The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.
This episode features Drew Clark, Founder, Editor, and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast. His organization has been a true champion in the broadband community. Drew is one of the nation’s leading voices in advocating for improved broadband mapping, as well as a national geospatial system for collecting broadband data. He is widely recognized for his acumen in telecommunications law and policy, and also serves as president of the Rural Telecommunications Congress. Topics discussed:
Craig Corbin:
Welcome to The Broadband Bunch. A podcast about broadband and how it impacts all of us. The Broadband Bunch, as always, is sponsored by ETI Software.
Craig Corbin:
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of The Broadband Bunch. I’m Craig Corbin. Thanks so much for joining us. If you’ve been involved in the world of broadband during the past decade, chances are, you’re already very familiar with today’s guest and his media company, Broadband Breakfast. In 2008, telecommunications attorney Drew Clark founded Broadband Breakfast as part of a broadband census crowdsourcing campaign. Clark has been one of the nation’s leading voices in advocating for improved broadband mapping, as well as a national geospatial system for collecting broadband data.
Craig Corbin:
He is widely recognized for his acumen in telecommunications law and policy, and also serves as president of the Rural Telecommunications Congress. It is a pleasure to introduce the editor and publisher of Breakfast Media, LLC, Drew Clark. Drew, welcome to The Broadband Bunch.
Drew Clark:
Thank you, Craig. I thought I was the only one who liked double B alliterations, but Broadband Bunch matches Broadband Breakfast in that way.
Craig Corbin:
It is such a pleasure to have you as a guest on the podcast. We have been time admirers of the work that you and your team have done. It’s phenomenal and so much for us to cover during our conversation today. But for those who don’t know you as well as some of us do, give us your background prior to starting Breakfast Media.
Drew Clark:
I ran for the city council in Orem, Utah in 2017. This is not the answer to your question, but for that campaign Craig, I created a tee shirt. And on the tee-shirt, I said, “Drew Clark: Journalist, Lawyer, Leader”. And so, that’s my simple framework for my career is as a journalist, as a lawyer, and as a broadband leader, someone who wants to bring people together and wants to help promote Better Broadband, Better Lives. That is of course our tagline at Broadband Breakfast, and before starting Broadband Breakfast, my career was basically as a journalist. I worked for about 15 or more years in direct daily journalism. Worked for companies including New York Times on the web, American Banker, The Business Journal family, and most culminating, I guess, is before starting my own company, with National Journal, one of the key Washington insider publications on politics, lobbying, and policy.
Drew Clark:
So, that’s the journalist part. The lawyer part is getting a law degree, passing the bar. No easy task I might say, but it can be done. I’ve done it twice in two states; Illinois and Utah. And as an attorney, I work primarily on telecommunications matters. You alluded to that at the top, I focus on helping public and private entities get rights of way, get regulatory hurdles, deal with transactions, litigation as well, over a ray of topics.
Drew Clark:
So, that’s the lawyer part. And then the leader part is probably the most interesting for your crowd. I started Broadband Census in 2008 because I began to see as a journalist while working at National Journal, how important broadband was for our economic development, our social progress, our standing in the world, and not falling behind. And that led me to get well, what’s the best way to get broadband? We need to understand where it is. We need to have the data and the maps about broadband. And this may be a little longer story than you asked for Craig, but I was working at the time at a nonprofit group called The Center for Public Integrity.
Craig Corbin:
Okay.
Drew Clark:
We had a project tracking telecommunications policy. And I said we have to include broadband in this analysis. And you know what? The Federal Communications Commission has a database about where broadband is. It’s called the form 477 data. Let’s get that. Well, we went to the FCC, we said, “Please give that to us”. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request. They didn’t respond within their deadline. And so, we sued them.
Craig Corbin:
I love it.
Drew Corbin:
We said, “We want the form 477 data”. Now, this led to litigation, a lawsuit, productive battle. The short version is we lost the battle, but we won the war because, in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there was specific language included. It was from the Broadband Census for America Act that Ed Markey had represented. There was specific language included that said, there will be a broadband map created with details about carrier availability on a census block level. So, that’s jumping ahead a little bit, but the end of the lawsuit led me to say, “Let’s create a crowdsourced version of broadband data”.
Drew Clark:
Broadband Census was born. We created collected data, conducted open-source speed tests, all with the goal of getting better broadband information and better data. So, this is now the last section of your answer here, Craig.
Craig Clark:
I love it.
Drew Clark:
The work of the Broadband Census brought me to the attention of Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn.
Craig Corbin:
Perfect segue.
Drew Corbin:
He had always been a huge advocate of the role of broadband, not just in rural prosperity, but statewide. And so Quinn recruited me to come out to Illinois. I’m getting ahead of myself. Out to Illinois to run the partnership for Connected Illinois. That was the nonprofit statewide entity responsible for broadband mapping, broadband planning, and broadband coordination among all of the providers that received funds under The Recovery Act and also broadband training, digital literacy. So it got me in this mindset that broadband is bigger than just A, infrastructure, or B, its application use. It’s about all of those things together. And that’s where the Better Broadband, Better Lives idea comes from is that we need better infrastructure, but we also need the tools to make better use of it. And my experience at the partnership for Connected Illinois, really, I think prepared me to accelerate all manner of progress in helping entities, public and private, throughout the country, to build their higher capacity networks.
Craig Corbin:
And that is such a great motto, Better Broadband, Better Lives, because that truly is something that people can very easily understand how that will affect them personally. And when I said perfect segue, when you were getting into your appointment by Governor Quinn, I did want to ask about your work and leading the combined federal and state efforts with fiber optic work and the wireless infrastructure investment. And you also touched on digital literacy training. That’s something that, for many people, is shoved to the side, but is so essential. Talk about that if you would.
Drew Corbin:
One way of thinking about it may have come from the structure of The Recovery Act. Most of the funds went to infrastructure, middle mile projects, but there were also segments for planning and mapping and partnership for Connected Illinois was a specific recipient of those funds, but also training, digital literacy training projects. And we actually worked with the providers, right? Sometimes we had a little bit of an antagonistic, tense relationship because we were pushing them, pushing them, give us the data, give us locations for where you’re offering service. But they actually, most of them soon found that that was a benefit to promote that information, to make it available and to learn where they were new markets, new opportunities to advertise their services. So, we actually ended up partnering with seven rural broadband providers in Illinois on one of the very first pilot projects in the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program.
Drew Clark:
They were, at that time, Lifeline, which is part of the universal service fund, did not support broadband. It just supported plain old telephone phones, telephone lines. Now it supports broadband, and this was in 2012, 2013, this pilot project went into the mix of efforts that that FCC was looking at, at the time in crafting the Lifeline expansion. And I mean, I could address a more specific question if you’ve got one Craig, I mean, I do view digital literacy as essential. I view training, I view addressing this in a multifaceted way, rather than just trying to say, let’s get the infrastructure built and we’ll figure out what we do with it afterward. No, you have to approach it with the sense that you’re getting this to be able to enable new applications you don’t currently have the ability to use in the fullest extent at the moment.
Craig Corbin:
And that’s something that, in many cases, you don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s where it’s so important with the training efforts across the board. You made mention in your first response about losing the battle, but winning the war with regard to the mapping efforts. And that is something that has been so much of a thorn for people in so many aspects of this industry, knowing that there is a very simple way to get completely accurate data, but that it has not been to this point, universally done. That’s changing. And it is so essential, especially with regard to the distribution of funding that’s available based on the map of who has or does not have service. Talk about how that has evolved since your initial efforts to get that mapping information.
Drew Corbin:
Well, thank you, Craig, for that question. Broadband mapping was, as I said in my intro, really the thing that brought me into this space full scale. And yes, it has continued to be controversial. I did a piece about this for broadband communities and also on Broadband Breakfast about mapping just about two years ago, almost two years ago. And I’d love to include it in your show notes, the link to it.
Craig Corbin:
Absolutely.
Drew Clark:
What this article did is, recapped the history and the debate as it stood right then, and still stands. That is 2019 is when the Federal Communications Commission kicked off their latest iteration of mapping, it’s called The Digital Opportunity Data Collection. And the proof is still in the pudding to see how it will turn out. For this purpose and this discussion, Craig, let me just make this one point; the way you think about mapping and data depends on what you are trying to do.
Drew Corbin:
If you are just trying to collect data to tell a subscriber that, hey, I’ve got service. Or even if you’re just trying to collect data, to figure out where to structure your subsidies, or if you’re just trying to collect data to figure out whether broadband providers are living up to their promises, you’re still not getting the full picture. Those are three vital and different elements for the way people think about mapping and broadband. There’s a fourth one too, and this one is probably the one I’ve been more focused on. If you want to help communities and cities build high-capacity broadband networks, you need to know where the fiber is. You need to know where the access points are. You need to know how you’re going to connect to those. And so, broadband mapping needs to be viewed through a multi-part matrix where you’re not just saying, oh, who has broadband check or not check? Well, first of all, the definition of broadband has changed, will change, should change.
Craig Corbin:
Yes.
Drew Corban:
Right now, it’s 25 megabits down, three megabits up. That’s ridiculous. And there are lots of moves to push it up. And there are lots of moves to talk about symmetrical. And look, I’ve said this for more than 10 years now, 12, 13, 14 years, we need to have a kind of a map where you can say, “Show me where you’ve got gigabit symmetrical service. Show me where you have 100 megabits symmetrical service. Show me where you have 25 megabits symmetrical service” and so forth. Because those are going to be points where you want to understand so that you can, again, in all of those dimensions, access to existing providers, subsidization of rural providers, holding providers to account for whether they’re living up to their promises on speeds and being able to build new networks. That’s the heartbeat. That’s the way we’re going to get better competition and better broadband is by having more providers who want to go out and compete with the current ones. So anyway, now you’ve got me going here on where we’re mapping hits.
Craig Corban:
Right.
Drew Corban:
The purpose for which we need it, that is to say, how are we going to get better broadband and better lives through better mapping?
Craig Corbin:
You’re listening to The Broadband Bunch, our guest, the editor, and publisher of Breakfast Media, LLC, Drew Clark. And Drew, before we jump into the Breakfast Media portion of our conversation, I do want to touch on, again, your role as president of the Rural Telecommunications Congress, which co-hosts the annual Broadband Community Summit. Tell us how that all evolved.
Drew Corbin:
Well, that started from my work in Illinois with the partnership for Connected Illinois. Originally, it was primarily stated broadband leaders around the country that got together and revivified that organization. RTC actually has a very long and storied history of 24 years. And I’ve only been involved for 10 or so of them, but it is a great group and community of people. And we are passionate about rural connectivity. I got passionate about that in my work in Illinois. I continue to be passionate about it. As I alluded to, I moved from Illinois to Utah to work with a variety of broadband networks in the state. And now, I’m back in Washington DC, which is where Broadband Breakfast is based. And I guess what I would say about RTC is it’s an important contributor to the discussion about rural broadband. And that’s a piece of the puzzle that simply can’t be neglected as we try to get that better broadband everywhere in the country
Craig Corbin:
More important now Drew, than ever. And I think you would agree with that. We’ve talked so much in the introduction about Breakfast Media, LLC. The Broadband Breakfast came into being in 2008, and it has been a phenomenal resource of information in the industry. And I know that you have had some really enjoyable conversations throughout your time with that, but with regard to being a source of information, give those who are not familiar with Broadband Breakfast, all that encompasses Breakfast Media.
Drew Clark:
Let me talk about it in the present tense. Be happy to address questions about the past. I mean, in some ways we’ve had all of these kernels and germs within us, but they’re getting to be much, much more fully realized and we’re extremely proud of our trajectory and where we are going. I would say that the core components of Broadband Breakfast are news and information, events and connectivity, and membership and community. And so let me just take each of those, right?
Drew Clark:
So the news and information and analysis is part of the core of what we’ve been doing all along. We cover broadband infrastructure and adoption and use. And we interpret that pretty broadly. That is to say, it’s not just about how we get the fiber networks, how do we get the wireless networks, but how we use them, what they’re used for. The telemedicine, telework, distance learning, remote education, civic connectedness, rules of the road, net neutrality issues, even privacy issues. And increasingly, the whole debate about social media and its role in our society through section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Drew Clark:
We cover both the infrastructure and the applications in use and have from the start and are really focused on advancing the discussion through our reporters on our team and our editors help to drive that conversation. We like to see ourselves, maybe we aren’t quite there yet, but like to see ourselves as the publication of record on broadband policy and internet technology. So, we want to be in the places and online where those things are covered through our news, and it is all free. The resources, the news, and information on Broadband Breakfast are available for free.
Drew Clark:
We also have our events. Okay? And so again, we’ve been doing this from the start. In fact, we’ve talked about how Broadband Census was what I started in 2008.
Drew Clark:
Pretty soon, moved into the Broadband Breakfast Club and the Broadband Breakfast Club was an actual gathering point. Now, this has been stalled by the pandemic. So we’re not meeting in person right now.
Craig Corbin:
You’re doing the next best thing though, right?
Drew Clark:
Well actually, we’re going to meet soon. And that’s what I’m trying to get to Craig, is that Broadband Breakfast as a media community brings people together. We do this through our Broadband Breakfast live online events every Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time. We do this through a conference that we host every year, conjunct with The Broadband Community Summit. Our conference is called Digital Infrastructure Investment. That will be on September 27th this year. We do this through special events and engagements we do in rural communities. For example, we’ve worked with Rural Telecommunications Congress on bringing mini-town halls to rural communities, to host broadband-related events. And we’re going to launch the Broadband Breakfast Club again.
Drew Clark:
Which is an in-person, it’s going to be a lunch though. So it’s going to be a little disappointing for people who’re going to come to a broadband lunch.
Drew Clark:
So we just combine our groups, Broadband Bunch and Broadband Breakfast, and you have Broadband Brunch.
Craig Corbin:
I love it. Drew, you talked a moment ago about all of the news that is available at broadbandbreakfast.com, and my goodness, as we speak right now, your top story deals with the FCC launching the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. And then in the Broadband Roundup, Alabama dispenses $17 million in broadband funds. And then there are easily two dozen stories just on the first page there. It’s a treasure trove of information that is vital for those who want to stay up to date on what’s happening. A huge attaboy to you, your staff, for the way you have embraced being the conduit for this information because it’s vital for those in the industry to stay abreast of what’s going on. A tremendous job that you’re doing. I’m curious from the standpoint of, it’s obvious that you have the passion to drive this, but I’m curious from your perspective, what you see from your staff on how they have come to know and love, if you will, the world of broadband.
Drew Clark:
I will lead into the third element that I didn’t quite get to, which is the news, I mentioned, the events, I’ve talked, about and membership, which is a new field that we are launching this month in May and June, for all those who want to get more and have more connection to Broadband Breakfast. So we have a staff that is small, but committed, lean, and mean if you will.
Drew Clark:
We are focused on the reporting, the analysis, of the information. And I mean, Craig, just to your question, in particular, a lot of the reporters we bring on do not necessarily come on board with a complete, or even maybe a substantial knowledge of broadband, right? I mean, in some ways this is part of our society and culture, and everyone knows about Facebook and Google and broadband. The word is not unfamiliar to people, but there’s clearly a whole world of policy and technology and activism behind it.
Drew Clark:
And so, what we’re doing when we have new people on our reporting team is training them in both broadband and in journalism, right? And so, they’re learning both of those things together. And so, we’ve got a team of editors and reporters. We have a membership director for our newly launched Broadband Breakfast Clubs.
Drew Clark:
So you can be a member of the Broadband Breakfast Club. And for a limited time, during this period during our founder’s launch here in May and in June, we are offering monthly memberships at the low price of $49 a month. And just go to broadbandbreakfast.com/join, broadbandbreakfast.com/join to find out more about how you can become a member of the Broadband Breakfast Club and get the additional information and guidance you need to get better broadband and better lives in your circumstances.
Craig Corbin:
What a phenomenal investment opportunity there. You talk about return on investment, a very high ROI with that. And I would strongly encourage those who are listening to take advantage of that tremendous offer. Obviously, there is so much to cover that we would love to have in this conversation. I don’t know that we have time to even begin touching on policy. Let’s try to find time in the not too distant future to have you back. And we can begin talking about some policy topics, but one thing that we always like to ask our guests, especially those that have invested a number of years related to the industry, is the Back to the Future question. If you could hop in the DeLorean, take yourself back, and whisper something in your ear at some point in the past that would have sped up the progress that you’ve made or changed or altered the path, the trajectory, of Broadband Breakfast, what would that be?
Drew Clark:
You’re making me think. I thought you were going to ask if I were like a policy change that someone made differently. You’re asking me to tell my prior self … I mean look, things take time, Craig. I mean, I watched this great movie on Netflix not too long ago. Netflix, of course, being an idea would be impossible without broadband and the very idea for Netflix started off as broadband. And because it was so slow getting to America, the founders shifted gears and did a DVD distribution via mail for six to 10 years before coming back to broadband. But anyway, this made for Netflix movie, the founder about Ray Kroc and McDonald’s, and of course, the joke is that he’s not really the founder. He just licensed the concept from the McDonald’s brothers of San Bernardino.
Drew Clark:
There’s a line there, either Ray Kroc or someone else says, “Yeah, McDonald’s, it’s an overnight success 20 years in the making”, right? So even anything that to us, appears to be coming out of nowhere as a success, it takes time. It just takes time to build something, grow something, and you just have to stick with it. And this has changed forms over time. But the mission is always, as I said, about getting better broadband, better lives, providing the news and information that our readers need, the events that make sense and connect people and the membership that will give you access and awareness of what you need to advance your journey towards better broadband and better lives.
Craig Corbin:
That’s a great answer. And the flip side of that obviously is to pull out the crystal ball and look into the future. What do you see in the quest for Better Broadband, Better Lives? Across the country, the huge challenges for connectivity, the digital divide in so many places?
Drew Clark:
Well, I am very happy to answer this one because I am super excited for the next 10 years of broadband. Why? Well, we are going to need to make a sea change in the way broadband networks are envisioned, financed, constructed. I am a fan, I am a proponent that the vertically integrated model where one company owns the network, physical network, real property, operates the network, interconnections, hubs, access points, and offers the services, the internet access. Those days are numbered where that single company model of ownership of operating and services is not going to continue. We are going to see that break apart. We are going to see one company or type of company, and I think this is where municipalities have a super strong play, or rural co-ops, or private companies, nothing against those.
Drew Clark:
The point being, there’s a physical real estate dimension to broadband access that is really important for the locality and the community to be involved. So if there’s an ownership level at one end of the chart, and then you’ve got operators in the middle, often open-access network operators who are built, who are taking these networks and they’re owned by someone else, but they’re operating them. They’re making those networks work.
Drew Clark:
Now overseas, this is not a strange or foreign concept. This three-tiered open access model is quite common. It’s just not as common here in the United States. And so, if you’ve got one entity that’s owning another entity that’s operating the network with multiple service providers, we’re going to start to see all kinds of services we don’t see because so much of our thinking on this is stilted and warped by the notion of a single company owning all layer, all layers of this network and that doesn’t need to be. We are changing the paradigm. And that’s what I expect to see a lot, lot more of in the next 10 years. And that’s why I’m super excited to be leading this effort at broadbandbreakfast.com to make sure people understand how easy it is to help your community get to that kind of connectivity.
Craig Corbin:
I love the passion because, in the end, it’s the consumer, the end-user, that wins with that approach. And I can’t wait, Drew, for the next time that we get together here on The Broadband Bunch and expand more on open access, more on policy. It’s going to be great. This has been a wonderful visit. I have enjoyed it so much. A big thank you to you and your team for what you do at Broadband Breakfast. And thanks so much for sharing that with us.
Drew Clark:
My pleasure. It’s great to be with you and to hear about how you are approaching this and how we can combine and help everyone get to that Better Broadband and Better Lives.
