About Kenneth Johnson
In a 2019 appearance, Kenneth Johnson, then Senior Vice President of Broadband Programs at NRTC, discussed strategies for expanding fiber-optic internet in rural communities. He recommended that providers consider building into underserved areas served by outdated DSL or poorly maintained small cable companies. Johnson described fiber-to-the-home as "the gold standard" and argued that it would remain competitive against future technologies such as low-earth-orbit satellite or 5G.
Johnson also stated that NRTC initially focused exclusively on serving its cooperative members, aiming to bring fiber to every home where a viable business case existed. He acknowledged that not all areas could be reached with fiber but emphasized the importance of prioritizing fiber deployment where possible.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Kenneth Johnson's recent appearances.
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Transcript (2 segments)
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Kenneth Johnson0:00
Next thing I'd like to talk about is communities. I don't know how many of you might serve an area where there's a community that's a municipal, or it's served by an IOU. If you're not thinking about providing broadband into that community, I mean if it's underserved, especially if there's someone there doing it, obviously it's not a good candidate. But if they have a DSL type service or even maybe a rinky-dink mom-and-pop cable company that's not keeping their system up, I'd highly consider, I'd highly recommend you consider thinking about those spaces as part of your entire build.
When we started, obviously this was something we were going to do for our members. We're pretty much tunnel vision on that, we're like all co-op, so what we do for one member we wanted to do for all. It was important to us to do fiber to the home for everyone. We wanted a business case that would do that. I know in the real world you can't always do that. I think it's great that we have other solutions that we've talked about earlier today that can help those areas, but I will tell you that fiber to the home is the gold standard, and I think everybody in the back of the room knows that as well. If you can build fiber to that home, it's going to be pretty tough with any other competition. I don't care if it's LEO, it's satellite, this gizmo, or 5G or whatever it is they roll out in five years. It's going to be a new twist on technology.
