This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Outreach Team Lead DeAnne Cuellar and John Speirs, Harris County, Texas' (pop. 4.7 million) Broadband Manager. Its county seat, Houston, is home to one of the largest ports in the world, and citizens and elected officials are working on projects to boost the region's economic development, climate resiliency, and connectivity to set a solid foundation for the next generation of citizens. 

Christopher, DeAnne, and John talk about what's needed to close the connectivity gap for the 180k households that don't have access to basic broadband speeds, and what will happen if the state doesn't make its legislative landscape friendly enough to get the most bang for the BEAD dollars that will begin to arrive this summer.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Jamie Davis, CTO of KUB Fiber, the broadband division of the Knoxville Utilities Board in Tennessee. The division is poised to be halfway done with a build across its footprint by June 2024, hitting 90,000 premises, with plans to steam ahead and complete its electric service territory as quick as possible thereafter. Jamie shares with Chris how the city changed its mind after almost a decade of declining to enter the broadband market. They talk about the rising tide of competition in Knoxville moving forward, and the expected benefits for subscribers as well as the other city utilities. Christopher and Jamie end the show by talking a little about a new pilot program aimed at getting KUB service into the homes of student, the Affordable Connectivity Program, and regional cooperation to extend service to as many households as possible.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Kevin Shendo, Education Director at the Pueblo of Jemez Department of Education, and Angela Diakah, Network Operations Supervisor at Jemez Pueblo Tribal Network (JPTN). JPTN is a wireless network serving more than 500 households in the Jemez Pueblo north of Albuquerque. Kevin and Angela share the origins of the network, spurred in part by prior serve from Windstream that was costing households on average $100/month for 4/1Mbps service. 

Angela shares the story of her first install and then Kevin walks Christopher through how the Tribe currently subsidizes the entire cost of the network with the help of federal dollars, and the plan for shifting to a traditional subscription service model subsidized at the household level by the Affordable Connectivity Program. Finally, Angela shares some of the network's digital equity and inclusion work to make sure that every household that wants can make the fullest use of its connection.

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Claudia Tarbell, Senior Engagement Manager for Tribal, Indigenous and First Nation Communities and Michael Weening, President and CEO, both from Calix. Claudia shares what it was like to transition from working at Mohawk Networks to becoming a part of Calix' community engagement team, and how she talks with Tribes about what it means to have ownership of and control over the network infrastructure in their communities. Michael joins the conversation to talk about Calix' philosophy of defining success in relation to the small providers and communities its platforms supports, including everything from democratizing high-quality advertising to pushing the frontiers of managed Wi-Fi.

 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. Alyssa talks with Christopher about what the transformation's been like, their successes and challenges, and how electric cooperatives all over the country are participating in this watershed moment. They discuss supply chain issues around poles and transformers, BEAD funding, changing the quality of life and economic opportunity for those living in rural New Hampshire. 

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. Currently, the utility authority serves 4,000 telephone and broadband subscribers. Kristan joins the show to talk about what's like serving as a telephone and Internet service provider for more than two decades at this point, in an extremely rural area. TOUA's plan is to extend new fiber infrastructure to the entirety of the reservation by the end of 2024. To get it done, Kristan says, the utility will use USDA ReConnect Round 3 and other grant funds, as well as internal investment.

This week on the show, Christopher is joined by Senior Researcher Ry Marcattilio for a conversation about on-the-ground work in a rural county in Minnesota. After joining a listening session with local elected officials, the district representative, and the broadband action team, Christopher and Ry hop in the studio to reflect on what they heard. 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, there are a lot of lessons which are applicable to rural counties facing similar problems all over the country.

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. 

Evan and Jenny share more than a decade of work in working at the national, state, and local level to build tools like www.getacp.org, which simplifies the monthly subsidy application process, and their LearnACP program, which aims to train frontline workers signing individuals up. Finally, they talk with Chris about Education Superhighway's work to collect and publicize eRate contracts, which has helped create a more vigorous marketplace for school campus connectivity, dramatically lowering the price and increasing speeds for k-12 education centers.

 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.