Rural Electrics Solve Rural Internet Access Problems Community Broadband Bits Podcast 229
b'Rural electric co-ops have started delivering high quality Internet access to their member-owners and our guest this week on Community Broadband Bits episode 229 is dedicated to helping these co-ops to build fiber-optic networks throughout their territories. Jon Chambers is a partner at\\xa0Conexon\\xa0and was previously the head of the FCC\'s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis.Jon is a strong proponent for ensuring rural residents and businesses have at least the same quality Internet access as urban areas. We talk about his experience and frustration at the FCC, which was content to shovel money at telcos\\xa0for the most basic infrastructure rather than setting higher expectations to ensure everyone had decent Internet access. We talk about how Co-Mo rolled out fiber to its members without federal assistance, inspiring electric cooperatives around the nation to follow suit.In our discussion, I reference Jon\'s blog post "FCC to Rural America: Drop Dead." In it, he cites some of the reactions in the FCC from his advocacy for real rural solutions rather than signing big checks to big telcos for delivering slow and unreliable Internet access. One of quotes from a Democrat: "Republicans like corporate welfare, so we\\u2019re going to give money to the telephone companies to keep the Republicans on the Hill happy."Neither political party comes off looking very good when it comes to rural connectivity, which fits with our impression. But Jon confirms another of our experiences when he says that when he works with rural communities, politics doesn\'t come up. They just focus on solutions.Read the transcript of the show here.We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please\\xa0e-mail us\\xa0or leave a comment below.This show is 36 minutes long and can be played below on this page or\\xa0via iTunes\\xa0or via the tool of your choice using\\xa0this feed.You can download this mp3 file directly from here.\\xa0Listen to\\xa0other episodes here\\xa0or\\xa0view all episodes in our index.Thanks to\\xa0mojo monkeys\\xa0for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Bodacious."'