Share

cover art for The Divide: Pew's Anna Read on state efforts to close the gap

Light Reading Podcasts

The Divide: Pew's Anna Read on state efforts to close the gap

•
Welcome to "The Divide" – a new podcast from Light Reading exploring the ongoing digital divide: why it still exists, where it still exists and what needs to be done to fix it. Today's guest is Anna Read, a research officer with the broadband research initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts. We discuss ongoing challenges to broadband access and adoption, which policies and efforts are (and are not) working, and how state programs and public-private partnerships can make a difference. For more from Pew's broadband research initiative, check out the show notes to this episode on www.lightreading.com.

More episodes

View all episodes

  • SCTE's TechExpo will pack plenty of tech, with a bigger focus on the 'experience'

    21:10||Season 1
    SCTE's Janelle Morse joins the podcast to preview themes at this year's TechExpo in Atlanta, including what's next for broadband and how AI is being implemented as operators put more weight into the overall customer experience.
  • The Divide: How Oklahoma is meeting digital needs with Community Access Portals

    33:32||Season 6
    This week: Mike Sanders, executive director, Oklahoma broadband office, discusses progress made toward the state's connectivity goals and a new ARPA-funded effort to roll out 175 Community Access Portals in libraries statewide.
  • Unpacking 6G with Omdia's Gabriel Brown

    38:11||Season 1
    Omdia's Gabriel Brown joined the Signal Strength podcast to discuss and dissect Qualcomm's '6G Leadership Day,' which dug into emerging use cases, potential moneymakers and anticipated product timelines.
  • The Divide: Why digital inclusion needs a new funding model

    32:57||Season 6
    This week: Connect Humanity's Samantha Schartman and Mission Telecom's Mark Colwell discuss their 'Alt Funding Field Guide,' which explores a new approach to co-investing in digital adoption initiatives focusing on six sectors.
  • Policy, tech and convergence to collide at The Independent Show

    50:50||Season 1
    NCTC's Lou Borrelli and ACA Connects' Grant Spellmeyer hop on the podcast to preview The Independent Show, set for July 26-29 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, which will dig into top policy issues and tech trends for small and midsized operators.
  • The Divide: SHLB's Joey Wender on the fight to save E-Rate

    25:26||Season 6
    This week: Joey Wender, executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB), joins to discuss the FCC's 'war on the E-Rate program' and what advocates can do to help save it.
  • The Divide: NDIA's Angela Siefer on the fight to restore the Digital Equity Act

    27:34||Season 6
    This week: NDIA's Angela Siefer returns to the podcast to discuss what's happened in the digital inclusion space since the Digital Equity Act was 'ended' by President Trump last year as well as ongoing efforts to restore funding.
  • The Divide: Gigi Sohn on how to defeat opponents of public broadband

    28:42||Season 6
    This week: Gigi Sohn discusses how 'dark money' defeated a public broadband plan in Longmeadow, Mass., why anti-muni-broadband efforts work in some towns but not others and why grassroots buy-in is key to public broadband success.
  • The Divide: How permitting problems delay broadband builds

    31:27||Season 6
    This week: Execs with Brightspeed, Ziply Fiber and CentraCom discuss the biggest problems with broadband permitting; how inconsistent timelines, requirements and costs cause deployment delays; and what reforms are most needed.