Broadband Action

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 process of burying conduit and cables is fairly straightforward, there’s a hidden crisis affecting the deployment of these networks - a shortage of qualified, well-trained workforce to do the necessary job of locating existing underground utilities to hopefully prevent crews from damaging those faciities. This “locate crisis” is being felt around the country, and in the latest episode of Broadband Action, we discuss how it is impacting the work of the engineers that design the networks, the construction companies that build the networks, and the broadband providers who need that network completed in a timely basis to provide services to a hungry consumer base.

Hosts Curtis Dean and Todd Kielkopf are joined by Ronnie Marler with NewCom Technologies, Greg Hinz with Fort Dodge Fiber, and Brett Niles with Open Country

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 episode, we talk with Door County Broadband Coordinator Jessica Hatch and Hugh Zettel, Chair of the Door County Broadband Committee, to discuss the planning work they are doing now to prepare the County for BEAD funding to fill broadband gaps.

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 their own state senator; and Gigi Sohn, Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) which advocates for municipal broadband and defends against similar attacks by dark money groups.

Links:

Frankfort Plant Board: https://fpb.cc/

AAPB: https://aapb.us/

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 is expected that millions of Americans will still not have access to fast, reliable, affordable broadband service.

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 the evolution of fiber. Now serving as Vice President of External Affairs at Mears Group, Gold will share her perspectives from 20+ years in the broadband industry.

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 works with incoming students to help round out their digital skills to make them ready for success.

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.