Whatever else happens this year, count on progress toward all-fiber networks.

The United States needs two regulatory roads – one for urban areas and one for rural.

Some aspects of customer service just can’t be automated.

The “me” generation isn’t anything like earlier generations – and why don’t millennials watch sports on TV, anyway?

Together, electric co-ops and small rural telcos have what it takes to bring advanced broadband to underserved rural areas.

Following are highlights from the 2016 Broadband Communities conference on broadband and economic development, held in Minneapolis in October. These excerpts are from sessions about gaining support from state legislators and the impacts of local fiber networks.

Communities can finance fiber-to-the-home networks by applying the cost reductions that the networks make possible.

Broadband Communities’ latest modeling tool enables easy calculation of costs and benefits for network builds that use multiple technologies or will be completed in multiple phases.

Exciting new technologies are coming your way, and they all require lots more fiber.