Category: unlicensed

The FCC's Pro-Competition Agenda – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 192

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This week we welcome Gigi Sohn, Counselor to Chairman Wheeler of the Federal Communications Commission, to Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] for episode 192. Before joining the FCC, Gigi was a founder of Public Knowledge.

Gigi discusses the pro-competition agenda that Chairman Wheeler has advanced, including the efforts to ensure communities can decide locally whether to build a municipal network or partner. We also discuss other elements of FCC action to encourage competition in the Internet access market, even how television set-top boxes fit in.

Echoing some of the comments I regularly hear from some thoughtful listeners, I asked if competition was the best approach given the argument that telecom, and particularly fiber, has the characteristics of a natural monopoly.

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 15 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.”

Recent Advances in the Wireless Future – Community Broadband Bits Episode 154

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After reading “Amtrak's Lessons for Access to the Airwaves,” I knew we wanted to talk to Michael Calabrese and Patrick Lucey of the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation to discuss wireless policy. Unfortunately, scheduling challenges kept Patrick off the this show but we do have a great discussion for this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast with Michael Calabrese, who runs the Wireless Future program at OTI.

We discuss the wireless technology Amtrak has wanted to deploy and alternatives that would have been less costly and more quickly to implement. However, this is really just an opportunity to begin the larger discussion about where wireless is going.

We also talk about a recent FCC decision to create much more shared spectrum and how the new system will work, which was also described in a presentation by Milo Medin at the 2015 Freedom to Connect event.

If you enjoy this discussion, you may be interested in our previous discussions with Dewayne Hendricks.

Read the transcript from our conversation here.

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 below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

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

Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Blues walk.”

Solar Powered Wireless on the Reservation – Community Broadband Bits Episode #76

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When it comes to building a community owned wireless network, few have more experience than Matthew Rantanen, our guest for the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast this week. Rantanen has an impressive list of titles, two of which are Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association (SCTCA) and Director of the Tribal Digital Village Initiative.

We discuss the need for better network access on reservations generally and how several reservations in southern California were able to build their own wireless networks using unlicensed spectrum and the power of the sun. This success has inspired others, including in Idaho, to take similar approaches to ensure modern connectivity.

We also discuss the importance of unlicensed spectrum to ensure that underserved communities can build the networks they need without having to ask for permission and the role that Native Public Media plays in expanding access to media across North America.

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. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

This show is 16 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 Haggard Beat for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.

Dewayne Hendricks Explains the Forgotten National Information Infrastructure – Community Broadband Bits #34

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Have you heard of the National Information Infrastructure, or the NII? Most of us either haven't, or have forgotten we once knew what it could be. Dewayne Hendricks joins us to remind us what it was and why we should care. It's “kind of a big thing.” Since we conducted this interview, unlicensed spectrum issues became a hot topic; listen below to get a better sense of just how important this issue is.

In our discussion, Dewayne walks us through the original vision, one that now seems fanciful: a world of mobile devices that interconnect with each other on the wireless networks that surround us. While we do have wireless networks in most places, they are often controlled by a few companies, like Verizon and AT&T, that restrict how we can use them and how our devices can talk to each other.

But the NII was to be more decentralized, creating much more space for entreprenuers and innovators to create new business models. A few massive corporations were able to change that vision, creating a lucrative role for themselves as gatekeepers along the way.

Dewayne started this conversation by recommending a 1995 filing by Apple [pdf]. Whether you read it before or after our conversation, it is worth taking a look.

Dewayne has previously joined us to discuss wireless generally and then later to talk about the wired vs. wireless debate. A previous interview with Bruce Kushnick is also referenced over the course of this interview.

Read the transcript from this discussion 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 30 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 can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

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