Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (TAK Broadband) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about major changes coming to the BEAD program and a grab-bag of other topics, including:

• Amazon drone delivery pauses in College Station, Texas
• A new report shows the Affordable Connectivity Program saved the federal government more than it cost
• The coming transformation of the BEAD program, and the likely minor and major changes to come: including removing the preference for fiber, eliminating planning requirements pertaining to climate change and service addenda like data caps, and much more.
• The announcement of Starlink Residential Lite
• Takeaways from the new OpenVault broadband usage report
• If some recent fiber provider news is revealing of the first provider closures

Join us live on March 7th at 2pm ET, or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.

Email us at broadband@communitynets.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.

Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (TAK Communications) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about all the things we expect to see in across the broadband landscape in 2025.

Join us live for the next episode on January 24th at 2pm ET, or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.

Email us at broadband@communitynets.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.

Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (TAK Communications) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) and special guest Jade Piros de Carvalho (Bonfire). Topics include:

• New York state can require a low-income plan option for ISPs after the Supreme Court declines to hear arguments
• Looking back on the legacy of the Biden FCC after four years
• Revisiting our predictions about how the year would go to see how we did

Join us live on December 19th, at 2pm ET or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us for the next episode on Friday, January 10th at 2pm ET. Use the link below to add to your calendar.

Email us at broadband@communitynets.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.

This week on the show, the staff get together to bend their collective imagination to what we expect to see as the biggest news stories of 2023. Returning to join Christopher are Sean Gonsalves, Christine Parker, Emma Gautier, and Ry Marcattilio to discuss the BEAD funding rollout, mapping, the current state of preemption laws, Starry, the FCC, and more. 

Who will be right? Wrong? We'll have to wait until December to find out!

This show is 46 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Joseph Franell, President of Blue Mountain Networks (which serves more than 30 rural communities west of Portland) in Oregon. Joe joined the team at Ashland Fiber Network (AFN) before moving on to do work in rural parts of the state. During the conversation, Christopher and Joe talk about building fiber in some of the least-dense parts of the state. They discuss the importance of creativity and a willingness to pursue a variety of partnership models, the critical role that local broadband champions play in convincing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to come to rural areas, and how dramatically different a provider looks when it's driven by principles and a commitment to the community that goes beyond a lightning-fast return-on-investment.

They dive into the specter of private equity, which has shown increasing interest in broadband infrastructure and the grassroots work done by broadband action teams over the last couple of years.

This show is 45 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.