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Content tagged with "connect this show"
Watch: What It's Like to Live in the Bermuda Triangle of Internet Access
Despite the release of the first draft of the new national broadband maps at the end of last year (and the first round of location-level and service availability corrections completed a couple of weeks ago), we're not holding our breath that 2023 will spell the end of the technology news cycle story trope of the family that buys a new house and learns that the monopoly ISPs don't actually know where they provide service in their territories across the United States.
How, more than three decades after we began rolling out national information infrastructure, does such a basic failure persist? Sometimes, it happens because network infrastructure has changed hands so many times (and with so many layoffs), that documentation has become tangled and gap-ridden. In many instances, however, it's purposeful: ISPs have for years claimed they just don't know where they offer service to, and that it would be too expensive to find out: all as part of a larger strategic plan to prevent competition. Meanwhile, the nation's premier telecommunications expert regulatory agency - the FCC - has bought this line with little pushback.
The problem is that when it happens, it's rarely the provider that gets punished. Instead, it's homeowners who assumed that moving to a suburb meant there would be Internet access nearby, only to discover that bad DSL or worse geostationary satellite service are the only options. Perhaps most frustratingly is when the provider itself - like Comcast did to a family closing on a new house in Buckley, Washington in 2021 - tells a family it services an address and completes a work order, only to cancel the install a couple of days before closing and demand $19,000 from the family for the pleasure of becoming a subscriber. Comcast seems to be a particularly bad offender, though of course Charter Spectrum, RCN, and others habiltually do it too.
This is exactly what happened to Geoff Wiggins when his family moved to Ohio. On the most recent episode of the Connect This! Show, Geoff joins to share what happened when he moved to a house and discovered that it was in the Bermuda Triangle of broadband service, and what he's done to try and fix it.
Charter Spectrum's Lawsuit, Railroads and Crossings, and Covid-19 | Episode 63 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Thursday, February 2nd, at 2pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about the resolution to Charter Spectrum's contractor lawsuit, the location challenge process, railroads and other crossings, and how much progress we've made three years into the Covid-19 pandemic.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, and watch on LinkedIn, on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, on Twitch, or below.
Mapping Deadlines, LA County, and Stuck in the Middle | Episode 62 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Friday, January 19th, at 2:00pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) and special guests Shayna Englin (California Community Foundation) and Geoff Wiggin to talk about the January 13th location challenge deadline, what's going on in LA County and with the California Public Utilities Commission, and what it's like to buy a house in Ohio and find yourself stuck in the middle of the area's Internet service providers.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, and watch on LinkedIn, on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
Location Challenges Won't Impact BEAD, Gigi Sohn Renominated, AT&T's "Open Access" Fiber Deal, and What's New From CES | Episode 61 of the Connect This! Show
It's a new year, which means there's plenty to talk about in the broadband space. Join us live on Friday, January 6th, at 2:00pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about the recent renomination of Gigi Sohn to the FCC, why location challenges won't matter for state BEAD allocations (and why that's a big deal), and what the planning funds will do for states preparing for infrastructure money. Later, Dane Jasper (Sonic) joins the show to talk about the recent announcement by AT&T and BlackRock private equity of a joint venture to help the monopoly provider enter markets outside of states where it has traditionally operated. Finally, Roger Timmerman (UTOPIA Fiber) joins live from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to share the trends making household bandwidth demands continue to rise.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
A Look Back at 2022 | Episode 60 of the Connect This! Show
On the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) are joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to step back and remember the ups and downs as well as twists and turns in 2022. Did the supply chain fears that dominated news cycles ever really materialize? Will we ever have a functioning FCC? Is Congress completely out of touch with regard to the cost of broadband? Is fixing the urban broadband problem fundamentally different from fixing the rural broadband problem? The panel weighs in, and Christopher gets a little hot under the collar.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
The Mapping Challenge Process, PON vs. Active Ethernet, and Market Pricing| Episode 59 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Friday, December 2nd, at 2:00pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting).
They start the show by talking about early sticking points in the FCC's new mapping fabric, and what kinds of troubles providers are having in submitting data sets. The panel then talks about types of fiber deployments (GPON vs. XGSPON vs. Active Ethernet) and their longevity, scalability, and marketplace economics as compared to cable networks, fixed wireless networks, and Low-Earth Orbit satellite networks. They close the show by talking about the fundamental role of government in delivering essential services and innovation.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, or on Facebook live.
One Map to Rule Them All, Challenge Abuses, and the End of the Fiber Boom | Episode 58 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Tuesday, November 22nd, at 1:30pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting). Special guest Mike Dunne, from FiberRise, will join partway through the show. The panel will talk about the first version of the brand-new FCC broadband maps, released last Friday, internal Cable One emails admitting the company's misuse of the challenge process to block competition from publicly funded providers, updates on the broadband nutrition label, and whether rising interest rates will spell an end to the fiber boom.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
Comcast Pricing, Starlink Data Caps, Starry's Future, and ACP Usage | Episode 57 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Tuesday, November 8th, at 2pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) will dig into all the broadband news that's fit to print.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
Pricing Disparities by Monopolies, CostQuest, and Starry Abandoning RDOF Bids | Episode 56 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Thursday, October 20, at 11am ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting). They'll dig into the chase for gigabit Tarana by Travis, a new LA County report which finds significant pricing disparities by Charter Spectrum in low-income neighborhoods, and Starry's recent decent to abandon all of its Rrural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) bids. Special guest Dustin Loup (Marconi Society, National Broadband Mapping Coalition) will join later in the show to talk about the recently announced FCC contract with Cost Quest for the new national broadband availability maps.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.
Recent Broadband News | Episode 55 of the Connect This! Show
Join us live on Thursday, October 6, at 5pm ET for the latest episode of the Connect This! Show. Co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) will be joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting). They'll dig into all the recent broadband news that's fit to print.
Email us at broadband@muninetworks.org with feedback and ideas for the show.
Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, watch on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.