Lead Tennessee Radio

Lead Tennessee Radio is the Tennessee Broadband Association's own podcast. Its subject is the unglamorous machinery behind rural internet: grant programs, federal policy, construction logistics and the people needed to do the work. Episodes are interviews, usually with one guest and sometimes with two. Carrie Huckabee, the association's executive director, and Trevor, its government affairs director, host. Andy Johns of Pioneer Utility Resources steps in as guest host, filling in for the two of them. Some conversations were recorded at a joint conference of the Tennessee Broadband Association and the Kentucky Rural Broadband Association in Franklin, Tennessee, and they refer back to what other speakers said there. Federal money runs through the recent episodes. In 'The Competitive Nature of ReConnect 5 Funding, With James Wilson and Tyler Hayes', the two RUS representatives for Kentucky and Tennessee explain how the fifth round was split into buckets, from loans to full grants. Requests for the full-grant pool came to several times the money available. Brooke Coleman, Nokia's account manager for Tennessee, gives an October 2024 update on BEAD's priorities. She includes non-deployment spending on adoption and digital inclusion, which a state that already has fiber everywhere might choose. In 'The 5th Circuit Court Decision—What It Means for Broadband in Rural America, With Leif Oveson', NTCA's vice president of legislative affairs says contribution reform tends to be forgotten while the Universal Service Fund case gets attention at the Supreme Court. He explains that the fund is paid for through charges on voice bills, not broadband bills, even though it now mostly supports broadband. Other conversations are closer to the job site. Scott Goodale, JSI's vice president of fiber network design and implementation, talks about getting construction reimbursed and making grant dollars reach as many subscribers as possible. He also flags the material lead times that still hang over builds ahead of BEAD. Workforce is the other theme that keeps coming back. When an informal survey on the conference stage asked about the biggest concerns for rural broadband, the answer was the workforce shortage, and that sets up Craig Barber's conversation about apprenticeships. Barber, the founder and CEO of Hatbox, suggests remote and hybrid arrangements could help rural providers hire from farther away, and he names U.S.-based customer service as a selling point. Tyler Campbell of the Kentucky Rural Broadband Association raises the same worry for his state, asking where the construction workers, service technicians and fiber splicers for its BEAD-funded networks will come from. He also mentions planned electric vehicle battery plants in Kentucky, which will need workers of their own. The tone is informational and friendly, and guests get room to explain programs in detail. The humor is small and specific, like an aside about a sheep sound effect or talk of an anniversary cake in the 'Preview of the 2024 Fall Conference & Supplier Showcase'. If the acronyms are new to you, the BEAD update is a good place to start: the guest host praised it for explaining the program briefly while still covering the important details.