While I was in Danville, Virginia, for the Broadband Community Magazine Economic Development Conference, I had a chance to sit down with Jason Grey, nDanville Network Manager. This interview is our 22nd episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Jason and I met five years ago when I first visited Danville to learn about its municipal … Read More
Free Press is hosting the next National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in Denver, April 5-7. Though the panels are not finalized, it is safe to assume that we will have a few on broadband and telecommunications policy. That’s why I just registered for it and will undoubtedly be speaking on one or more sessions. For … Read More
For this week’s Community Broadband Bits, we venture outside the U.S. to interview Benoit Felten of Diffraction Analysis about the Stokab muni fiber network in Stockholm, Sweden. Stokab appears to be the most successful open access fiber network in the world. Benoit has just published a case study of Stokab and is an expert on broadband … Read More
The new Fact Sheet highlights examples of job creation tied to community owned networks. ILSR continually encounters and collects data on economic development spurred by community networks. As demand for more capacity, better reliability and reasonable affordability continues to rise, commercial customers need options. This new economic development fact sheet documents only a few of the … Read More
Amalia Deloney (follow on Twitter) joins us for our 20th Community Broadband Bits podcast to discuss how her work with the Media Action Grassroots Network and the Center for Media Justice overlaps with our focus on community broadband networks. We talk about the digital divide, particularly in relation to the attempted merger between AT&T and T-Mobile … Read More
Today we invited John St. Julien, of Lafayette Pro Fiber fame, on episode 19 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. John was an essential piece of the organizing effort in Lafayette’s efforts to build its own community fiber network. In many ways, he has worked to ensure the “community” piece is emphasized over the “fiber” piece. … Read More
We sometimes fail to communicate the great lengths to which big cable and telecommunications companies will go to intimidate and scare voters into opposing a community broadband projects. They have deployed a variety of dirty tricks and we have done a poor job of cataloging them. But a recent phone call with John St. Julien in … Read More
Dewayne Hendricks is a serial entreprenuer, innovator, and wireless expert. Wired magazine labeled him a broadband cowboy back in 2001. And he is our guest on the 18th episode of Community Broadband Bits. Our discussion focuses on the promise of wireless technologies and how a few entrenched interests in DC (the big broadcasters and wireless telephone … Read More
What happens when economies of scale are taken to ridiculous proportions? The wretched customer service of Comcast, AT&T, Etc. We recently had to move our Institute for Local Self-Reliance office within Minneapolis due to our old building being razed shortly for student condos. Given the paucity of choices, we are stuck with Comcast as our ISP … Read More
