Broadband Action

The Broadband Communities Summit West happens at the end of October. In this edition of Broadband Action, we chat with one of the event organizers, Brad Randall. We also chat with Jim Baller with Keller and Heckman LLP, a CBAN Broadband Backer. Baller and his team will lead one of the session tracks at BBC Summit West. Links: BBC West Agenda: https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/broadband-communit...

Hosts Jon Willow and Curtis Dean provide a sneak peak at the upcoming 2024 CBAN Fall Forum in West Des Moines, Iowa on October 10th. The event will also be streamed live for online attendees. Curtis chats with Dr. Christopher Ali, the Summit keynote, about his message to attendees. To learn more about the event and to register for the 2024 CBAN Fall Forum at https://bit.ly/24fallforum

On this episode of Broadband Action, we turn our attention to a small island in Lake Michigan with big broadband challenges. Beaver Island, Michigan leaders have been trying for years to create a solution to inferior broadband by getting a fiber network built. CBAN's Curtis Dean and Jon Willow visit with two of Beaver Island's broadband champions, Dick Mulvhill and Kevin Boyle, to learn mo...

CBAN's Curtis Dean shares his perspectives on Fiber Connect 2024, one of the broadband industry'a major events. Over 5,000 people attended this event in Nashville, TN hosted by the Fiber Broadband Association (a CBAN Advocate Member). Curtis discussed the event, the venue, and some of the news that dropped while industry leaders were assembled.

In this episode of Broadband Action, CBAN's Jon Willow and Curtis Dean talk with Karl Bode, a journalist who's been covering broadband for 25 years. Karl shares his perspective on the big issues facing the broadband industry and some insight on what further changes may be coming.

In this episode of Broadband Action we chat with leaders at two municipal broadband utilities who have integrated their own affordability programs to benefit their community members. Chad Crager is the Broadband Executive Director at Fort Collins Connexion and Chris Roy is General Manager at Shrewsbury Electric and Cable Operations, also known as SELCO. Fort Collins Connexion: https://fcconnexion....

In an interview borrowed from a CBAN Member Spotlight, Curtis Dean with CBAN chats with Justin Stinson of Liberty Communications, a community focused broadband provider in Iowa. Liberty has been very proactive in not only improving services to their traditional customer base but expanding to new areas in need of better broadband service.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, also known as BEAD, is slowly inching toward implementation. The access portion of BEAD, which is where most of the money will be spent, has the stated goal of achieving universal broadband availability across the nation. The BEAD framework is currently being interpreted by each state to develop their own action plan. Recently ACA Connects, whi...

CBAN is a big supporter of community-owned broadband networks, as well as private providers with strong community roots. So we were excited to read a recent report by our friends at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance which outlined just how much the municipal broadband community has grown in recent years and just how far we’ve gone since the early days of maverick municipal networks like Glasgo...

In the latest edition of of Broadband Action, we’ll explore the relationship between higher education and Esports. Co-hosts Jon Willow and Curtis Dean chat with Jason Clark, one of the founders of the Collegiate Fighting Game Conference, to discuss how epsports competition serves the larger role of engaging young people in educational institutions to compete and learn.

An unprecedented amount of network construction has been take place over the past few years as the nation works to try to bring better broadband to more Americans. And that pace of construction will only accelerate over the next several years as the BEAD program subsidizes new networks in unserved and underserved areas. Many of those new fiber networks will be installed underground. But while the...

Doug Dawson of CCG Consulting has dusted off his crystal ball and for the third year in a row shares is Broadband Predictions with the Broadband Action team. Will BEAD solve the nation's broadband problems? Will the ACP survive? Doug shares his predictions on these and other important topics!

Door County, Wisconsin is one of the most picturesque areas of America. The county occupies a peninsula jutting between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. And like many rural areas, broadband is not available in many locations. After years of local efforts in the individual towns of Door County, a joint county broadband committee was formed, and a full-time broadband coordinator was hired. In this episo...

Since the very first municipal broadband provider was built decades ago, big telecom companies and their supporters have gone to great lengths to attack the rights of communities to build and operate broadband as a public utility. In this edition of Broadband Action we chat with Harvey Couch with the Frankfort Plant Board in Kentucky's capital city, whose pubic broadband is being targeted by t...

The busy holiday shopping season is upon us, and many Americans will be doing much of their shopping online. In this episode, CBAN Digital Navigator Brianna Dillavou has some tips to stay safe while shopping the online sales!

Getting broadband to the the millions of Americans who are unserved or underserved is a huge lift. Billions of dollars are flowing from the federal government to states for grant programs to subsidize the construction of broadband networks, mostly fiber networks, to reach underserved and unserved homes and businesses. Yet when the smoke clears and all the coming BEAD funds have been exhausted, it...

One of the great promises of broadband is the ability to deliver health care services to rural Americans. In this episode of Broadband Action, we visit with Scott Raymond and David Cloyed of Nebraska Medicine at the University of Nebraska in Omaha for their views on the challenges and opportunities of telehealth.

Fiber optic networks have evolved over the past 25 years. The technology has evolved to meet the growing needs of bandwidth. The economics have evolved to lower costs of deployment. And providers have evolved their thinking and, for the most part, embraced fiber as the gold standard for broadband. In this episode of Broadband Action, we visit with Heather Gold, who has enjoyed a front row seat in...

Young adults are often referred to as "digital natives" because they've had access to digital devices their entire lives. However, this term fails to account for the fact that many young adults have limited abilities to use digital devices for learning or work. In this episode, we talk with Don Michael, Digital Literacy Specialist for Piedmont Community College in North Carolina, who...

In this edition of Broadband Action, CBAN's Jon Willow and Curtis Dean chat with Jeff Gavlinski, CEO of Mountain Connect , to preview this year's conference in Denver. Jeff shares some highlights of the event from August 7-9 and teases some surprises for attendees.

A key element of digital equity efforts is getting the right devices into the hands of people who need them. In this episode, Jon Willow and Curtis Dean with CBAN chat with Karisa Tashjian, Director of Programs at Digitunity, a non-profit that advocates for device ownership.

In this episode of Broadband Action, we chat with Deborah Simpier, CEO of Althea. Althea is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) platform and blockchain that enables the coordination of multi-stakeholder networks. Althea decouples the service and infrastructure layers of Internet delivery and coordinates transparent and programmatic revenue sharing. Using Althea’s platform, networks can be built fas...

In this episode of Broadband Action, CBAN's Curtis Dean discusses how cable companies are working to fend off the threat from fiber by implementing new technologies that allow higher download and speeds over coaxial networks. Curtis also talks about how many fiber providers are beginning to offer multi-gigabit speed tiers.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has already helped millions of Americans get online through a monthly subsidy for internet service. However, adoption has been slow in many locations, and nationwide only 41 percent of eligible households have utilized the program. In this episode of Broadband Action, we visit with Sean Gonsolves and Ry Marcattilio with the Institute for Local Self-Relianc...

Doug Dawson with CCG Consulting is one of the broadband industry's true thought leaders. For the second year in a row, Doug joins Curtis Dean with CBAN to look into his crystal ball for some broadband predictions for 2023. Check out Pots and Pans, Doug's blog, for more topics of interest!