As we near the FCC open meeting at the end of next week, when it will decide on both the Chattanooga and Wilson petitions regarding their wish to expand as well as a proposal to reclassify Internet access a Title II service in order to ensure it can maintain the same open Internet we have long loved. We have mostly focused on the muni petitions, but after hearing some concerns from some munis regarding Title II, we realized we have to delve into the Title II reclassification more deeply. Enter Chris Lewis, VP of Government of Affairs for Public Knowledge. I've always enjoyed talking with Chris on various issues around telecom policy and we asked him to come on and answer some of the questions we have heard. We talk about the prospects of rate regulation, unbundling, transparency requirements, and the process for filing complaints until Title II. Overall, our conclusion is that the rules as we understand them, are quite reasonable and should not pose a problem to munis that are already committed to providing a high quality service. You can read a Fact Sheet about the proposed rules here. Read the transcript from this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 22 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

Last year was the first year I attended Mountain Connect, an event in the Rockies west of Denver that discusses approaches to improving Internet access. Historically, they focused on rural communities but as co-chair of the event Jeff Gavlinski notes in our discussion this week, they are expanding it to include more urban issues as well. Mountain Connect is growing in many ways and I am excited to return to it in early June. As Jeff and I discuss, it is focused on all solutions to expanding access - whether private sector, coop, muni, partnership, etc. Colorado has a lot of activity from munis and especially munis that are looking to partner, but also has a state law that requires a time-and-energy consuming referendum before the community can really do any planning or take action to improve its situation. Read the transcript from this show here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

Like many states, Minnesota has a major metro area that generally has higher quality Internet access than non-metro communities. The Greater Minnesota Partnership, a coalition of businesses, chambers, nonprofits, and cities from across the state, have made improving Internet access a major priority in their efforts to influence the state legislature. This week, we talk with Dan Dorman, Executive Director of the Greater Minnesota Partnership. He is also a former Minnesota state Rep and remains a small business owner. We discuss the need to improve access even as major cable lobbyists fight in the capital to preserve the status quo. The Partnership believes state barriers to community networks should be removed. Dorman offers a unique perspective as a former member of the Minnesota Legislature. He knows what it is like to be lobbied constantly by one side of the issue but rarely hear from the other. Fortunately, the Greater Minnesota Partnership is working to provide that other side as best it can. We previously discussed the Border-to-Border fund in episode 119. Read the transcript from this conversation here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 28 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

OneCommunity is a nonprofit organization in northeastern Ohio that has connected thousands of community anchor institutions with high capacity connections. Created as OneCleveland before expanding, it has remained a rather unique approach to expanding high quality Internet access. This week, CEO Lev Gonick joins us to talk about OneCommunity and its contributions to the region. As neither a private company nor a local government, Lev believes that OneCommunity offers a third way, something they often call a "community-driven" approach. We discuss how a big city like Cleveland needs to think about solving the problem of expanding Internet access broadly. OneCommunity has just announced the recipients of its Big Gig Challenge and Lev shares some of the lessons they learned in evaluating proposals and working with the communities that competed for the prize. Lev and I will be on a panel together again with some other great folks in Austin for Broadband Communities in the middle of April. Great deal to attend here. Read the transcript of this show here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 23 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

In recent weeks, we have been excited to see announcements from Ting, a company long known for being a great wireless provider (both Lisa and I are customers), that is now getting into FTTH deployments. The first announcement was from Charlottesville where it acquired another company. Last week they announced a partnership with Westminster, Maryland. This week we interview Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows, which is the parent of Ting. Elliot has long been active in preserving and expanding the open Internet. We discuss many issues from Ting's success in wireless to cities dealing with permitting and access in rights-of-way to Ting's willingness and enthusiasm to operate on municipal fiber open access networks. We finish with some musings on upcoming over the top video technologies like SlingTV from Dish. Both Elliot and I are presenting at the upcoming Freedom to Connect event in New York City on March 2 and 3rd. Read the transcript of this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 27 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

While at the Broadband Communities Economic Development conference in Springfield last year, I had the good fortune to catch a panel with Chris Merdon, the CIO of Howard County, Maryland. Howard County has become an Internet Service Provider, not just to itself, but to private firms as well. To improve Internet access for businesses, it is both leasing dark fiber to existing providers and directly offering services to businesses and buildings. We are grateful that Chris could join us for a Chris² interview! We discuss how and why Howard County chose this strategy and how it is benefiting the community. Read the transcript of our discussion here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 19 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Blues walk."

Ever since the last time I spoke with Blair Levin on Episode 37, I have wanted to have him back for a friendly discussion about public or private ownership of next generation networks. Though Blair and I entirely agree that local governments should be free to decide locally whether a community broadband network investment is a wise choice, he tends to see more promise in partnerships or other private approaches whereas we at ILSR tend to be concerned about the long term implications of private ownership of essential infrastructure. In what may be the longest interview we have done, Blair and I discuss where we agree and how we differ. We weren't looking to prove the other wrong so much as illustrate our different points of view so listeners can evaluate our sides. Ultimately, we both believe in a United States where communities can choose between both models -- and some may even seek solutions that incorporate both. Blair Levin was the FCC Chief of Staff when Reed Hundt was Chair and was instrumental in forming Gig.U. In between, he did a lot of things, including being Executive Director for the FCC's National Broadband Plan. He is currently with the Metropolitan Project at Brookings. Read the transcript of our discussion here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 37 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

For our final Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] episode of 2014, we review some of the notable events and news we covered and we discuss some predictions for 2015. Lisa Gonzalez and Rebecca Toews join me in this discussion. Read the transcript from this call here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Let us know if we should try something like this again next year or for the 4th of July... or if we should stick to our knitting! Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 26 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."

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! Read the transcript from this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Let us know if we should try something like this again next year or for the 4th of July... or if we should stick to our knitting! Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 15 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. 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 [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] 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. Read the transcript for this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Dickey F for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Florida Mama."