Light Reading Podcasts

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Light Reading Senior Editor Jeff Baumgartner joins the podcast to discuss the state of streaming video services and why they're eating away at pay-TV subscriber numbers. He also discusses new streaming services such as Paramount+, whether live sports can keep pay-TV alive, and what other features are keeping pay-TV subscribers from cutting the cord. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Light Reading podcast welcomes Dan Kurin, the tech coordinator at Factory Two and Brandon Corder the CEO of Beats x Beers to discuss an upcoming experiment with low-latency broadband in Flint, Michigan.Using the LoLa software system, developed in Italy and popularized by Internet2, a group of musicians at Factory Two will conduct a real-time musical performance and hip hop masterclass over a low-latency fiber network for students across town at the Flint Cultural Center Academy. This event, called Beats x Broadband, is sponsored in part by US Ignite as part of its National Science Foundation-funded Smart Gigabit Communities program. The class takes place on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 4:00 pm ET and you can watch it on Facebook Live. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Dano joins the podcast to discuss the significance of the FCC's $81 billion C-band spectrum auction.Mike recently wrote that 5G in the US will become a lot clearer by the end of March, with the C-band spectrum winners soon to be revealed. In this episode, we discuss how the results of the auction are likely to shake out and what impact the spectrum allocated will have on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile's 5G plans going forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Erik Brenneis, head of IoT for Vodafone Business, joins the podcast to discuss growth in the IoT market and explains how Vodafone Business' customers are using IoT in their sustainability strategies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heavy Reading's Sterling Perrin gives a quick rundown of what's coming up in the optical networking space for 2021 as he previews Light Reading's Optical Networking Symposium on February 16 and 18. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pablo Tomasi, principal analyst for Private Networks at Omdia, joins the Light Reading podcast to discuss his predictions for the growth of private LTE and 5G networks."By 2025 … the size of the global market will be $5.2 billion," which is a significant leap from the predicted market size of $1 billion this year, says Tomasi,Private networks could be a major opportunity for telcos to "enter into new relationships with enterprises. It provides them with the ability to sell additional technologies and services," he adds.In addition, Tomasi shares his forecasts for private network market growth on a geographical level, the impact of CBRS on private networks in the US, which verticals could benefit the most from these networks, and when and where 5G will be a factor in private networks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Divide, we hear from Virginia Lam Abrams, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Strategic Advancement at the alternative broadband provider Starry.Starry's service is live in five major cities, and the company sets itself apart as a hybrid fiber-wireless provider that uses fixed-wireless technology for last-mile connections.We discuss Starry's overall rollout model and "customer-first" approach, how the company is bringing affordable broadband to people living in public housing, and the "basket of solutions" needed at the policy level to end the digital divide. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode features Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). We talk about what digital inclusion work looks like, how the digital divide is being made worse by digital redlining, and what needs to happen at a provider and policy level to change that.Sign up today for the Light Reading newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.