This week on the podcast, Christopher speaks with Brent Christensen, President and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance (MTA). The MTA is a trade association that currently represents 41 holding company members operating over 70 companies across the state, including cooperatively-owned, family-owned, and publicly-traded Internet Service Providers. Most are rural broadband providers.

Chris and Brent dive into a discussion about the Enhanced Alternative Connect America Model (Enhanced A-CAM), which is focused more on smaller providers than the Connect America Fund (CAF), and how so many smaller providers are surpassing the 25/3 Mbps speed requirement associated with that program by building fiber-to-the-home networks that will serve their subscribers long into the future. The two discuss the challenges and complications of the various federal broadband moneys coming into Minnesota, how they interact with one another, and how these collective funding opportunities might be efficiently leveraged to connect the most Minnesotans to high-quality broadband.

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