Category: john st. julien

Advice for Starting a Community Network – Community Broadband Bits Episode #94

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The Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast this week focuses on what people can do to start building a grassroots effort for a network in their community. John St Julien of Lafayette, Louisiana, returns to the show to discuss what they did and ideas for others to follow.

John was last on the show for episode 19, where we focused more on the specific approach used in Lafayette.

We discuss the early challenges and ideas for how to engage others, who may be the best people to approach, and how to maintain a sense of progress during what may be a very challenging organizing effort.

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 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 Valley Lodge for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Sweet Elizabeth.”

Community Broadband Bits 19 – John St. Julien from Lafayette

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Today we invited John St. Julien, of Lafayette Pro Fiber fame, on episode 19 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast. John was an essential piece of the organizing effort in Lafayette's efforts to build its own community fiber network. In many ways, he has worked to ensure the “community” piece is emphasized over the “fiber” piece.

John and I discuss the organizing effort in Lafayette that led to their successful referendum in 2005, including some lessons for others who want to organize their own communities. We also talk about some of the lengths that big cable and telephone companies will go to stop communities. In the course of our discussion, we talk about a push poll that backfired on those trying to scare voters — we made the full audio available here.

John will be back on a future show to offer more thoughts on how local activists can work within the community to encourage a local, publicly owned solution.

For background on the LUS Fiber network in Lafayette, we strongly recommend our Broadband at the Speed of Light report, which features a case study of the network. Also, four episodes ago, we interviewed Geoff Daily about his work to develop apps on the LUS Fiber network.

Read the transcript from this interview 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 25 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 directly from here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.