Category: huntsville

Fiber For All and More – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 271

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After a friendly coup in the offices of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Hannah has taken the podcast host chair from Christopher for episode 271 of the Community Broadband Bits. Hannah grills Christopher on where he has recently traveled, interesting lessons, and recent news around community broadband. (Christopher mentions a great event in Pittsfield – video available here.)The conversation starts with a discussion of why recent travels strengthened our belief that full fiber-optic networks are the best approach for the vast majority of America in the long term. Christopher and Hannah discuss the future of low-latency networks and what is more cost-effective over decades rather than just over the first few years.They go on to discuss their fears of the FCC legitimizing satellite and mobile wireless connectivity as good enough for carrier of last resort in rural regions. The show wraps up with a discussion about One Touch Make Ready in Louisville and Madison's RFP for a fiber network partner. 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 26 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.

Exploring the Huntsville Fiber Model – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 191

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Last week, we were excited at the announcement from Huntsville Utilities in Alabama. Huntsville is building a municipal dark fiber network to every premise in its territory that will be open to multiple service providers. Google has already committed to using it to bring real connectivity to the community.

In this week's episode, 191, we are talking with Tom Reiman and Stacy Cantrell to understand the model. Tom is President of The Broadband Group, the consultant that is working with Huntsville on this project. Stacy Cantrell is the Vice President of Engineering for Huntsville Utilities.

We talk about how the model originated, some of the technical details behind the network, and what benefits they expect to see. This is an excellent discussion with many implications for the thousands of communities that want to improve Internet access locally but would prefer not to offer services directly.

The transcript from this episode is available here.

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

This show is 33 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.”