In his article on the Oct. 2018 Broadband Communities Conference, Isfandiyar Shaheen observed five broad themes that support the building of broadband infrastructure in communities. The first, “Broadband is not a partisan issue,” was best illustrated, in his opinion, by Deborah and James Fallowses’ session. In it, Deborah shared that in some communities they visited and then reported on in Our Towns, people congregate at libraries in the evening because it’s the only place in town with internet. The librarians leave the WiFi on so people can continue to access it after hours. Her further observation about the homeless he found even more compelling, “many homeless people said that it’s only at libraries where they get respect and that’s why they often congregate there.”

Shaheen’s takeaways: “Identify conferences where city and local government officials from different countries can get an opportunity to learn from one another. Identify libraries on maps where fiber deployments are being planned.”