Exploring broadband's next chapter with BB1 CEO Eric Watko

Exploring broadband's next chapter with BB1 CEO Eric Watko

In June's first episode of the Beyond the Cable [https://bbcmag.com/category/podcasts/] podcast, BroadbandOne (BB1) CEO Eric Watko joined host Brad Randall to discuss the rapidly evolving telecommunications landscape. With over 25 years of industry experience dating back to the Nortel days, Watko focused heavily on how capital, community needs, and next-generation technologies are reshaping modern connectivity.

Sitting out BEAD? Why NOVOS FiBER’s CTO has no regrets

There are no regrets from NOVOS FiBER's chief technology officer, Rob Johnson, at Connected America [https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/connected-america/index.stm] as he reflected on his company's decision not to participate in the federal government's multi-billion-dollar broadband spend, known as BEAD. Johnson said he knows people in the industry who have quickly turned sour on BEAD once reading the fine print. "States have taken and made these things very patchwork," he said, citing one example where two providers were told to split a street by taking every other house on the street. "Well, they're both going to build the whole street," he said, referring to both providers. "Now they're competing with each other and all of the demographic data that they thought was driving their decision goes out the window." Johnson also touched on some of the shifting dynamics of the broadband marketplace. He said competition is fiercer today than it was several years ago but said staying local can give those operating close to home an edge. "A lot of people like the idea of shopping local," said Johnson, who represented the company while appearing on Beyond the Cable at Connected America.

Beyond the Cable: How ISPs can simplify operational complexity

Consolidations and network scaling are two key trends among US telecoms in 2026, but both can increase the complexity of operations, as Patricia Kellaghan of Synamedia [https://www.synamedia.com/] pointed out during her recent appearance on Beyond the Cable [https://bbcmag.com/category/podcasts/]. "Especially in broadband," she said. "What you start to see with these consolidation efforts is operators are inheriting more systems, more vendors, more device types, and more silos." Kellaghan, who serves as Synamedia's senior director of product management, said that's not the only pressures broadband providers are navigating. As a result, Kellaghan said networks need smarter tools so they can unify operations, many times with leaner teams. She said that applying visibility with intelligence can empower ISPs to address issues as they arise, without the need for long troubleshooting processes. Working with Wyndotte Municipal Services, in Michigan, a community-owned utility, Kellaghan said Synamedia's vendor-neutral Gravity [https://www.synamedia.com/product/gravity/] platform enabled the network to eliminate manual setup steps and allowed them to streamline provisioning. "That really enabled them to eliminate a lot of manual setup steps. It allowed them to streamline provisioning, reduce the swivel chair with troubleshooting, and really gave their techs and their CSRs real-time visibility into the device, but also into the fleet and network health as well.

Are ISPs getting pricing structures all wrong?

Service providers should begin offering tiered levels of service to customers based on quality of service, according to Robin Olds, a senior business development manager at Cisco Systems [https://www.cisco.com/]. Speaking on our Beyond the Cable [https://bbcmag.com/category/podcasts/] podcast at Connected America [https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/connected-america/index.stm], Olds said service providers could be doing a lot more, like offering network slicing and lanes of performance traffic across their network that they can monetize. He elaborated on that, pointing to current ISP pricing structures that are largely based on bandwidth speeds. "Latency, jitter, packet loss, these are all things that they need to consider," he said. "Additionally, they need to consider offering AI edge services to their enterprise accounts."

This German company is taking lessons learned to US MDUs

With a playbook adapted for an efficient rollout in the US market, agnoss CEO Christian Breidenbach-Kaack says the level of services agnoss can offer to multi-dwelling units offers clear advantages as a one-stop shop for network design, construction, operation, and maintenance.  The company, which has roots in Germany, is known worldwide for developi. Additionally, the company's name is a play on words, short for "agnostic networks," according to their company website [https://agnoss.com/#about]. Speaking on Beyond the Cable, a Broadband Communities podcast, at Connected America last month, Breidenbach-Kaack said some of the lessons they've learned from Europe can help provide return on investment for fiber-to-the-unit.