All Day Digital CoBank

Competition, growth opportunities and the race to get broadband service to the un- and underserved is forcing some providers to think more creatively about funding their capital budgets. CoBank’s Mike Harder explains how banks are innovating their lending to this market as borrowers look to increase their leverage and risk. 

From Virginia to Alaska, the U.S. government is boosting national security investments, creating new opportunities and challenges for rural broadband operators. Telecom investor and Army veteran Chad Crank warns that as world geopolitics become increasing unstable, the U.S. government should work with the private sector to reduce risks from bad actors.

 Over the last two years, more data has been created than in all of human history combined, and it’s not slowing down.The “compute” phase of generative artificial intelligence — when computers are learning from other computers — doesn’t need to be near where the application is used. But it does take a lot of energy. In this episode of All Day Digital, data center investor Alexey Teplukhin explains why rural markets are ideal for this function.

Despite the uncertainties around BEAD implementation, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity rural operators should consider. In this episode of All Day Digital, Solarus CEO Justin Huebner outlines how his Wisconsin co-op is doing its homework, from collaborating with other operators to outsourcing assets to other participants in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program.

Whether rural or national, the growth opportunity for all wireless operators is in fixed wireless, says expert Tim Courtney with Further Enterprise Solutions. In this episode of All Day Digital, he points rural operators to BEAD funding as a strategy to offer fixed wireless where fiber does not make sense. 

Thanks to the emergence of artificial intelligence, demand for data centers is red hot. Data centers run on power-hungry chips, so they are locating to rural America – where the electricity is. In this episode of All Day Digital, Alan Bezoza, a managing director at DigitalBridge Investment Management, explains how the main requirement for cloud computing switched from adequate building space to power.