This is the transcript for episode 486 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, Christopher Mitchell invites the Community Broadband Networks Initiative staff onto the show to talk about what they believe were some of the biggest broadband stories of 2021. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

DeAnne Cuellar: This work takes a long time, the gains are small and few and far between and the fights are hard.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in St. Paul, Minnesota. And it's the end of the year, and I didn't have an interview. We're going to do a show, I'm just kidding, we actually scheduled this weeks ago. We're going to do a show with staff about what we thought was really cool stories over the course of the year.

Christopher Mitchell: And then in another week or two, you will also see a story with us talking about predictions for the next year and reflecting on how our predictions from last year did. I think Sean's going to be claiming some victories and we'll be trying to evaluate whether or not that's accurate.

Sean Gonsalves: Almost.

Christopher Mitchell: To join me, we have, that was Sean. Sean Gonsalves. Welcome back.

Sean Gonsalves: Hey.

Christopher Mitchell: And we also have DeAnne Cuellar, who is making her debut as a member of ILSR, but has been on the podcast recently talking about her work in San Antonio. Welcome DeAnne.

DeAnne Cuellar: Howdy.

Christopher Mitchell: It's super exciting to have you on the team and already joining us in the booth and by the booth, I mean, the Zoom room. I actually wrote down a bunch of things, almost everyone else just got to choose one. I told DeAnne that she could choose others, but she hasn't seen that message yet, but we're going to chat with different members of the staff about top stories that they wanted.

This is the transcript for episode 485 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, Christopher Mitchell welcomes Willie Painter, the public affairs manager for the Lewis County’s Public Utility District (PUD), to talk about what the county has been doing to address the lack of connectivity. We reported on Lewis County PUD's plan to connect its 33,000 members through an open access fiber-to-the-home network in October. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Willie Painter: I really do think that this type of a public private model, as I've just described, may be the golden ticket for one of the more efficient and effective ways of getting customers served in a community.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Today, I'm speaking with Willie Painter, who is in Lewis County, Washington, where he is the public affairs manager for the public utility district. Welcome to the show.

Willie Painter: Thanks so much Christopher, happy to be here.

Christopher Mitchell: Well, I am thrilled to be talking to another public utility district. I've been tracking what a lot of them have been doing over the years, keeping a close eye as best we can on one of the states that has the most interesting public sector investments. But I think maybe we should start by just talking a little bit about Lewis County. I expect, like many others, you probably have more land than many of the eastern states, and fewer people than some of their cities. Is that more or less accurate for Lewis County?

Willie Painter: It is indeed. In fact, I think we are the largest county in the state of Washington by geographic area. So Lewis county is comprised of 2,450 square miles, roughly. As of this last decennial census, there's about 75,000 people residing in Lewis County, and approximately 30,000 households.

This is the transcript for a bonus episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, we feature a National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) webinar on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that recently passed in Congress. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Maren Machles: Hey, it's Maren from the Community Broadband Networks Team. We decided to drop this webinar from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance into our feed because it offers a great explanation of what's happening with broadband investment from the infrastructure bill. We have a link to the slides and more information from NDIA on the show page. We hope you find it useful.

Amy Huffman: Well, hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our webinar on Digital Equity in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We're super excited for you to be here today.

Amy Huffman: My name, for those of you who I have not met yet, is Amy Huffman. I'm the Policy Director for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and would love to know a little bit about you. So please put your name, your organization, and where you're based in the chat, and we'll get to know each other. I'm based in the great state of North Carolina, in Durham. But I'm a Tar Heel. So go Heels. All right.

Amy Huffman: So we are ... Oh. Yeah, there we go. NDIA, we got started about seven years ago to represent you all, the folks doing the real digital inclusion work on the ground, making sure people have computers and an affordable Internet connection and access to digital skills learning and classes where people can upskill their skills and really be competitive in today's environment.

Amy Huffman: Today we have over 600 affiliates in 46 states. You all, it's almost the whole country. So we're thrilled that you're here and a part of our community, our ever-growing community.

This is the transcript for episode 484 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, Christopher Mitchell brings back a longtime favorite guest, Jon Chambers, Partner at Conexon, to talk about what is next for municipal and cooperative broadband efforts given the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Jon Chambers: There's a lot of things that can't be solved. We can't resolve questions of the point at which life begins. We can't resolve the questions of Mideast peace. We can't resolve climate change issues right now, I wish we could, but this? Man, this is kid stuff. This one can be fixed. Let's fix one thing, and move on to the other more complicated issues in life.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in St. Paul, Minnesota. Today, I'm bringing back Jon Chambers, partner at Conexon. Welcome back.

Jon Chambers: Thanks Chris. Great to be with you again.

Christopher Mitchell: It's great to have you back. I was just looking, I think it's been a year since we talked. I don't know that we went that long for a while without checking in, and last time we talked, it was about what we should be doing with federal broadband dollars. Today, we'll be talking about what's going to be happening with federal broadband dollars. It's pretty much all out there, and now we have a structure to work within. You have some thoughts, some concerns, and I'm looking forward to addressing those and commiserating. But a quick, 30 second reminder, what is Conexon?

Jon Chambers: Thanks. Yeah, I think it's been so long because the last time I was on your podcast, you made a comment about how I was the most frequent visitor on your podcast. And since I don't even like the sound of my own voice, I can't imagine most people would need to hear me that often. So the break was intentional, but I'm glad to be back. Conexon-

This is the transcript for episode 483 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, host Christopher Mitchell is joined by Russ Elliot, the CEO of Siskiyou Telephone in Northern California. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Russ Elliot: The funds that we're getting ready to see are funds that our six-year-olds are going to be paying back in about 10 to 20 years, right? And when they're paying it back, that infrastructure we placed today better be in play and robust and working. That's a whole different thought process than we've had in the past 20 years, right? We've continued to build infrastructure that is dead at the end of the subsidy.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at The Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Sorry, just a little confused, got off the plane late last night, still re-acclimating to my home, Minnesota. Today we're speaking with Russ Elliot, who is the CEO of Siskiyou Telephone. Welcome to the show, Russ.

Russ Elliot: Hey, thanks, Chris. I'm excited to be here.

Christopher Mitchell: I'm excited too, it's really great to reconnect with you now that you're in a new position. You were formerly the director of the Washington State Broadband Office. We talked occasionally, there are more... I should have talked to you a lot more. I feel like I constantly wanted to find ways of helping you, but then there's just so many other priorities that I just abandoned you and left you to your own devices.

Russ Elliot: You know what? You were a tremendous asset and a great phone-a-friend as I was working through that process, especially on the municipal side and the public infrastructure side with a state like that, that really started to swing really strongly into the public network side, to have people like you out there was key and I appreciated your support.

Christopher Mitchell: And before that you've been in this business quite a bit, just give us the 30 second run that you've had through working on broadband and telephone.

This is the transcript for episode 482 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, Sean Gonsalves joins regular host Christopher Mitchell in a conversation with Michael Maloney, a public finance banker and the Managing Director at D.A. Davidson based in Iowa. Maloney has spent his career working on public financing projects to hope to spur economic development, including broadband. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Michael Maloney: These projects need to stand on their own, solely secured by the telecommunications revenue. And that startup mechanism is apples and oranges to what Muni Finance is typically about.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. This is Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-reliance in St. Paul, Minnesota. And today I'm back with occasional co-host Sean Gonsalves from Cape Cod, welcome.

Sean Gonsalves: Top of the morning. Thank you.

Christopher Mitchell: Great to have you back, Sean, we're going to be talking about Fort Dodge, a town that you recently wrote about and Fort Dodge is actually going to be building its own municipal fiber network that will be operated by the city. And we'll talk a lot about the financing around that. We're going to be talking with Michael Maloney, who is the managing director at D.A Davidson, which works on fixed income capital markets, and he's a public finance banker. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Maloney: Thank you very much. I appreciate being on here with you, Chris and Sean.

Christopher Mitchell: And we're going to have a quick disclosure, maybe less than quick, but there's a disclosure that we are required to run, which should help people understand how to take your comments.

This is the transcript for episode 481 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, host Christopher Mitchell travels to Des Moines, Iowa for the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities Telecom Conference. He speaks with Kurt Ripperger, the Fiber Superintendent for the Indianola Municipal Utilities in Iowa. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Kurt Ripperger: The one thing I love nowadays is, somebody will jump on Facebook, somebody new to the community, and ask who's the best Internet provider in town, and it's just hands down, IMU, IMU, IMU, IMU. That makes me feel good.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Normally, I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota, but I've driven down 35 to visit Des Moines, where we're at the IAMU, the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities Telecom Conference. I'm speaking here with Kurt Ripperger, who is the Communications Superintendent of the Indianola Municipal Utilities. Did I nail it?

Kurt Ripperger: You got it. That's it.

Christopher Mitchell: Hey, all right. It's a good day. Indianola is, what? I'm going to guess 30 miles south of here? Is that right?

Kurt Ripperger: Yeah. Not even that. From south side of Des Moines, we're about 12, 15 miles or so.

Christopher Mitchell: Okay.

Kurt Ripperger: Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah. Maybe I was just assuming Des Moines was way bigger than this.

Kurt Ripperger: Right. Yeah, we can be at the airport in about 20 minutes, so yeah, we're fairly close.

Christopher Mitchell: Yeah. It's a suburb of Des Moines, and you have a municipal fiber network now touching every home and business in the community.

Kurt Ripperger: We do, yes.

Christopher Mitchell: Tell us just briefly about Indianola. I think of it as a bedroom community. Is that more or less accurate?

This is the transcript for episode 480 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, host Christopher Mitchell is joined by Danny Peralta, the Executive Managing Director of The Point in the Bronx, New York which has. The Point has been at the forefront of revitalizing the South Bronx’s Hunts Point neighborhood working to address  environmental issues, increase access to the arts, and even expand Internet connectivity. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Danny Peralta: People that come to our digital stewardship training, pushing the young people, they probably walk out of there with a stronger sense of how to use it and how to use it responsibly and what the effects potentially could be if you're not really paying attention to it. And that's all we can hope for.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for a local self-reliance in St. Paul Minnesota. Today, I'm speaking with Danny Peralta, who is the executive managing director at the Point in the Bronx in New York City in New York. Welcome.

Danny Peralta: Well, thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Chris. How you doing today?

Christopher Mitchell: Oh, I'm doing good. And I got to say, man, one of the things I always love talking about you is I love the accent. I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I love all these east coast pocket accents that you get around. So it's always a joy to speak with you.

Danny Peralta: All right. Well, likewise, man. You got that upper Midwest thing going on too, man.

Christopher Mitchell: Now I do. Yeah, it took a while. I still don't say Minnesota. That's one of the telltale ones.

Danny Peralta: I love that. I'm going to use that one. I'm going to use that one next time I'm up there.

Christopher Mitchell: Oh, for sure. So tell me you're at the Point.

Danny Peralta: Yes, sir.

Christopher Mitchell: What is the Point?

This is the transcript for episode 479 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode, host Christopher Mitchell is joined by Deanne Cuellar, the State Program Director for Older Adult Technology Services (OATS). They explore the history of the digital divide in San Antonio and Cuellar's role in making the city one of the nation’s leaders in digital inclusion efforts. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

DeAnne Cuellar: One of the reasons why San Antonio is doing so well on this issue is because we have taken the time to brief people who are running for office that represent San Antonios about TechEquity and Telecommunication Policy issues. Whenever somebody runs for office, regardless of their political party affiliation, I say "I want to talk to you about Digital Inclusion".

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's been a little while since I said that because we'd recorded a bunch of episodes, and then the little traveling got the team together out here, and now we're back, we're recording more shows. And today we're back with DeAnne Cuellar who is the State Director for OATS which is the Older Adult Technology Services, which is a wonderful group working on Digital Inclusion efforts. Welcome to the show DeAnne.

DeAnne Cuellar: Thanks for having me.

This is the transcript for episode 478 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. On this episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, host Christopher Mitchell talks fiber with Gary Bolton, CEO and President of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) at the Broadband Communities Summit in Houston, TX. Listen to the podcast here or read the transcript below.

Gary Bolton: You're deploying the critical infrastructure, what you have to build your future on and what this is, is about jobs, economic development, you're talking about making an investment for generations to come and it's really important that you do it right the first time.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, live edition. Sorry, it's an old joke with the show that they're all live editions recorded not really live. Gary Bolton is with us the CEO and president of the Fiber Broadband Association, welcome.

Gary Bolton: Thanks Chris, great to be here.

Christopher Mitchell: You've been doing I think really great work branding the Fiber Broadband Association, being out there talking about fiber broadband. Today we're going to talk about what I think is really a more turn to a more aggressive approach to it which I'll just admit I think is both correct and I'm still uncomfortable with it but first of all-

Gary Bolton: It means I'm doing my job, right?

Christopher Mitchell: I think so, I really think you are doing a good job at your position and I think it's needed out there. But for people who are old school and may not recognize you because maybe they haven't been tuning in, you're the Fiber-to-the-Home Council, America's is now the Fiber Broadband Association. Can you just 30 seconds on why that name changed?