This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Michelle Barber and Andre Lortz. Both serve on the Kaysville City Council and are members of the group Citizens for Kaysville Fiber, but today they join us to talk as regular citizens of the city of 30,000 in Utah.

Kaysville has been working to improve Internet access for years — some residents have good connectivity, but other parts of town are very poorly served. In 2019 it began considering a municipal network, and Michelle and Andre share the history of efforts to make forward progress as well as the moves made over the last twelve months. The city originally considered a model with a utility fee, but in the face of opposition ultimately decided for a bond approach which just saw a vote where the measure was defeated by less than 200 votes. Michelle, Andre, and Christopher talk about how it happened (including how major providers funded public relations campaigns to scare people away), and what the project’s continued support means for its future.

This show is 41 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.

Don’t forget to check out our new show, Connect This!, where Chris brings together a collection broadband veterans and industry experts live on YouTube to talk about recent events and dig into the policy news of the day. 

Transcript coming soon.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

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This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Jennifer Hawkins, President and Executive Director of One Neighborhood Builders (ONB), a community development organization based out of Rhode Island. She talks about about the Olneyville neighborhood, situated on the west side of Providence, and how significant health disparities in that community led her organization to jump into action over the summer to build a free wireless network for the residents. Jennifer and Christopher talk about mapping the network, placing hardware on ONB-owned buildings, and putting up 12 access points to cover more than half of the community with robust wireless. She shares why the project’s been worth it, and the health outcomes they hope to achieve once it goes online. 

This show is 31 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.

Don’t forget to check out our new show, Connect This!, where Chris brings together a collection broadband veterans and industry experts live on YouTube to talk about recent events and dig into the policy news of the day. 

Read the transcript for this episode.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Subscribe to the Building Local Power podcast, also from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, on iTunes or ...

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Catherine Nicolaou, External Affairs and Marketing Manager for Sacred Wind Communications, a rural local exchange carrier in NW New Mexico that has been focused on serving the Navajo Nation communities there. She shares the history of Sacred Wind, from buying copper infrastructure from Century Link 13 years ago in a region where just 26% of the households had Internet access to its 400 miles of fiber infrastructure today, allowing it to bring broadband to more than 92% of those living there.

Catherine tells Christopher how the company has had to rely on the full array of technologies to bring broadband access to families in a large area with particular geographic and topographic challenges, from Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) to TV White Space (TVWS) to infrared to fixed wireless and, of course, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH). They talk about what it means to Sacred Wind’s subscribers that the provider has never raised prices, and the work it’s been doing during the pandemic to make sure everyone gets and stays connected.

Don’t forget to check out our new show, Connect This!, where Chris brings together a collection broadband veterans and industry experts live on Youtube to talk about recent events and dig into the policy news of the day. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.

Read the transcript for this episode.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes...

This week on the podcast Christopher talks with Stacy Cantrell, Vice President of Engineering at Huntsville Utilities in Alabama. Huntsville’s (pop. 197,000) municipal utility serves well beyond the city boundaries, and its electric department built a major network that gets close to every house within the city limits. 

Stacy shares how the 1,100-mile fiber project unfolded, what it took to overcome challenges, and how things are going now that they’re nearly done. The utility uses its network for internal services to bring value to those living in the city, but providers, of which Google will be the first, can lease that network and attach homes to it. 

This show is 29 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed. You can listen to the interview on this page or visit the Community Broadband Bits page.

Read the transcript for this episode.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Subscribe to the Building Local Power podcast, also from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, on iTunes or Stitcher to catch more great conversations about local communities, the concentration of corporate power, and how everyday people are taking control.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.