For decades, municipal broadband operations have faced restrictions and barriers that make establishing and maintaining community broadband networks costly, difficult, and unsustainable. Despite these challenges, municipal broadband has exploded in recent years, with 47 new community networks coming online since 2021. Yet, roadblocks, which hinder municipal broadband networks in substantial ways, persist in many states.

This week, Gary is joined by Tyler Cooper, Editor-in-chief of BroadbandNow, who will share BroadbandNow’s latest research on municipal broadband and discuss the importance of community networks for addressing the digital divide.

Special Guest:

Tyler Cooper, Editor-In-Chief, BroadbandNow

Learn about BroadbandNow’s findings in the research report – Municipal Broadband Remains Roadblocked In 16 States – BroadbandNow

This week Gary sits down for a conversation with Jimmy Todd, the Chairman of FBA’s Board of Directors. Jimmy, the CEO and General Manager of Kansas based provider, Nex-Tech, will discuss the opportunities and challenges bringing fiber broadband to rural communities, how fiber enables precision agriculture, and other timely topics.

Join FBA Marketing Committee members Kimberly Biddy, Ray Monasterski, Katherine Songster, and NPS expert Mike Render for an exploration of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This Fiber for Breakfast episode will introduce a new NPS initiative led by the FBA Marketing Committee that will identify NPS recommendations. Learn more about the history of NPS and the unique opportunity it presents for network operators, equipment and software vendors, and consulting and engineering firms to elevate the customer experience across the entire broadband ecosystem.

Special Guests:

Kimberly Biddy, Manager of Social, Digital, and Traditional Media Brand Strategies, EPB

Ray Monasterski, Business Development, ASK

Mike Render, RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting

Katherine Songster, Communications Director, Harry – an integrated marketing agency

Fiber Connect 2024 is right around the corner, and we cannot wait to see you in Nashville July 28th – July 31st.

This week on Fiber for Breakfast, Gary welcomes Evann Freeman, Chairman of the 2024 Conference Committee, and Rich Williams, Conference Program Director, for a preview of this year’s show.

The focus of Fiber Connect 2024 is “Accelerating Our Fiber Future” as we embark on the most exciting fiber broadband expansion period our industry has seen. In addition to familiar favorites like the Operator Light Talks, The State Broadband Summit, The C Suite Forum, The Broadband Forum Technology Deep Dives, and the Women in Fiber luncheon, this year’s show adds new programs such as the Overbuilder Toolkit, Broadband Policy Symposium, and the Award Luncheon. Of course, there will also be exciting networking events and parties with plenty of live musical performances from some of Music City’s emerging stars.

Join us Wednesday, June 19th at 10:00 AM ET for this exciting sneak peek of what to expect at Fiber Connect 2024!

Special Guests:

Rich Williams, Conference Program Director, Fiber Connect
Evann Freeman, Vice President, Government & Community Relations, EPB

Demand for data continues to grow, while the digital divide in America persists. This episode showcases the role of Free Space Optics communication technology in helping bridge middle mile gaps in the broadband infrastructure. We will show advancements in Free Space Optics comms design that have allowed us to overcome physical challenges to robust performance, and provide examples from real-world deployments with telco and ISP partners that demonstrate the impact of this technology for rapid deployment of high capacity connectivity in remote villages as well as city centers.

Special Guests: Sanjay Nagpal, Director, Go to Market, Taara at X – The Moonshot Factory

Hear Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower discuss the joint venture between AT&T and BlackRock to deploy a wholesale open access multi-gigabit fiber network to new cities that are out of AT&T’s footprint territory.

Special Guest:

Bill Hogg, Chief Executive Officer, Gigapower

Cable operators, both large and small, are plotting their gradual evolution to fiber while improving speeds and reliability on their DOCSIS networks to remain competitive with fiber ISPs. This presentation will detail cable operators’ technology options for boosting bandwidth as they evolve their networks to fiber and will discuss MSOs’ plans and strategies for RDOF and BEAD funding, and surviving the current threat posed by fixed wireless.

Special Guest:

Jeff Heynen
Vice President, Broadband Access and Home Networking
Dell’Oro Group

Peter Supino will discuss his recently published equity research report titled: “Fiber Primer: Growth Utility of “Pipe Dream”? catered to Wall Street investors. He will outline his long-term forecasts for the sector and discuss why he’s bullish on valuations and returns on invested capital. He’ll also discuss competitive considerations across the broadband industry, and recent trends by the large public fiber overbuilders.

Special Guest:
Peter L. Supino, Managing Director and Lead Analyst – Media & Entertainment, Telecom & Cable at Wolfe Research

Billions of dollars are allocated for last mile service to rural America. An estimated 42 million Americans will for the first time in their lives have access to high-speed internet. The importance of creating middle mile architecture capable of supporting this new capacity and services cannot be overstated. This webinar will discuss the need for rural middle mile infrastructure and the perils of not having it when millions of new last mile services are deployed.

Special Guests:

Sachin Gupta, Director of Government Business and Economic Development, Centranet

Jordan Gross, Director of State Government Affairs, Lumen

Joanne Hovis will be providing an inside look at the $42B NTIA BEAD funding timelines for states and how these state programs are coming together.

Special Guest:

Joanne Hovis, President, CTC Technology & Energy

NTIA has recently announced significant progress to remove permitting barriers to broadband deployments funded by Internet for All initiatives. The “Permitting and Environmental Information Application” is a publicly available GIS-based tool that NTIA developed to assist industry with early identification of permit requirements and NEPA considerations. NTIA will demo the application and highlight other recent developments supporting efficient broadband permitting.

Special Guest:

Jill Springer

Senior Policy Advisor for Permitting
Chief Environmental Review and Permitting Officer
Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth, NTIA

Alabama Power is deploying fiber across the grid to increase reliability and security. This fiber has additional capacity to enable broadband deployment across Alabama. Alabama Power has entered into strategic partnerships to serve as a middle mile dark fiber lease partner for backhaul providers, telecoms, community anchor institutions and cooperative fiber companies.

Special Guest:

Arnab Ghosal, Vice President of Connectivity and Innovation, Alabama Power