ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks (CBN) Initiative continues to host Let’s Get Going Broadband Bootcamps across the country.

The next two upcoming bootcamps are being sponsored by the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion and will be held at Doña Ana Community College in Anthony, New Mexico on June 28 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Another will be held the following day, June 29, at the Tribal Administration Building on the Pueblo of Tesuque in New Mexico.

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The bootcamp agenda includes:

• What is broadband and how is it deployed?
• The basics of wireless and fiber optics
• What funding is available to improve broadband in local communities?
• Coalition-building to improve local broadband networks

The in-person, hands-on bootcamps are aimed at helping participants understand broadband and digital equity basics, identify local needs, evaluate options, and chart a path forward. From leveraging existing assets, to financing, to partnerships, to evaluating models for success, this program is designed to demystify every step of the process.

If you are in New Mexico or nearby, there is still time to register here.

Attendance is free, but submission and acceptance of an application is required prior to the event. Space is limited and priority will be given to local community members and small local teams eager to learn together and mobilize locally to improve connectivity.

In just over 24 hours our next Building for Digital Equity (#B4DE) event goes live.

Tomorrow, June 7, beginning at 3 pm ET, #B4DE promises to offer engaging examples, practical tools, and nuggets of insight as digital equity advocates across the nation prepare to take advantage of unprecedented federal funds and programs spurred by the Digital Equity Act and bipartisan infrastructure law.

This free event, sponsored once again by UTOPIA Fiber, will be headlined by National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) Executive Director Angela Siefer. She will offer thoughts on what those working to close the digital divide should be thinking about while setting priorities in this historic moment, as states are developing their digital equity plans and getting ready to receive their share of the $42.5 billion contained in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

Though seats are filling up fast, there is still time to register here.

The livestream will be available (and later archived) on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, with live viewer questions answered by the panels. We recommend viewing it on YouTube here where the live chat will be most lively.

Co-hosted by NDIA Training & Community Engagement Manager Pamela Rosales and ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Director Christopher Mitchell, the 75-minute online webinar brings together a variety of front-line experts and digital inclusion practitioners who will share focused, concise lessons-learned and best-practices relevant for those working in both rural communities and urban centers.

As California aims to boost broadband competition and Los Angeles County pursues what could be the biggest municipal broadband network ever built, local activists say they’ve made some meaningful recent inroads on both improving broadband mapping, and regulatory reform that should aid the equitable deployment of modern, affordable access.

Recently, inroads have been made on fixing long-broken California cable franchise law. In the early aughts, cablecos (and telcos pushing into the TV business) successfully lobbied for state-level “cable franchise reform” laws they promised would dramatically lower prices. In reality, such bills were often little more than legislative wishlists crafted by telecom giants.

Often these state-level replacements for local franchise agreements eroded legal regulatory authority, eliminated long standing requirements for uniform broadband and TV deployment, and in some states–like Wisconsin–even acted to strip away local consumer protections and eminent domain rights. Warnings by academics on this front were widely ignored.

Seventeen years after its passage, California activists say that California’s 2006 Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (DIVCA) was no exception.

Our next Building for Digital Equity (B4DE) event is only weeks away. Have you registered yet?

Sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber, the June 7 virtual gathering will feature engaging debates on the hottest topics in broadband: the upcoming release of BEAD funds, the challenges around mapping, updates on efforts to boost enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), and the looming implications for both urban and rural communities.

Like B4DE in the past, this event, slated to begin at 3 pm ET on June 7, will be cohosted by Pamela Rosales, from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), and our own Christopher Mitchell, Director of ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative. 

Register now for the event here.

As with previous B4DE events, this one will include informative, concise presentations, a series of interactive trivia games, and an introduction to new data tools for those working on the front lines of digital equity. It will all be livestreamed and will be available (and later archived) on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, with live viewer questions answered by the panels.

Building for Digital Equity Podcast Series New Episodes

Meanwhile, be sure to check out our most recent episodes of our Building for Digital Equity podcast, which features short interviews with the people working in the trenches for digital inclusion.

Episode 7 is a discussion with Dwight Thomas, who built the first citywide municipal fiber network in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Thomas goes on talk about the importance of community engagement and how to make sure people can use the network once it is built before explaining his passion for discipleship and sharing knowledge.

Finding good data on broadband is hard to come by. But, it’s about to get a bit easier with a new online resource being developed by an informal group known as Broadband Commons.

Broadband Commons is a group of folks from very different backgrounds – nonprofit, industry, and academic – who work in the broadband and digital equity space and have a shared enthusiasm for making sense of messy broadband data.

Their primary mission is to make broadband data (e.g., FCC Broadband Availability data and more) accessible to all, both in terms of understanding and using the data.

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Broadband Commons (ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative counts itself as a member) is excited to share a peek into the development of their guidebook: Introducing Broadband Data. This book is intended to be the “missing manual” for broadband data users — how to find the data you need, how to wield it to answer your research questions, common gotchas to look out for, and how to share your work back with the community.

They invite interested folks to share any feedback you might have as this guidebook develops – what else might be needed? If you're interested in contributing your expertise by writing a particular section, please head over to the Broadband Commons website to check out the book and sign up for an invite to the discord channel.

Updates about the project will also be posted on the website.

Header image of data graphic courtesy of www.epictop10.com on Flickr, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)