Tech Refactored

S2E2 - The Internet of Towns: Building Out Municipal Broadband

August 13, 2021 Nebraska Governance and Technology Center Season 2 Episode 2
Tech Refactored
S2E2 - The Internet of Towns: Building Out Municipal Broadband
Show Notes Transcript

Ronald Rizzuto from the University of Denver joins Gus to discuss the history and state of the cable and telecommunications industry with a focus on how municipalities try to build out broadband services, why it often fails, and what is takes to succeed.

Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.

[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Today we're going to be speaking with Ron Rizzuto, endowed Professor of International Executive Education and Professor of Finance at the Reiman School of Finance in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

Ron has a, uh, long track record working on, uh, telecommunications and, uh, cable industry financing questions, uh, and has done some work that's particularly relevant to discussions of municipal broadband projects, which have been in the news lately. Uh, Frankly always in the news, but they've been, uh, under discussion with the infrastructure legislation currently being considered on the hill.

So Ron, looking forward to talking a bit about municipal broadband in particular, and, um, some more about telecommunications, the cable industry and your work [00:01:00] generally. Thanks for joining us. 

[00:01:01] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, Gus thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure to learn about you and your organization and it's nice to share some thoughts with you.

And I can give you a little bit of quick history cuz I'm a little oddball in terms of how I'm a finance professor, professor and yet involved with telecommunication policy. 

[00:01:21] Gus Herwitz: Uh, that, that would be great because that's one of the things I'm hoping to talk to you a bit about. 

[00:01:25] Ronald Rizzuto: Sure. Uh, they're, I've been at the University of Denver 46 years and I came to DU primarily with the intent to teach finance. But as I, uh, got involved in the community, you know, back in the early eighties, Denver was sort of, a lot of people called it the cable television capital of the U us cuz of all the cable companies here. And so we had students in class.

We had students in that we worked with, but at that time, the [00:02:00] cable industry didn't have a literature base. So in things that we did, we helped the cable industry develop that literature base as well as, you know, Continuing to teach finance. So I've had sort of this parallel path where I've researched, consulted on telecommunications media issues, as well as my traditional corporate finance topics.

[00:02:24] Gus Herwitz: I'm gonna take a moment to let the listeners know that due to circums. Stances beyond my control. I am sitting on my porch recording this today. But, uh, uh, uh, I guess it's in the spirit of what you just said, Ron, uh, kind of rolling with the punches. Uh, you found yourself, uh, in Denver and there was all this cable industry stuff going on, and, uh, you, you said, Hey, uh, we, we should look at this and, uh, get involved with it.

So, uh, I, I think in good, both academic and entrepreneurial tradition, rolling with the punches and taking the opportunities as they, uh, come to you. I, I guess I, I have [00:03:00] to admit that I'm a telecommunications history nerd. I'd be interested, uh, to hear your take on the book. I'll, I'll mention, but I think it's Parsons is the author, Blue Skies.

Uh, History of Cable Television is one of my, uh, uh, favorite telecom history books. Um, is. My understanding right, that one of the reasons Denver was such a hub for telecommunications in the eighties is that's when we were really starting to see the explosion of microwave and early satellite interconnectivity to kind of nationalized distribution networks.

And Denver, of course, is really high up, which makes it a, a good place to put those 

[00:03:37] Ronald Rizzuto: receivers. Well, that's exactly right. However, you know the book by Pat Parsons, you know, he goes back into the history and again, the cable industry is very much a, uh, wired network, and it was only, as you say, when you got to the, uh, late eighties, early nineties, that the [00:04:00] satellite technology began to play a role.

But there, you know, the industry, you know, we worked with the sort of the mom and pop cable companies, and then as they grew, you know, and they move from video to broadband to phone, we've sort of followed that migration. But Pat's book is very good in terms of chronically the history of the. 

[00:04:25] Gus Herwitz: And you touch on something that will, I think, bring us to the topic of municipal broadband.

The, the early days of cable were kind of the exact opposite of, uh, a lot of the early history of the telephone network or I guess the early 20th century history. You had a lot of engineers, particularly, uh, coming home from uh, World War ii who knew how to do basic RF engineering and. Hey, we don't get good broadcast signals.

Uh, so they started literally wiring up their towns and that's how we got the early cable networks. So they were [00:05:00] very much lots of small operators building these networks community by community from the ground up. How has that shaped the industry to this day? 

[00:05:10] Ronald Rizzuto: I think the way it has shaped the industry, It's a very entrepreneurial industry.

You know, it hasn't had the deep pockets or government support, so you had a lot of, uh, entrepreneurial renegades who got involved in the business, and that is really the tradition. You know, they, uh, they learned to do things. You know, sometime the history of the cable television industry is chronicled. In Denver at the cable, the cable center, and in there you can explore some of the early technology cuz there, uh, you'll have some of the early developers in the industry where people who owned.

Electronic stores, but they didn't have a way to sell television cuz there was no signal because they had poor [00:06:00] signals. They were in outlying areas. And so somebody would go out, put an antenna on the mountaintop, and then string wire down to the community and then hook people up for. For television signals.

So it's really that tough mindedness. How do we figure things out that the industry started and you see sort of that chronicle throughout the, the history of the industry and you know, it's evolution. 

[00:06:28] Gus Herwitz: So let's, um, turn to, uh, the, the contemporary discussion, uh, that we're focusing on. There's a, a long standing debate, um, I'll call it 10 or 15 years old, so I'm, I'm sure it goes back, uh, further than that, uh, in the United States about municipal broadband.

The idea, well, a actually I'll ask, uh, you to explain what's the idea behind municipal broadband and, uh, kinda the status of, uh, 

[00:06:54] Ronald Rizzuto: Yeah, sure. The, uh, there again, you know, as you look at it, you had [00:07:00] the, uh, I mean the early days of cable, you had a lot. Um, um, back of the envelope solutions and, uh, the industry was just selling reception and so consequently, they were the only game in town and they were very sloppy with what they did, and it created a lot of frustrations in the community.

So the communities, the local utility was a local utility. And they said, we can do this ourselves. We don't need to have an outsider provide service to us. And that's really the roots of it. You know, a lot of is frustration with the service. And that gave rise to the communities that started this Cedar Falls.

You know, they go back to 1998, Kentucky, I forget Billy Ray's system there, but in the mid to early, mid to late nineties, that's where municipal telecom started, and it's really the local utility [00:08:00] providing utility services, but also providing communication services.  

[00:08:06] Gus Herwitz: So we have kind of aligned over an important part of the history that I'll, uh, just more expressly aligned over cable in the, uh, 1980s.

And prior to then they provided television service primarily. And then, uh, in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s, They started to say, Hey, we could offer, uh, uh, voice communications, telephone service too. And that was one of the drivers behind the 96 Telecom Act. And then of course, following the 96 Telecom Act, everyone realized the, in the internet, that's a service we all want.

And the, the cable providers became one of their primary, uh, HighSpeed internet service providers starting, uh, uh, with the DOSIS standard developed in the early mid 1990s for HighSpeed internet over, uh, cable service. So when we're talking about municipal broadband, we've got municipal communications and [00:09:00] telecommunications service generally, and then high speed internet service, um, in part.

[00:09:05] Ronald Rizzuto: Uh, That's exactly right. And, and it just, as you see, the sheep of municipal systems has changed as the technology changed. The early days, the, uh, municipalities that got into business, they were only doing video, but as the technology changed where they could then use the plant to offer broadband as well as telephone service, that changed.

Today what we see, you know, when you look at a city like Longmont or Chatanooga, Tennessee, some of 'em, I mean, Chatanooga offers all the services where Longmont, they offer, they characterize themselves primarily as a broadband network. They don't offer video. 

[00:09:49] Gus Herwitz: So let's, I guess, start pre municipal. You come at this, uh, from the perspective of a finance professor, what are some of the unique financing [00:10:00] challenges that cable systems face?

[00:10:04] Ronald Rizzuto: Uh, well, the, the financing challenges is you have to build a network before you start to generate cash flow. So you gotta have upfront honey, and then you, you can grow the network as you get the cash flow, but you've gotta have the. Primarily developed in the case of, I mean, that's for anybody who puts in a network, but municipalities, when they do that, they have to do the same thing.

And so they either have to do a bond issue to get money to do that, or they may borrow from the other utilities and sort of bootstrap it, uh, that way. 

[00:10:42] Gus Herwitz: When, when you say borrowed, uh, do you, do you mean borrow, uh, facilities resources? 

[00:10:49] Ronald Rizzuto: It's, they would primarily money, you know, if you are in, um, uh, like one of the early days in Cedar Falls, they were putting a [00:11:00] communication network.

So they borrowed money from the, uh, utility part of the utility, and so they got the advances and then they would then pay it back as they generated cash. 

[00:11:14] Gus Herwitz: Turn to this discussion of municipal broadband. Uh, I'll, I'll just kind of jump to the chase. I guess. What, what has your work shown about municipal broadband projects?

[00:11:29] Ronald Rizzuto: From the financial perspective and generally in, in general, what my research has shown is that, uh, municipal. Networks or government owned networks, whatever you wanna refer to 'em ha have largely not been successful. They have not been financially successful. In other words, they don't generate sufficient cash flow to operate on their own.

They don't pay all their bills with the cash flow that they generate. So it creates a either an ongoing subsidy, [00:12:00] an ongoing drain on the utility. . And with that, they're very unstable. So some of them will decide to give up the ghost and sell out, um, or they will close down or they may in, in fact buy out the incumbent.

So it's very fragile. They're only six or eight that have really, uh, made a go of it so that they stand and, you know, actually generate. Sufficient cash to operate. 

[00:12:32] Gus Herwitz: And what causes that? Are they under capitalized? Do they underprice their services? Do they lose customers or fail to attract customers from private competitors?

[00:12:42] Ronald Rizzuto: No, they underprice their services. You know, so essentially, and that's where you see, you know, the business decision morphs into a political decision. You know, a lot of times the the wherewithal to. Uh, [00:13:00] putting in a municipal network is because they think prices are too hard, too high, so they go ahead and put in the network and they purposely keep rates low, but then they forget that they need to pay their bills.

And so consequently, they've dug a big hole here. And now their debts are piling up and they, they haven't built a financially viable network. The one, uh, utility that I have sort of been, uh, respectful of is Cedar Falls because they have managed to the discipline to do that, that pricing discipline. 

[00:13:38] Gus Herwitz: Is this different from other government run or provided utilities?

Do governments, uh, under price or lose money on, uh, water or electric service where those are municipally provided? 

[00:13:51] Ronald Rizzuto: No, they don't. And again, a big difference is they're the mo, the monopoly utility when it comes to the utility [00:14:00] venturing into the communications business, then they're not the monopoly utility.

So, Being the monopoly, as you well know, hides a lot of sins here. 

[00:14:10] Gus Herwitz: I, I guess it's fascinating puzzle to me if we're thinking about the government as a monopoly utility, and then they are charging high enough prices to cover their costs. Because if you're the monopoly utility, especially providing service to everyone, then you can just recover your money through taxes.

And you're taxing everyone. So you're taxing all of your users, uh, which seems a more equitable distribution of those costs. Whereas if you're a monopoly, uh, uh, municipal utility that's competing with private enterprise and you lose money and, uh, need to turn. To taxes, to recover any losses. If you, uh, are able to do that, then you, I guess, uh, from putting my antitrust hat on, that's anti-competitive cross subsidization.

That's exactly what at and t did, uh, and was broken up over [00:15:00] in the 1980s. 

[00:15:01] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, and, and you see that, you know, because you, you have in a lot of the areas where municipalities got in the communications business, They were, there was already a for-profit company involved, and so now they put in the utility.

And they're both regulating as well as competing. And so you end up with a lot of cross subsidy kinds of situations. And so it, it's a messy world and it's an area where you can make a lot of mistakes. 

[00:15:33] Gus Herwitz: We are speaking with. Ron Rizzuto, a professor of finance and business at the University of Denver. We will be back in a moment to expand our discussion a bit and talk about some of the financial aspects of the cable industry, uh, the international, uh, work that he's been doing, and, uh, a number of other topics.

[00:15:59] Lysandra Marquez: I'm Lysandra [00:16:00] Marquez, associate producer of tech refactor. I hope you're enjoying this episode over show. And hey, do you have an idea for Tech Refactored? Is there some thorny tech issue you'd love to hear us break down? Visit our website or tweet at us at UNL underscore NGTC to submit your ideas to the show.

And don't forget, the best way to help us continue making content like this episode is word of mouth. So ask your friends if they have an idea. Now back to this episode of Tech Refactored.

[00:16:35] Gus Herwitz: We are back speaking with Ron Rizzuto about the cable and telecommunications industries. And Ron, I, I'd like to start, you, you, as we've said, uh, are a professor of finance and business. Um, so the policy discussion in this country about telecommunications, Seems to be driven by, I'll just say people like me, lawyers and economists.

If you look at the, uh, fcc, they're primarily made [00:17:00] up of lawyers and economists, and it's mostly lawyers whispering into the ears of faults on Capitol Hill. When we're talking about legislation, I'll just ask the question this way. What do we get wrong? What does the, uh, lens of the finance and business lens add to, uh, the discussion of telecom policy that, uh, we might otherwise be missing?

[00:17:21] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I think, and you, you know, some of it you can go back and track to the development of broadband and the internet because it was appropriate that. Uh, telecom would be regulated. You know, it was a natural, uh, utility, a natural monopoly, and you needed to regulate it. Um, but then as you look at the development of the broadband or the internet business, you could see that it, the.

You didn't need the regulation, you know, there you could have more competitors. And of [00:18:00] course we've seen that flourish. So I think the thing that maybe we've got wrong is we haven't shifted gears fast enough. You know, we're maybe still regulating it as though it is a. Natural monopoly when in fact it's much more of an, more of a competitive environment.

And now we need to be careful that we don't destroy the, the creativity in the innovation that comes from that. 

[00:18:30] Gus Herwitz: So you refer to it as a natural monopoly, and that, of course, is the standard framing of all of these network industries. Is it a natural monopoly? We, we've always spoken about the, the telephone system at and t.

Uh, it's a natural monopoly. And of course, if you go back to the, uh, beginning of the 20th century, uh, you had competition between at and t and the Wildcat. So I, I'm here in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Lincoln Telephone and [00:19:00] Telegraph was one of the original Wildcat Competi. Trying to build out their own networks successfully to compete.

And then we discussed before the organic growth of cable systems in, uh, the 1960s. And they grew up competing both with broadcast television in a sense, uh, and then the telephone network. So how useful is the natural monopoly framing and how accurate is it? 

[00:19:28] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I think it, in the early days it was probably accurate.

You know, I guess maybe the thing that got wrong is, You could justify two networks that if they weren't necessarily competing with one another. You mentioned the Wildcat phone companies. If they were successful, they probably had areas of overlap, but they had areas where they were separate and I think you, Annette, a monopoly thrives there.

You know, here. Where [00:20:00] anybody can get into the streaming business, anybody can get into the wire line or the wireless business. I mean, that's a very different world than what it was. You know, you go back to the early days of the regulation of the telephone industry. 

[00:20:17] Gus Herwitz: I guess a, a related question, um, and I apologize, I, I don't know if this is a topic that you've necessarily focused that much on, but one, one of the big challenges of telecommunications networks is the universal service commitment.

Making sure that unserved or economically uner areas get service. Natural monopoly competition regulation. Do you have thoughts on the better and less effective approaches to ensuring that we satisfy this commitment? 

[00:20:49] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I, I think it's a, it's a great commitment, you know, you, you need to provide for universal service.

I think the way we're doing [00:21:00] it now, you know, I think the early days of telephone where we had the Universal Service Fund and everything. We got phone a lot of places where it wouldn't be. I think now where we're throwing money at a problem in the name of Universal Service, I think that's a huge waste of resources, you know, because in their.

I mean, and, and we find that even in the area where for profit operators compete with the government operators, you're still seeing pockets of uner, uh, areas that are unserved, but neither of them are going to take that step without some sort of subsidy. And so that's where I think if. We're more strategic about where we put the money, who builds the network, who gets to use the network.

But I think, you know, the, the problem with what we're thinking about now and [00:22:00] all the money we're throwing at it is, it's gonna be redundant. Uh, and I'll give you a couple of examples, but I'll let you stop there and see if you have anything that you wanna question. 

[00:22:11] Gus Herwitz: Uh, let, let's, uh, jump straight to some examples.

[00:22:14] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I think, you know, if you look at the. A lot of the municipal broadband companies that are around now, they essentially took money from, you know, the government to build the network. And so they built the network. But you know, in Chattanooga is a good one. Uh, Chattanooga took government money to build out, uh, the network.

But there are a lot of areas of Tennessee and the Chattanooga area that never had the network built. So what you have is you're taking money from the government to build a redundant network to compete with the private sector. And I think that's what we haven't managed, where in fact [00:23:00] money could be used to build the areas.

That the public or the municipal never could use as well as the for-profit. But you know, just to give money to, for example, here in Colorado, Fort Collins, they went out, raised money and they're putting in, um, municipal network in Fort Collins and, uh, you have. At least five providers of video. In Fort Collins, you have at least four providers of data and numerous providers of phone, where in fact, the outskirts of Fort Collins, they don't have a network.

So it's, we're, we're not moving, we're not making any dent on the digital divide, are very small, Uh, dent. 

[00:23:45] Gus Herwitz: That, that example is really nice. It, it highlights an important distinction in our rhetoric about the digital divide, which is that there are two very distinct digital divides that we discuss. The urban digital divide and the rural digital [00:24:00] divide.

The rural digital divide. Uh, Deals generally with low population density, it's expensive to run a fiber optic cable or copper or any cable, uh, tens of miles to a farm or ranch or to a, a remote town of two or 300 people. So the economics aren't there to incur that upfront cost. And then the. Urban digital divide generally deals with issues like redlining, and to be unfortunately blunt about it, providers have an incentive to build where the money is.

So they provide service where high income individuals live and don't provide service where low indivi income individuals, uh, live because they know where they're going to make money and where they're going to lose, uh, money. If we conflate these ideas when we're talking about municipal broadband, we easily run into a, a problem they, I think you're touching on, which is, uh, the municipal provider might be more [00:25:00] effective at ensuring service is provided to the low income urban.

Individuals, but the municipality is bounded by the municipality. It doesn't extend 10 miles out of town to the small, unincorporated, uh, town. Um, so all of those individuals, they don't get municipal coverage and they no longer, they might no longer have a, uh, private enterprise provider because the municipal provider either competed with them and put them out of business or took away the revenue that they've relied on to capitalize these, uh, uh, deeper network.

[00:25:34] Ronald Rizzuto: No, I mean, your, your points are well taken and, and you need to, uh, sort of think separately about why do we have a digital divide, where it is and what we might do, you know? So, um, sometimes the, the case of not having network built, you know, the, the question is access and then affordability, you know, in an urban [00:26:00] area.

You may have the network, but people can't afford it, so they still don't have any broadband. And so what you need is the policy prescription may be you need to subsidize the service, not go out and build more network, the rural area. Clarity, You don't have the access, so you need to find ways. Okay, how can we build a network out there and.

Either the municipality run it or we've got other people who are going to compete and they'll use the network. But you have to build the, There isn't the access, and so we need to put money against creating the access. 

[00:26:43] Gus Herwitz: So we, we've been focusing on the domestic question and very much on this municipal broadband question.

I'll, I'll briefly note the last that I saw, the Senate has, uh, approved the infrastructure bill and it's off to the house. And, uh, uh, what I saw this [00:27:00] morning about it is, Uh, the infrastructure bill has, I think it's 14 billion or something like that, that's going exactly to this issue of subsidies and making, uh, internet service more affordable to, uh, lower income individuals.

So hopefully that will be effective. I'm always skeptical about legislation and the legislative process, but I'm always optimistic that whatever we do will work so ho. Hopefully, uh, that will prove a beneficial approach. But your work, Ron. Has goes beyond, uh, just these issues, man. I, I'd like to touch on a couple of other things that you've done.

I note your title, Endowed Professor of International Executive Education. Can you tell us a bit about the international element of your work? 

[00:27:46] Ronald Rizzuto: Sure. The, again, just a little bit of backdrop, you know, as I said, when I, uh, got to Denver, you know, I got involved with the cable industry and in there I did a lot of [00:28:00] training programs for the industry.

In fact, One of the founders of Women in Cable, June Travis, she got me involved with dev designing training programs for the industry on cable, the finance and business aspects of cable. But another person who's out of that same group is John C. John C was the founder of Stars Entertainment. And John and his wife, uh, are, are, John is from China, his wife is from Italy, and John wanted to.

Reach back to China as they were formulating policy, broadband and telecom policy. He wanted to provide some guidance from what we've learned here in the us. So we started a program through the cable center to bring media executives from China to the US to learn, you know, about what the infrastructure is [00:29:00] like here and how we organize ourselves.

So we've done that over. For the past 20 years, I mean, obviously this year and last year we haven't because of Covid and, but you know, we're looking to do that and do some of the training both in China as well as in the us. 

[00:29:21] Gus Herwitz: And what are, what, what are the lessons, um, from the US experience that are being exported to, or being brought over to, uh, the Chinese?

[00:29:32] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I think they are, you know, in, in China, you know, the regulatory structure. Compartmentalizes competition, you know, so the people who provide phone don't provide video. Now it's starting to be a little bit more competitive, but I think one of the things that we, we've brought to them is thinking in terms of what's the business proposition?

You know, why are we doing this? Not because we just need the [00:30:00] infrastructure. But why is it, How do you build a business plan and competitive structure, and then also thinking that you're not just doing one product, you're looking across your whole product set. In terms of if you're a cable company in China, you're providing video service, but can you provide broadband service?

You know, obviously the regulations held up back for a while, but now it's starting to be a more competitive environment. 

[00:30:30] Gus Herwitz: And obviously when we're speaking about China, it's a complex topic o on the ground. Do you have any sense of what that looks like? How the industry is shaping up? And I have to include in the, uh, question, uh, how the government affects or controls or interferes with or supports the development of the industry.

[00:30:53] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, there's no doubt about the government supporting the development of the industry, you know? But [00:31:00] at the same time, certainly on the telecom side, but on the video side, you have government entities that are in the business, you know, like you have in. Certain communities where you have some for-profit operators partnered with the government.

And so I think you'll see more of that. Obviously their overall policies, they're not going to let an outsider control a communications industry. But I think, you know, some of that is changing and I think, yeah. So I don't know, you know, the, the recent stuff with regard to technology, How way Huawe, I mean there, you know, I haven't studied that enough to know, you know, what, what the issues are and what are our major concerns are other than just sort of the top of line reading this.

[00:31:58] Gus Herwitz: You mentioned a, another [00:32:00] fascinating part of your background, your involvement, uh, with the women in cable and health communications programs in the 1980s and continuing. Can, can you tell us a little bit more about your efforts there and, uh, what those programs are? 

[00:32:15] Ronald Rizzuto: Sure. And, and there again is we, the way as the sort of the tipping point for how I got involved in the industry is June Travis, who was an MBA student at du, she worked for American Television Communication, which is the forerunner to Time Warner Cable.

So she was, Managing the project cuz Time Warner wanted to decentralize their operations, but they realized that the managers needed a better background in accounting and finance and negotiation so they could operate these systems as standalone businesses. So we developed for her and Time Warner a curriculum for how you could take the [00:33:00] managers and do this training for them.

And so then that, we did that for 25 years with Time Warner, but June, she was one of the founders of women in Cable and she said, Let's look at this for the whole industry. So June got us involved with, and this is in 1985, where they would come together, the, the members of women in cable would come together for education.

And so we built curriculum that was. To the cable industry. You know, they would come together to do a case study, but it might be around a lumber company or it might be around a grocery store, not specifically cable. So we were able to, Bring a cadre of faculty in a develop a literature here. So we did that and you know, we would work together with women in cable till the early 2000, [00:34:00] early, I think maybe 2005.

And then their focus has changed a little bit and it's a little less operational education and more about leadership. And so we haven't been as directly involved, but it's a. Great partner, great group that we worked with. 

[00:34:17] Gus Herwitz: Uh, are there any alumni of the program that, uh, you're particularly proud of? Not to put you on the spot or, uh, call out any favorites,

[00:34:27] Ronald Rizzuto: Oh, yes. I mean, there are so many, You know, if you look at a lot of the leaders in the industry, you know, uh, good one. Jana Hint, Jana is the president of the the Cable Center. She is an alumna of the work that we've done with the women in cable. I'm blanking her, her name, but Colleen Abdullah is another one.

Ruth Warren. I mean, lots of people who've gone on. Many of the women who've excelled in the industry have gone through the programs, but Jan and Colleen are [00:35:00] two notable ones, obviously. As a founder, she didn't go through the training, but she was, uh, a great supporter of the, of the work that we did and bring it to a broader group of people.

[00:35:13] Gus Herwitz: So taking us back to the topic of telecommunications and cable regulation, and also, I guess, uh, starting to wrap up our, uh, discussion. One, one of the notable things when I teach and when I do my own research in this area, I take a historical approach. I, I like to look back to the, the history of the industry mostly because it seems to me everything that we discuss today, we've.

Time and time again over history. I, I, I see people coming up with the same ideas over and over. So with that as a framing, I'm actually going to ask the exact opposite question. Instead of how has the discussion stayed the same over the last 30, 40 plus years? How has the discussion changed how we think about and talk about cable and [00:36:00] telecommunications?

[00:36:02] Ronald Rizzuto: Well, I, I think it's, it's changed in that the, the focus is now on broadband being the, the critical ingredient. You know, if you've got broadband, you can do video, you can do phone. Um, and that invites a lot more competitive en environment. So I think the technology that has changed the framework, that's changed the technology and it's changed the way people do things.

You know, now all of us, you know, we, when it comes to video, we build our own video. You know, we've got Netflix, we've got Disney Plus, Uh, we're not at the sort of the. You know, we're not at the mercy of our kick local cable operator or satellite company. So I think that's changed and it's gonna change, you know, the future of the industry, you know?

So I was just [00:37:00] thinking about the suit between the actors, Scarlet Johansen and Disney. I mean, they're, we're changing the way we roll out product, video, product, you know, in the marketplace. And how does that change the role in the compensation of the, the talent and, you know, the, the content owners, I mean, A lot of things are gonna change, and we're sort of on the precipice of sort of needing new environment reg regulations to go with it.

[00:37:33] Gus Herwitz: Well, I think, uh, regrettably, it is time for us to change topics, uh, and, uh, our time, uh, with you. Uh, uh, Ron, this has really been, uh, a real pleasure. I hope it's not the last time. Uh, we have the chance to, uh, uh, speak. And listeners, I hope that, uh, you've enjoyed this conversation as well. Thank you for joining us.[00:38:00] 

I've been your host, Gus Herwitz. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactor. If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, or to submit an idea for a future episode, we would love to hear from you. You can go to our website at ngtc.unl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL underscore NGTC.

This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Programming Series hosted by the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center. The Nebraska Governance and Technology Center is a partnership led by the Nebraska College of. In collaboration with the Colleges of Engineering business and journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska.

If you enjoy this show, don't forget to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcast. Our show is produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez and Colin McCarthy created and recorded our theme music. This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Program. Until next time, let's keep our conversation.[00:39:00]