Connect This!

About Connect This!

Connect This! offers an irreverent and inside look at broadband tech and policy. Each week features people with direct experience building networks or working on policy to improve broadband access. We talk about current events and focus on a big topic for half of each episode.

Publisher

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Category

technology

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

30 Oct 2020

Latest episode

10 Apr 2026

Latest episodes

126 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   10 Apr 2026

   Farewell to Connect This!

   After five and a half years, dozens of guests, two emergency episodes, and 124 shows, we’re saying goodbye to Connect This!. We want to thank you all, from the bottom of our collective heart, for joining us on this journey. Across the live stream and audio versions of this show, we’ve been delighted and surprised each year to get nearly 10,000 listens as we’ve talked about building and managing networks, competition in the marketplace, creating clear and effective marketing campaigns, state and federal infrastructure grant programs, dark money campaigns, local broadband champions, affordability, digital skills, and more. Thank you to all of the guests who have lent their time and expertise to the show. We couldn’t have done it without you. We’re taking the energy you all have given us and the lessons we’ve learned over to Unbuffered (https://communitynetworks.org/taxonomy/term/8419), our new show at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which talks about all the ways that communications and data technology shapes our lives and our communties – from Internet access, to devices, to privacy and surveillance, and more. Unbuffered combines the format and ethos of both Connect This! and the Community Broadband Bits podcast (https://communitynetworks.org/broadbandbits), where we recorded almot 700 episodes over a ten-year run. Community broadband will remain at the core of what we do here, but the world is a bigger, more complicated place than it was a decade ago, and new challenges call for new approaches to meet them. Special thanks for Travis Carter, co-founder of the show, and Doug Dawson and Kim McKinley, for sharing their experience and knowledge as we continue to move the needle towards fast, affordable Internet access for every household that wants it.

2. 

   1 Dec 2025

   Small Towns Building Broadband, Broadband Usage, and the Continued Retreat from Fiber | Episode 124 of the Connect This! Show

   Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (Tak Broadband) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about all the recent broadband news that’s fit to print. Topics include: A new report from ILSR on 19 small towns in Massachusetts (https://www.youtube.com/live/sHafVCNLhtc?si=j6YtjXOaJ8XiVH2u&t=517) building public partnerships and new fiber networks. Massive AWS and Cloudflare outages (https://www.youtube.com/live/sHafVCNLhtc?si=dXCWgGLD2l0E64ND&t=795) impacting large parts of the Internet The new broadband usage report (https://www.youtube.com/live/sHafVCNLhtc?si=Y0xlX7P6aE_7D8A5&t=1175) from OpenVault 18 states so far have finally gotten NTIA approval after redoing most of the work from last summer, (https://www.youtube.com/live/sHafVCNLhtc?si=9Af2zB-Hhiw9ZJX8&t=1519) with the result being fewer homes will be passed by the BEAD program and, of those, a smaller proportion will get fiber than under Biden. The latest attempt to hamstring any state regulation of AI (https://www.youtube.com/live/sHafVCNLhtc?si=96yF4k16VSB7-D1D&t=3095) by tying BEAD approval to the measure Join us live on November 20th at 3pm ET, or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts. Email us at broadband@communitynetworks.org (mailto:broadband@communitynets.org) with feedback and ideas for the show. Subscribe to the show using this feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/connectthis) or find it on the Connect This! page (https://connectthisshow.com/), and watch on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/community-broadband-networks/), on YouTube Live (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDYYbob9LLLtQSoSF5LjlQ), on Facebook live, (https://www.facebook.com/localselfreliance/) or below.

3. 

   30 Oct 2025

   The Retreat from Fiber, Local Government Inaction, and 8 Million Americans Offline | Episode 123 of the Connect This! Show

   Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (Tak Broadband) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) to talk about all the recent broadband news that’s fit to print. Topics include: Join us live on October 24th at 2pm ET, or listen […]

Who has been a guest on Connect This!

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Shayna Englin
• Lori Adams
• Heather Mills
• Blair Levin
• Kim McKinley

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

330,834

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 77 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

93

Social presence

0

YouTube

86

Engagement

68

Contact Connect This!

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.