Fiber for Breakfast with Gary Bolton

In this episode of Fiber for Breakfast, Jaimie Lenderman, Senior Analyst, Service Provider Networks, at global technology market research firm Omdia, discusses how North America fiber broadband access networks will continue to experience strong growth throughout the decade. Omdia’s latest PON forecast data will be presented, along with market trends.

On June 17, the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) released an “Indicators of Broadband Need” tool that puts on one map, for the first time, data from both public and private sources. It contains data aggregated at the county, census tract, and census block level from the American Community Survey collected by the U.S. Census, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Measurement Lab (M-Lab), Ookla and Microsoft. Speed-test data provided by M-Lab and Ookla help to illustrate the reality that communities experience when going online, with many parts of the country reporting speeds that fall below the FCC’s current benchmark for fixed broadband service of 25 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload. This is the first map that allows users to graphically compare and contrast these different data sources. Most importantly, this interactive mapping result is made generally available to the public at large. NTIA also offers to state governments and federal partners a geographic information system (GIS) platform called the National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) that provides more complex tools for analyzing broadband access, such as the ability to upload GIS files to compare proposed projects. In this Fiber for Breakfast episode, NTIA's Tim Moyer, Director of Data & Mapping, and Sarah Bleau, Broadband Specialist, will explain NBAM in-depth and provide a demo of the Indicators of Broadband Need (IBN) map.

How does a sleepy little community in southwest Missouri go from being the Gateway to the Ozarks to becoming the Gateway to the World? In this session of Fiber for Breakfast, Kevin Cantwell, President of Big River Communications, describes their journey to build a world-class fiber network and the challenges ahead.

ADTRAN CTO for the Americas, Ryan McCowan, discusses the evolution of PON technologies and what the next three to five years hold for PON development. PON-based solutions have been used to enable low-cost, highly reliable, low-latency multi-gigabit services to homes and businesses. EPON and GPON have had large-scale commercial deployments over the last decade, but many feel their popularity may be waning due to the to the capabilities presented by symmetric 10G EPON and XGS-PON. However, the PON landscape is continuing to evolve as 25G-PON and 50G-PON are already well under development.

Rural areas in North America have lacked adequate high speed broadband availability compared to metropolitan areas for many years representing a digital divide in the continent. The pandemic highlighted that challenge after forcing nearly all interactions to be conducted from the home, exposing the insufficiency or lack of broadband available in these areas. The result is lower productivity, lagging education, declining economic development opportunities and poorer health outcomes for rural residents. In this episode of Fiber for Breakfast, John George, Sr. Director, Solutions and Professional Services at OFS, Barry Walton, Telecom Solution Architect at Corning and Michael Render, CEO at Market Research and Consulting group, RVA discuss how fiber broadband to the home can permanently close the rural high speed broadband availability divide.

In this episode of Fiber for Breakfast, we speak with Spencer Kurn, Partner, New Street Research. Frontier will transform itself from broken ILEC into a fiber-based infrastructure asset over the course of the next several years. As they do so, they will return to growing revenues with expanding margins and, following a period of investment, rapidly growing FCF. This will give the equity a claim to a much higher multiple and drive potential upside of 4-10x! Where is the hidden value within Frontier? Why have fiber upgrades become more attractive in recent years? How can other companies benefit from Frontier’s approach?

Clearfield Inc.’s Chief Marketing Officer and FBA Board Member, Kevin Morgan, Cruzio Internet’s Director of Technology and Infrastructure, Frost, and Midco’s GM-Regional Engineering, Jeremy Billings, discuss how fiber roll outs have inherent challenges as network operators look to expand the range and reach of their FTTx networks. Greenfields, brownfields, overbuilds and Multi-Dwelling Units all present a significant opportunity to bring more customers on net but not without a cost. When evaluating new fiber opportunities, service providers are faced with any number of deployment variables as no network build is the same. With over 70% of the cost of fiber connectivity tied up in labor, time over-runs and return trips to solve deployment challenges, not having product that alleviates that burden is a common but avoidable oversight. During this Fiber for Breakfast session, we will look at some time and cost saving techniques learned through case studies of deployments in all types of networks, through all types of terrain and to every type of “network deployment". We will outline a path to creating a Labor Light deployment strategy that can significantly reduce both the time and cost to deploy.

You’re a service provider who needs to decide: Should we upgrade the HFC plant or switch to fiber? During this session of Fiber for Breakfast, Broadband Success Partners' Jack Burton, Principal, and David Strauss, Principal, discuss the technical, operational, financial and market factors you need to consider in making this critical decision.

In this Fiber for Breakfast episode, Rosemary Cochran, Principal and Co-Founder, Vertical Systems Group, will discuss how Fiber Providers are expanding the base of lit commercial buildings and data centers across the country and outlines the key trends and services driving demand. Today’s U.S. Business Fiber landscape includes more than one million on-net sites, supplied by hundreds of retail and wholesale providers. The annual benchmark for measuring market leadership in this segment is Vertical’s Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD, which ranks the top providers based on fiber penetration rates. Latest research analysis shows that while the pandemic hampered installations during 2020, emerging services such as 5G plus opportunities in the small buildings segment will boost rollouts of new business fiber in 2021.

In this Fiber for Breakfast episode, hear from Ernesto Falcon, Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a lead advocate from the state of California, on their effort to get the 5th largest economy in the world to adopt a fiber standard in its broadband infrastructure policy. In 2016, the state established a broadband goal of delivering 10/1 mbps Internet access to 98% of its population and have since undergone a dramatic rethinking of its policy approach to include municipal open access fiber networks through bond financing, a broadband plan focused on scalable infrastructure, and several multi-billion dollar proposals focused on fiber at its core. Learn about the setbacks, the progress, the nature of the opposition, and what has proven successful in getting policymakers to recognize the need to consider future proofing in infrastructure investments.

Plume’s Tyson Marian shares the company’s perspectives in enhancing the subscriber experience through data-driven personalization. He’ll deliver insights into the broadband and smart home market dynamics, discuss the headwinds that service providers face, and how they can counteract them by modernizing through big data, cloud and AI.

Data usage on broadband networks continues to grow at an exponential rate with the movement of video services from traditional television service to over-the-top (OTT) streaming services. Most video content companies are making this transition, causing increasing data challenges. Broadband networks generally perform well until they exceed 85% network capacity. Beyond this point all traffic, regardless of source, can be negatively impacted. Broadband service providers are forced to make investments to accommodate the traffic on these networks, with no contribution to capital or operational investments from outside sources. In rural service areas, this is an even greater problem. In this Fiber for Breakfast session, Jimmy Todd, CEO & General Manager, Nex-Tech, will discuss efforts to bring this concern to light and what's being done about it.

In this Fiber for Breakfast episode, CommScope's Charles Cheevers, CTO, Home Network Solutions, discusses the rise in Fixed Line speeds and the new expectations of consumers to realize these speeds on every device in the home. With 1Gbps to 10Gbps services now being offered we show what is happening with Residential Gateways to ensure that these speeds are mapped across the home and delivered to the 90%+ of Wi-Fi devices that ingest and transmit the services for consumers. We will briefly outline the directions for Dual Band to Tri-band Wi-Fi solutions, Wi-Fi 6, 6E, 7 and 8 directions to bring more capacity and lower latency to match access speeds and the addition of more service aware latency applications to these new deterministic Fiber/Wireline and Wireless home networks.

Douglas Sicker, PhD, Executive Director, BITAG (Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group), discusses his report which focuses on the US and details how increased demand affected various parts of the Internet ecosystem, and how different organizations responded to these changes.

Brian Worthen, CEO, Visionary Broadband, discusses how broadband has become the buzzword darling of legislatures across the country this year, and for good reason: billions of dollars are projected to flow from federal funding to states in the next 6 months through a variety of economic stimulus bills and in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Providers who are paying attention are realizing the windfall presented with this sudden focus and accompanying dollars. The challenges aren’t as easy to see. Visionary Broadband was fortunate to have a run at this kind of funded expansion last year through the #ConnectWYoming program and CEO Brian Worthen has learned a few things about how to find the balance.

Mark Mrla, Director, Strategy Operations, Finley Engineering Company, discusses that many states are jumping on the broadband funding band wagon. And many of these state programs are beginning to look quite similar which means that similar strategies can be applied to their applications. But, each year some of them change their application priorities slightly. Finley Engineering has been involved in over 70 state grant funding applications during the last several years and have had excellent success on behalf of its clients. This presentation will summarize funding application successes, strategies and case studies as well as the value-add that a firm like Finley Engineering will bring to your state grant application process.

George Notter from Jefferies Group led a discussion of the market opportunity for rural broadband operators from the perspective of a Wall Street Equity Research Analyst following the Communications Equipment industry.

Chad Rupe, the 21st Administrator of USDA's Rural Utilities Service, reflects on the RUS broadband programs and momentum under his leadership as well as life after RUS - how he plans to continue his mission to help Rural America prosper and thrive.

Join Fiber Broadband Association Board Members Mark Boxer and Joanne Hovis as they present a preview of an upcoming FBA white paper. They'll explore the relative roles of fiber and fixed wireless technologies in meeting today’s and future communications needs.

In the recent RDOF auction, 85% of the funding was won by bidders proposing to provide gigabit speeds using wireless or wireline technologies. While no one doubts the abilities of a fiber network, wireless gig deserves a closer look. Larry explores the circumstances where wireless may – and may not – be a fit for rural gigabit broadband.

As service providers evaluate the increasing demands on their PON networks, some mistakenly believe they have only one choice—maintain GPON or migrate entirely to XGS-PON. In fact, Combo PON offers a much more capable, flexible, and cost-effective upgrade strategy, enabling operators to simultaneously deliver both GPON and XGS-PON on the same optical distribution network, while having the option to make a simple migration to XGS-PON at any time. Hear from Armstrong on why Combo PON was the clear choice for their network.

Chattanooga became one of the first Gigabit cities and now is a 10G city. Professor Bento Lobo, UT-Chattanooga, and Jim Ingraham, Vice President, Strategic Research, EPB, discuss the latest economic impact study and how fiber has changed the lives in this bustling community.

Today’s access-network architecture is under stress. Blame the proliferation of connected devices and bandwidth-intensive customer applications, as well as dramatic increase in usage as subscribers work and attend school from home. Now is the perfect time to build your greenfield network or expand your existing network with 10G PON -- doing so will arm your customers with the high-speed, symmetrical broadband they need to stay connected.

Noah Covington shares with us their journey to expand operations into their neighboring county to bring Fiber to the broadband desert of Georgia.

Commissioner Tim Echols, Georgia Public Service Commission

John Paul, Chief Business Development Officer - Spiral Fiber, Inc.

Roger Timmerman, CEO - UTOPIA Fiber Kim McKinley, CMO - UTOPIA Fiber

Gary Bolton, President and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association provides an update on the Operations, Fiber Connect Conference, Member Involvement, Research, the new Administration of the United States, and the new Fiber Broadband Association team.

John George, Senior Director- Solutions and Professional Services, OFS Jeff Gavlinski, Director, Industry Organizations, Calix