Roiniotis, director of Longmont Power and Communications, told Boulder Weekly this summer. “They were saying we were going to have to lay off police and firefighters. Nothing could be further from the truth.