Category: Podcasts

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Join us on Wednesday, March 1st at 7:30pm ET for a very special episode of the show, live from Net Inclusion 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) will be joined by Kim McKinley (UTOPIA Fiber), Angela Siefer (National Digital Inclusion Alliance), Autumn Evans (City of Detroit), and ILSR’s DeAnne Cuellar, and in front of a live audience at The Friendly Spot Icehouse. They’ll talk pilot projects to reach neighborhoods long left behind by the monopoly marketplace, how to overcome stubborn digital equity and inclusion challenges, what it takes for cities to make forward-thinking, bold choices for better local Internet infrastructure, mobilizing local elected officials as an interested citizen, and much more. We expect a large audience and have a revolving seat for questions, comments, and jokes at Chris’ expense. Join us!

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.

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Join us live on Thursday, February 16th, at 3:30pm 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) to talk about recent efforts to remove the tax burden on broadband grants, the litany of ISPs that have abused the new reporting process to overstate their coverage, when line extension programs are a good (and bad) idea, and much more. 

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.

Remote video URL

https://communitynets.org/media/oembed?url=https%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DFD84LJoo_w4&max_width=0&max_height=0&hash=ZCywcCRzN1tbSC1nNWmfFhdm3MHMpXKZEIz2t-hv8cs

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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.

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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.

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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, and watch on LinkedIn, on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.

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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.

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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, on Facebook live, or below.

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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). They’ll 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.

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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) to talk about the new pricing moves announced by Comcast, the institution of data caps in off-hours by Starlink, the future of Starry Fixed Wireless, and Affordable Connectivity Program usage around the country.

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.

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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.