Given all the horrible experiences people have had over the telephone with massive cable companies, it isn't clear that one can design a skit to parody such a conversation. Each time someone calls one of these companies is a parody in and of itself. However, given that this is a holiday week, we decided to have some fun and record two such conversations using some of real interactions we have had. 

The first call is reflective of many attempts we have had in trying to ascertain prices for common services from cable and telephone companies. The second call, starting at about 10:30 into the show, involves someone calling in to have a repair scheduled, this was inspired by and fairly closely mimics what he went through after a neighbor's tree fell on his cable line, severing it from his house. 

Just before posting this show, a colleague shared a hilarious comic from Pearls and Swine covering cable sales practices. Next week, we will have a year-end conversation that itself ends with some predictions for 2015. After that, we will back to normal guests and our normal format. Enjoy the holidays! 

This show is 15 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here. 

Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama." We also use a dial tone sound in this recording from Sound Bible.

We have seen a lot of claims about Kansas City - whether Google Fiber's approach is increasing digital inclusion, having no impact, or possibly even increasing the digital divide. This week on our Community Broadband Bits podcast, we are excited to have Michael Liimatta, President of a Kansas City nonprofit called Connecting for Good, that discusses what is happening in Kansas City. 

Michael offers insights into the difficulty of connecting low income populations and how Google's entrance into the City has not solved the digital divide but has sparked a deeply needed conversation on how to meet those needs. 

We also talk about how Connecting for Good is using a 4G Clear wireless device to help low income families connect to the Internet. This is a far superior solution than Comcast's Digital Essentials programs in that it is more responsive to the needs of low income households rather than being tailored around the least that Comcast could do. 

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

The open access approach, which generally refers to multiple service providers offering services across the same physical network, remains a challenge for those who want to implement it. Though many communities would prefer to focus on the infrastructure rather than selling services directly in competition with existing providers, most find the approach is not feasible. This week, Eric Lampland is back on the show to discuss what the challenges are and how the future of open access may not be what many imagine it to be. 

Will we be purchasing a gigabit of Internet connectivity from service providers or will we instead be directly purchasing many services directly from service providers -- whether video, health care related, or other? 

Lampland is the Founder and principal consultant of Lookout Point Communications. Our previous podcast with him discussed how to justify a network from just the indirect benefits. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

I was recently invited to speak in Brussels on the experience of U.S. cities and fiber optic investment. Videos from the seminar are available here. I took some extra time around the seminar to visit Amsterdam and then Bruges in Belgium. On this week's Community Broadband Bits podcast, Lisa and I discuss broadband in the European context. 

We talk about how much people pay in Amsterdam for better services than we commonly get and note that most European cities have much better access to the Internet than do U.S. cities, with the possible exception of Brussels, which has poor access. We also talk about how the incumbents in Europe are not so different from the incumbent providers in the U.S. and are trying to invest as little as possible while preventing meaningful competition. Some things are just universal... 

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

The small village of Sebewaing has become the first gigabit village in the state of Michigan. Superintendent of Sebewaing Light and Water utility Melanie McCoy joins us to discuss the project on episode 126 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. With approximately 1,800 people, Sebewaing has cracked the code for a small local government to deliver gigabit services to the community. 

In the show, we discuss previous telecommunications investments by the village and how they financed the gigabit fiber deployment. We also discuss how Michigan law, designed to discourage municipal networks, delayed the project and increased the costs as well as the annoyance to many residents who long ago became impatient with how long it took to begin turning on the Internet service. Read our full coverage of Sebewaing here. 

This show is 14 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience and now co-author of The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance joins us for Community Broadband Bits #125. We discuss the idea of a Responsive City. Susan contrasts her visions of a Responsive City with more traditional notions of a "smart" city and notes that having fiber throughout a community is a necessary base. 

We discuss a few of the examples from the book that discuss how local governments are being transformed and how we would like to see them continue to transform in coming decades. 

This show is 15 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Jessie Evans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Is it Fire?"

We first became aware of the Media Mobilizing Project through our work with the Media Action Grassroots. MMP has been working in Philadelphia to organize low income neighborhoods to improve access to the Internet and media more generally. Hannah Jane Sassaman is the MMP Policy Director and joins us this week for Episode 124 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. 

We discuss how Comcast and other cable companies are failing our communities and how MMP is using upcoming franchise re-negotiations to organize for better Internet access and other community benefits. 

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Jessie Evans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Is it Fire?"

Aurora, Illinois, has been named one of the "Smart 21" most intelligent communities of 2015 according to the Intelligent Community Forum. We have been tracking Aurora for a few years and wrote about OnLight, its nonprofit ISP, that we wrote about earlier this year. With some 200,000 people, it is the second largest city in Illinois but it has one of the most interesting hybrids of municipal fiber and nonprofit partnerships we have come across. 

For this week's Community Broadband Bits podcast, Lisa Gonzalez takes the reins and interviews Rick Mervine, Alderman of the 8th Ward in Aurora. Alderman Mervine explains why the city first invested in the fiber network and why they later decided to create OnLight to serve community anchor institutions as well as others in the community. 

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Jessie Evans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Is it Fire?"

For this week's Community Broadband Bits podcast, we are excited to have Bob Frankston back on the show. Frankston has spent a long time thinking about connectivity and we previously explored his thoughts on episode 14. 

In this episode, we talk a lot about how to think about what he terms "connectivity" rather than telecommunications. Telecommunications are a train track - the network owner determines when to move the trains and at what capacity. Our goal for networks is more akin to the roads, where we have more capacity to move around and pick our own routes on our own schedule. Frankston has persistently argued that community networks are reproducing the centralized model of the telephone and cable companies when they build networks. 

While I have argued that the community fiber approach is more open than he believes, it is clear that his vision is substantially different from what most local governments have in mind and quite possibly, more libertarian than most local governments are ready to encourage. 

Feel free to share your thoughts below. He is looking for more examples of very local grassroots network building - where apartment builders create and operate their own network. Ideally, these will scale up as they connect with each other and offer alternatives to more centrally controlled networks. For some of his recent writings, check out Beyond Neutrality and Connected Things. 

This show is 33 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Jessie Evans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Is it Fire?"

This week, we helped to launch Next Century Cities, a collaborative effort of local governments that are making smart investments and partnerships to ensure their communities have fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access. Deb Socia is the Executive Director of Next Century Cities, coming to it from a nonprofit organization she developed in Boston called Tech Goes Home that works to increase digital inclusion. 

Via my capacity at ILSR, I am the policy director for NCC, so I have been working with Deb behind the scenes to launch Next Century Cities. This week, we spend a few minutes talking about this new organization. Next Century Cities is an exciting collection of 32 founding community partners with incredible diversity. From large cities to small, right-leaning to left-leaning. Some are municipal networks and some have partnered with private companies. 

If you think your community would like to join, have the Mayor or a public official contact NCC. See the member cities here and watch the full launch event here. Follow Next Century Cities on Twitter - @nextcentcit. 

This show is 10 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Jessie Evans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Is it Fire?"