Category: book

Broadband Planning and How Government Creates Markets – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 260

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Just what does it take to have a market? It may be more complicated than you think — and in large part because of the things most of us don't notice that governments do. We discuss this and the role of broadband planners with Alex Marshall on Community Broadband Bits podcast 260. Alex is the author of The Surprising Design of Market Economies, a columnist for Governing magazine, and Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association in New York City. In the course of our conversation, he notes the Portland Speech from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the highlights of our conversation is comparing roads to broadband in terms of benefits, how they are funded, and the danger from over zealous tolling. We strongly recommend Alex's writing as it has been quite influential in our thinking about municipal infrastructure over the years.Read the transcript of the show.We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.This show is 25 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Service Unavailable: The Failure of Competition – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 196

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If you are paying close attention to discussions about broadband policy, you may have come across Fred Pilot's reminders that competition is not a cure-all for our Internet access woes across the United States. The blogger and author joins us for episode 196 of Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary].

Fred Pilot's new book, Service Unavailable: America's Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis, discusses some of the history behind our current challenges and proposes a solution centered around federal funding and cooperatives.

We discuss the switch from telecommunications as a regulated utility, to which everyone was guaranteed access, to a system relying on competition, in which some people have many choices but others have no options. We also discuss the merits of a national solution vs encouraging more local approaches with federal financial assistance.

Fred's blog is Eldo Telecom and you can follow him on Twitter.

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 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Player vs. Player.”

Susan Crawford, Captive Audience, and How to Kill the Cable Monopoly

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Susan Crawford, author of the just-released Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, is our guest for the 29th episode of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] Podcast. A former adviser to President Obama, she has been a leading figure in the struggle to preserve an open Internet.

Susan has long been an advocate of communities deciding for themselves if a community owned network is a wise investment and recognizes the benefits of smart government policies to prevent big companies like Comcast from dominating the telecommunications arena.

We talk about her book and reactions to it — big cable and telephone companies are attacking her under false pretenses by either putting words in her mouth or misrepresenting her main points. But we also discuss the steps concerned people can take to bring force some accountability on the big monopolies.

We have previously noted Susan's words and presentations here and we noted some Captive Audience reviews 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. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

This show is 17 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!

Listen to previous episodes here. You can download the Mp3 file of this episode directly from here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to mojo monkeys for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.