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We're excited to have a great lineup of sponsoring vendors again at this year's IAMU Broadband Conference on March 17 & 18 at the Holiday Inn Des Moines Airport. Here's a look at the great companies that have already signed up to sponsor the event and have a display table: PRESENTING SPONSOR: Power & Tel GOLD SPONSORS: ADTRAN, Calix, Communications Network Engineering SILVER SPONSOR: FARR Technologies EXHIBITING VENDORS: CCI Systems, Clearfield, Moehn Electrical Sales, Mega Hertz, MP Nexlevel, Channell We're expecting the vendor show to sell out again this year, so we encourage interested vendors to register early to secure a place!
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 A new venue awaits attendees and sponsors at the 2020 IAMU Broadband Conference. The conference will be held on March 18 and 19, 2020 at the Holiday Inn Des Moines Airport, 6111 Fleur Drive in Des Moines. The new venue should allow for an even better experience for everyone and more "breathing room" for our Vendor Show. The session agenda is still being developed and should be finalized by the end of January. If anyone has an session idea, please share it with Curtis Dean, curtis@smartsourceconsulting.com. Vendors and attendees can register online at www.iamu.org/events. A reminder for IAMU members (utility and associate members): remember to log into your account before registering so you pay the member rate. CLICK HERE for the Vendor Flyer CLICK HERE for the attendee flyer and tentative schedule.
 Verizon has announced that is has launched 5G service using millimeter wave spectrum in parts of the Des Moines metro area. Although actual coverage maps have not been released by Verizon, various media reports say 5G is live in in parts of downtown, East Village and West Des Moines. Additional 5G coverage is coming around landmarks including the Iowa state capitol, Hyvee Hall, Wells Fargo Arena, Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Principal Park, Jordan Creek Town Center and MercyOne West Des Moines. As in other cities, the Verizon 5G will have very limited range due to the nature of the millimeter wave frequencies being used. As a result, coverage will be mainly outdoors in public areas where the device has line-of-sight to a 5G cell. Then there's the issue of whether you can actually USE 5G's capabilities. Only a handful of newer mobile devices have 5G-capable radios, so the rollout's impact will be limited for some time to come. Verizon competitor US Cellular has also announced plans to start rolling out 5G in its service territory in 2020. Unlike Verizon, however, it will be using spectrum with better ability to provide indoor coverage, although not being able to provide the gigabit speeds that Verizon is touting.
 The Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) has once again produced an excellent broadband report, this one focusing on the vital role that cooperatives are playing in the deployment of fiber networks. The policy brief issued this fall is actually the third update of a report originally issued in 2017. "Cooperative Fiberize Rural America: A Trusted Model for the Internet Era" outlines the efforts of both telecommunications cooperatives and electric cooperatives in bringing fiber to rural areas across the country. As the report states, 72.7% of the fiber service available in rural areas is provided by a cooperative. The importance of cooperatives in enhancing rural broadband will only continue to grow. And the fact that cooperatives are building fiber networks means that rural Americans will in many cases have access to better broadband facilities than people living in cities dominated by copper-based cable and telephone companies. CLICK HERE to visit the ISLR web page that includes a summary of the cooperative report and to download a PDF.
The New Hampton fiber-to-the-home project is a go after the utility board awarded contracts for various elements of construction at their meeting December 16th.  MP Nexlevel, LLC of Minnesota was the low bidder on the outside plant portion of the project. Their base bid of $6.2 million dollars was under the engineer's estimate by approximately $770,000. Additional bids for fiber access equipment, routers, and miscellaneous equipment amounted to another $587,000. No bids were received for power and batteries so that portion of the project, estimated at $75,000, will be bid later. Construction on New Hampton's GPON fiber network will begin as soon as conditions allow in the spring of 2020 and is expected to take one construction season to complete. If all goes well, New Hampton residents could be connecting to their community-owned fiber network in early 2021.
 Voters in Fort Dodge, Iowa approved the establishment of a municipal telecommunications utility yesterday by a wide margin. The approval came despite efforts from a local incumbent operator and a national anti-government watchdog group to convince voters that a city-owned utility was a risky venture. ”Shall the city of Fort Dodge, in Webster County, Iowa, establish a municipal telecommunications utility (including the potential provision of video, voice, data, and all other forms of telecommunications and cable communications services) for the city?” 1,772 voters cast a YES ballot (71.6%) with 683 (28.4%) voting NO. One of the keys to success in the referendum was strong support by local media in Fort Dodge. A popular local radio personality was very vocal in his support of the referendum and in his criticism of the Taxpayer Protection Alliance, the national issue advocacy group that was running a vote no campaign. The Fort Dodge Messenger also was supportive, including an endorsement from their editorial board and publication of numerous supportive letters to the editor from local citizens and others. The newspaper, however, had some difficulty reporting on the results of the vote on election night, as one of their employees reported on social media...  The Taxpayer Protection Alliance spent approximately $4,200 to encourage a no vote on the referendum. As of this posting Mediacom has not reported any expenditures, although they did send an email to their customers in the final days before the election. Frontier, the incumbent telephone company in Fort Dodge, did not issue any public statements about the vote and even declined an invitation to attend a forum on the topic that was held before the election. There was no organized local vote yes campaign, but positive word of mouth was strong during the weeks before the vote. Next steps for Fort Dodge could include development of a high-level business model for a city-owned fiber network and an effort to identify possible partners.
Save The Date!The 2020 IAMU Broadband Conference will be held on Wednesday, March 18 and Thursday, March 19, 2020 in Des Moines. Although the dates are set, the venue has not been finalized. As soon as the venue is selected IAMU will get information out and begin signing up vendors for the show.  We want to thank Power and Tel for again being the conference Presenting Sponsor!
Billing systems, TV alternatives, and financing are among the topics to be discussed at the IAMU Fall Broadband Meeting on October 10th. Here is the final agenda for the meeting to be held at the Gateway Hotel and Conference Center in Ames.
Registration is available on the IAMU website at www.iamu.org under the "Events" page. Registration is just $35.00 for IAMU members and $50.00 for non-IAMU members and all are welcome! Vendors Welcome!THANK YOU to the following vendors for helping make the IAMU Fall Broadband Meeting a reality. We have room for more!
TABLETOP SPONSORS
We still have several tabletop exhibits available. Vendors must be an IAMU Associate Member to sponsor but you can join IAMU for the remainder of the fiscal year for a discounted fee. If you have questions, contact Curtis Dean at curtis@smartsourceconsulting.com Don't Forget.... The 6th annual IAMU Fall Broadband Meeting provides an update on key broadband topics and to “compare notes” with your peers. This year we’re at a new venue, Gateway Hotel and Conference Center in Ames. Also new for 2019, IAMU Associate Member Vendors can purchase a sponsorship that includes a 6’ tabletop exhibit.
Tentative Agenda
Registration IAMU Members are just $35.00 per person. Registration fee includes continental breakfast and lunch. Non-IAMU Members who are NOT vendor representatives (such as ITC representatives) are $50.00 each. Vendor Sponsors IAMU Associate Members may sponsor the Fall Broadband Meeting for $300. Sponsorship includes a 6' tabletop display and 1 representative attendance. Additional vendor representatives, or IAMU Associate Members who want to attend without being a sponsor, are $60.00 each. Sponsors as of 9/10/19 (in addition to presenting sponsor Power & Tel) include: FARR Technologies, ICAN, Inc., ISPN, and Millenium For complete details, CLICK HERE to view the conference flyer (PDF). Registration is online at www.iamu.org. Hotel Information A block of rooms has been set aside at the Gateway Hotel and Conference Center for the night of Wednesday, October 9th. The group rate is $119 for a double queen or king. Hurry, the room block expires on October 1, 2019! To reserve your room, call the Gateway at 800-367-2637 and ask for the "IAMU Fall Broadband Meeting". A big reason to come in the night before is a new event sponsored by the Community Broadband Action Network... The next edition of CBAN's Lunch and Learn webinar series is taking place on Thursday, September 19, 2019 at Noon. The Promises and Pitfalls of Open Access Fiber Networks Our guest for this session is Doug Dawson of CCG Consulting. Doug is a nationally-recognized expert on municipal fiber networks, having been involved in hundreds of studies and other projects over the years. Doug will discuss the concept of an "open access" municipal fiber network. Under the open access model, a community builds and owns a fiber network but rather than offering services to end users itself, it allows multiple providers to have access to the network to provide services. We will discuss why the concept of open access is so attractive to some communities and why it sometimes is not the best solution to meet the community's needs. Doug will be joined by CBAN co-founders Curtis Dean and Todd Kielkopf for the one hour session. As always, Lunch and Learn is free and open to anyone, but registration is required.
To register for "The Promises and Pitfalls of Open Access Fiber Networks", CLICK HERE. |
Broadband Bytes NewsPresented by the Community Broadband Action Network and curated by Curtis Dean. Archives
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