Podcast The Divide: How US counties are confronting connectivity needs 2/18/2021
On this episode of The Divide, we hear from Judge JD Clark of Wise County, Texas and Councilmember Craig Rice of Montgomery County, Maryland co-chairs of the National Association of Counties (NACo) Broadband Task Force. The task force, formed in October 2020, is a coalition of nearly three dozen county government officials from across the US studying the country s digital divide and the challenges facing underserved communities.
We discuss what the task force hopes to achieve, why FCC mapping needs an overhaul, why broadband should be treated as a utility and more.
Also in today s EMEA regional roundup: Orange signs renewables agreement with ENGIE; ENET extends Dublin fiber network; STC wins 5G bragging rights.
Mike Rake, the former BT chairman who joined the board of Huawei in April of last year, has relinquished his role with the Chinese vendor, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph. The appointment raised eyebrows at the time, with Huawei already facing accusations that it had connections to the Chinese government and so should not be allowed to play a role in the UK s 5G network. (See Eurobites: Ex-BT big cheese joins Huawei board and Eurobites: UK government rebels prepare to detonate H(uawei)-bomb.)
Operator seeing 25% gross broadband adds come from Fios zones as company sees an absolute explosion of broadband subscriber activity in its more rural - and underpenetrated - Suddenlink footprint.
Switch off today s 5G networks and most of us would barely notice. Despite telco enthusiasm, and some government panic about letting Chinese vendors anywhere near such a critically important technology, 5G remains a pointlessly fast luxury for the cashed-up. In a pandemic that has confined millions to their homes, it is even less useful telecom s equivalent of a supercar in a gridlocked neighborhood.
Turning off the broadband connections into people s homes would be another matter entirely. Without that connectivity, entire populations would not be able to work, educate their children, see family and friends, watch the latest movies even shop for household goods. It is no exaggeration to describe broadband as the life-support system for a chronically ill society.
Podcast The Divide: Dr. Nicol Turner Lee on the digitally invisible 2/11/2021
On this episode of The Divide, we hear from Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, a senior fellow in governance studies and the director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institute.
As a researcher and policy advocate, Dr. Turner Lee went on a ten-city tour investigating the digital divide in the US up close, which she writes about in her forthcoming book, Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass.
We discuss what she saw during that tour, what is and isn t working when it comes to telecommunications policy, and best practices learned from public-private partnerships to get people connected during the pandemic.