Community Broadband Bits Podcast

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Claudia Tarbell and Michael Weening from Calix, to talk about how the company has aimed to empower communities and build tools to make the most of the Internet connections available to their citizens.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Alyssa Clemsen Roberts, President and CEO of New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC). Two and a half years ago, there were no plans to add broadband to its portfolio. Two membership votes and a new CEO later, and NHEC is building 25 miles of new fiber a week across its footprint, and planning to finish a $50-million grant-funded project in the next three years.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Kristan Johnson, Telephone Operations Manager of the Tohono O'odham Utility Authority (TOUA), which provides telephone, electric, water, gas, and Internet service to a large portion of those living throughout the Tohono O'odham Nation in south-central Arizona. She shares how the network has moved to modern software platforms to plot assets, how it ensures it reports properly, and how it manages local politics and member expectations for a public that often doesn't know how the Internet reaches it.

From grant requests that have gotten short-circuited by a local WISP with a history of acting against the public interest, to mapping woes, to resort towns frustrated by underinvestment and fragile telecommunications infrastructure, Christopher and ILSR Senior Researcher Ry Marcattilio reflect on the lessons to be learned from one rural county in Minnesota.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Evan Marwell (CEO) and Jenny Miller (Director of Government Affairs), from the nonprofit Education Superhighway. Begun as an organization aimed at improving Internet access for schools, today Education Superhighway focuses its efforts on leveraging data and on-the-ground work to bring solutions for the more than 18 million households with basic broadband infrastructure available to them but for whom the price of connectivity is too high.

This week on the show, Christopher is joined by Stacy Evans, Chief Broadband and Technology Officer at BrightRidge, the municipal network for Johnson City, Tennessee. They talk an accelerating build timeline, returning millions to local government, keeping electric prices low, and working with nearby communities to build a more resilient eastern Tennessee that serves as a hotbed for new investment and innovation.

This week on the show, Christopher, Sean, and Ry sit down to catch up on a handful of community broadband projects in Baltimore and Iowa. They end the show by talking about the new CommunityNets.org, and putting a fresh coat of paint on the digital home of the Community Broadband Networks initiative.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Joan Engebretson, Managing Editor at Telecompetitor. They chat about writing for different kinds of audiences, separating hype from fact, and what the confusion that reigned over the mapping challenge process this past winter.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Katie Espeseth, Vice President of New Products EPB Fiber, at the municipal network in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They talk HCS EdConnect, the network's new SmartNet Plus service, and how - thanks to municipal and cooperative efforts - Tennessee is rapidly becoming one of the best-connected places in the country.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by General Manager Brad Nosler and Senior Customer Support specialist Elizabeth Pereira, both from the city of Hillsboro, Oregon. The city’s municipal broadband network, HiLight, is new, having begun signing up subscribers in the spring of 2021.