DigitalC at 10,000 Subscribers - Episode 11 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:16)
And we're back with another episode of Unbuffered. And I'm here with one of my favorite all time guests, a real pioneer in the industry, Joshua Edmonds, who is the CEO of DigitalC in Cleveland. Welcome to the show, Josh.

Joshua Edmonds (00:31)
Thank you for having me. And I appreciate being known as one of your favorite guests. That actually makes my heart warm, so thank you for that too.

Christopher Mitchell (00:36)
Yeah. mean, every now

and then you say something about like, about like holding the work that, that I and some other folks do in a high esteem. And I'm always like, but you're the one doing the real work. I love it. And I'd introduce myself. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. ⁓ and I don't know, I wanted to start with this, but, ⁓ before we get into DigitalC is I want to talk about your personal accomplishments because I always like to check in, ⁓ you know, on Google right before I, I, to see what's going on.

The top hit for Joshua Edmonds is a young man who just finished sixth in the Big East indoor championships and the 400. And the fact that there's another middle distance athlete named Joshua Edmonds, who's just what, 10 years younger than you maybe.

Joshua Edmonds (01:12)
I did it.

Ha!

Yeah, I'm rooting for him. know, love the name, love what he's been able to do. Great sport he picked.

Christopher Mitchell (01:29)
Hahaha

Yeah.

So we're going to, we're going to forgo talking about the track, either abomination or curiosity in Las Vegas right now with the, enhanced Olympics or whatever they're calling it. And we're going to talk about, ⁓ what is a pioneering model for major cities to, ⁓ basically deal with the digital divide. ⁓ so why don't you give us a sense first of what DigitalC is.

Joshua Edmonds (01:42)
⁓ yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so thank you again. So DigitalC, Nonprofit Technology Social Enterprise. I know that's a mouthful, but that is literally what we are. A 501C3 with a technology focus, but at the same time, we don't forgo the sustainability that comes with being an enterprise. We provide high speed Internet access to the tune of $18 a month. Though we have implemented tiering and now we have started serving businesses, but we are a full-fledged nonprofit Internet service provider.

We primarily leverage the Tarana Wireless Magic of Next Generation Fixed Wireless and we've built a point-to-point, point-to-multi-point network that covers the entire city of Cleveland in a network that was built in less than 18 months. ⁓ And now we are closing in on having over 10,000 subscribers on our network ⁓ since January 24.

Christopher Mitchell (02:48)
That's 10,000 households that you're approaching, which to date is more than 23,000 individual people within those households.

Joshua Edmonds (02:56)
That is correct and thank you for that distinction. Sometimes that gets lost, know, and when people are like, oh, you guys have 10,000 people. I'm like, no, no, no, no, we have way more than 10,000 people. But from a household standpoint, you know, it's just great seeing the amount of just subscribers that are growing. But at the same time, I do want to highlight one of the big reasons why it's growing is because, you know, this conversation started, at least for us, on digital equity, bridging the digital divide. And it certainly is that, but...

You know, sometimes you don't see, if you're not in this field, the clear line that exists between the digital divide part and the economics behind just everyday life. If gas is $5 a gallon, if your groceries are going up, well, an $18 a month Internet solution is going to look much more attractive in this current environment than even before.

Christopher Mitchell (03:46)
Yes, and you're locked into that rate with your contract with the city of Cleveland.

Joshua Edmonds (03:50)
Yeah, until 2030. residents are seeing that. But you know what's very interesting here? And I don't, I'm sure you have a whole thing you're following here, so I don't want to hijack this whole thing, but I haven't talked to you while, so I guess we're just going to do this. But what's really interesting here is that whatever we're doing in Cleveland, within the world of telecom, it's significantly bigger with respect to the impact that it's having on the industry. And so...

Christopher Mitchell (04:01)
No, do it.

Joshua Edmonds (04:18)
From a technology standpoint, sure, next generation fixed wireless were showing the urban capability, which before this was perceivably a rural technology, a micropolitan one. Well, it works in urban environments pretty well. But in addition to that, the way that we've been doing our marketing and our branding and even our contract itself, I'm not saying, and maybe this is just coincidence, but I'm seeing ads that are going out there with Internet providers also locking their rates for five years.

And so it's like, we're not changing your rates for five years. I'm like, that was our contract language that we're doing in Cleveland. That's getting so much subscribers, you know, who are getting on our network. And I think that the industry is now looking at our contract and our subscriber base has been growing rapidly and saying, what can we learn from this DigitalC model? How can this then influence the way that we get subscribers in some of these bigger companies? It's just, there's certain language that we are seeing, certain parallels that exist.

between our reality on the ground and what we're seeing just from some of the other corporate giants.

Christopher Mitchell (05:20)
Well, let me ask you what you're doing with apartment buildings. Cause you've recently been on a couple of webinars, one of which hosted by my friends and colleagues, Sean Gonsalves here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. And the focus was on getting good connections to apartment buildings. You have tackled the single family homes as well as apartment buildings. And I'm curious, are you using the same technology in those larger apartment buildings that you're using in the homes or is it different?

Joshua Edmonds (05:47)
⁓ Great question. No, it is different. Sometimes it sounds weird, like, yeah, absolutely case by case. So we have extended our arsenal. So we'll use the fixed wireless ⁓ solution that we have for to your point single family, but also like scattered site MDU properties where it's like maybe 90 or a hundred of these smaller units will use the same traditional install. However, for other apartment buildings, we might

Christopher Mitchell (05:51)
Right, right case by case, I'm sure.

Joshua Edmonds (06:16)
leverage something like Positron or in coax, which is a software solution over existing infrastructure. And then, you know, we'll still do the wiring and those. So it really depends. There's other MDUs where we've deployed Wi-Fi solutions that can actually penetrate and exceed the 100 100 symmetrical threshold that we usually offer for majority of our subscribers. So it is case by case. And I think that's like the interesting part about being in the space that we're in.

because when you're traditionally talking about the digital divide, it's who has access to Internet and who doesn't, traditionally. In our case, it's like, we're beyond that. Now we're just trying to figure out how best to serve, given whatever circumstance. And so you'll take inventory of the existing infrastructure. I mean, if we have fiber, we will obviously use that. But if there is anything else that guarantees us the speed and the reliability.

we will use that and we will continue to expand our arsenal. mean, there's one day where we might be putting satellites in the sky and doing low earth orbiting ourselves. I mean, we'll do whatever we can to connect residents.

Christopher Mitchell (07:22)
So I want to ask about what happens after you get people connected because DigitalC ⁓ and Cleveland at this point has a real reputation for digital equity. Do you just run away from people and say, we'll see you when we send you the next bill or what do do to help them out?

Joshua Edmonds (07:38)
Yeah, so we also do provide training services that are free for residents and that's been one of the biggest draws. mean within ⁓ two years we had trained, I believe it was over 28,000 residents last sessions that we conducted. So close to 30,000 trainings were conducted in like two years. And a lot of that ⁓ has been residents reaching out to us. Now we've been proactive. We go to community events. We'll set up at the rec centers and churches all throughout, but you know, they'll reach out and say,

hey, like my kids have been talking to me about AI, like help. It's like, okay, well that's the starting point. Or even the other ones who are like, my son or my nephew got me this Roku, I don't know what this means, I don't even know how to use this, help. And so a lot of this is like enhancing their user experience, just so they don't feel like digital novices in perpetuity. But in addition to that, we're actually doing a 10K coming up in honor of our 10,000th household.

And we're inviting our subscribers out to that. We're doing a spaghetti dinner in the neighborhood the night before. We're inviting them out to that. We're consistently just inviting them out because these are Clevelanders, we're Clevelanders, we're a Cleveland company, I live in this city too. And it's just great to be able to have that communal part of the community-based network being fulfilled.

So, you I think that whenever someone becomes a subscriber of ours, it's like that's just the entry point into our web of opportunity. Our bigger thing is just volunteerism, engagement, getting them out there to just help spread the word. The number one way we get customers on our network is by other residents also pushing out that information. By far, it's like 80%. It's like our customer acquisition strategy is residents tapping other residents.

Christopher Mitchell (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I don't want to leave that race behind. had a question about that, first I'll note Tarana is a sponsor of that it looks like, and they seem to be not just a vendor for you, but a partner.

Joshua Edmonds (09:27)
you

Yes, yes. Carl Guardino is an incredible Basil. I mean, the whole team is. Craig, he's came out here several times to help our install team just become more efficient. But yes, Tarana Wireless, they are the presenting sponsor. The name of our race is the Digital Dash. You know, we did not come up with that. I did not come up with that. That name was proposed by our government affairs manager. But what I love about it is there's a little bit of...

We're a little bit out of touch with reality in sense that we think a 10K is gonna be a dash. But nonetheless, it really is our attempt at spreading awareness on one side of like, the digital divide is still a thing. But also, you know, not just existing in this bubble where the only thing that we can do has to have a computer associated with it. It's like a big part of the digital divide is the people part. And if you're able to do things for people, bringing them together.

shedding that awareness like those are the things that you know, I think matter and this is our first attempt at being very creative with blending the people athletics health Community Internet all together. So we'll see how it goes

Christopher Mitchell (10:44)
buying it.

I'm not buying it. You just want to you just want to go out there and show everyone that you got the fastest time you're going to come in in the top 10. You're gonna

Joshua Edmonds (10:50)
No, we have

a guy here who actually runs marathons on our team. like, yeah, no, he's got it. ⁓ At this point, I'm running just to complete it. I gotta look good, I guess, with the cameras and wave and you guys see me passing out and throwing up at the end, I did it wrong.

Christopher Mitchell (11:08)
Ha ha.

Well, I want to, I want to come back to just what you had said about approaching 10,000 subscribers. I don't want to, I don't want to brush over that. I've got some, you know, some additional questions and things we're going to be talking about, but like, also just don't want to sit here and just focus on this too much. But like one of the things I learned in years of working with Travis who built a USI fiber in Minneapolis is that talk is cheap. You can have all these plans. You can have all these business plans, connecting 10,000 people's 10,000 units. It's freaking hard.

And, and, then keeping the churn down and, ⁓ and being able to grow that. mean, you must be hitting areas in some neighborhoods where you're starting to get a sense of like where Tarana starts to, I mean, that six gigahertz must be helpful because like, you've got to be saturating the airwaves in some of these neighborhoods. So, you know, where, where are you seeing a little bit of pain and like, and how is that churn rate?

Joshua Edmonds (12:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'll say that where we see the biggest pain right now has been on just the customer payment. I mean, people are struggling and it puts us in unique position to be a mission driven organization and be like, pay up or we're cutting the service off. Like, and we don't do that. We actually throttle them. And it's so funny because like you'll throttle and then people will call angrily and be like, why is my Internet slow? And it's like, you know you gotta pay for it.

Christopher Mitchell (12:32)
You're on

paper in three months.

Joshua Edmonds (12:36)
And then once we have that conversation, then they just pay, oh, well, I didn't know I had to pay. I'm like, guys, all right, sure. So I think, again, the customer payment part, and I think that's with any Internet provider, billing is just, if you can figure that out, you have a really, really bright future for a lot of Internet providers.

Christopher Mitchell (12:43)
You

Right. is, this is, this is something that's famous. And Bob Frankston talked about, talked about this for decades, which is that like building these networks isn't hard compared to building the billing system. And a lot of the complication in the network is around the billing system. And if we treated this differently, and I think that there would be downsides to that as well, but there's worth, it's well worth considering and even trying it in some areas, but the billing system's really, really hard and complicated.

Joshua Edmonds (13:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's the hard one. I'm going to list other, I guess, pain points we have, but that is the migraine. If we got rid of that, I'm like, I can deal with the ankle pain, this other one, but that migraine has got to be figured out. So the billing, and then I'd also say from a technology network standpoint, our team, it's not like I have thousands of employees, we're at 39. And to have 39 doing all this work that we're doing,

Christopher Mitchell (13:35)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (13:52)
We don't have in Cleveland like a huge telecom base where I can just source talent to help keep this network going. And so oftentimes like we are, I would say we're keeping things together with bubblegum and tape because we've had some phenomenal philanthropic partners, public partners who've invested in us, but it's not like we can go after the shiniest thing either.

And so oftentimes like our internal technology, it's good enough for who we serve, but we're always seeing where it could be better, where we could have a more efficient tool, a more efficient CRM, a more, I mean, I can go all down the tool pathway, but it's like, would say that it's hard because internally sometimes it feels like we understand the concept of time travel and we can map it out on paper, but we know we're just, we're just not at the point where we can actually experience it.

Christopher Mitchell (14:35)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (14:50)
And so we're seeing things like, it be really great to have AI be able to do this for us. But we don't have a developer who can help do the API integrations for stuff like that. That's the frustrating part. Then I'll say from a network perspective ⁓ in the field itself, yeah, we're seeing ⁓ actually with subscriber density, the bandwidth allocations are things we have to just be very cognizant of, especially on the holidays, vacations.

People do lot of stay at home vacations now because Spirit Airlines is gone. So like with these bandwidth usages, there's a lot of bandwidth that's being consumed on our network and there's certain radios that we are now having to say we might need another radio. Which in telecom that's a great thing from a business perspective. But when your radios are X price and your Internet is Y price.

Christopher Mitchell (15:22)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (15:43)
You're like, gosh, another radio. Great, you guys are really using this. That's great. But that's another front end cost that you have to pay for in addition to that $18 a month Internet on Tarana Wireless. mean, that's just not, that's very difficult to maintain. Thankfully, we've had some phenomenal workarounds. My head of engineering, Adrian, has just been great with finding bandwidth compacting strategies that make us, you know,

not have to spend what we would traditionally spend without that. So we're getting smarter in some regards, but I would say it's less on the terrestrial side of Tirana's performance and it's much more on the neighbors and residents and their bandwidth consumption just being a lot more than I think we anticipated.

Christopher Mitchell (16:16)
Mm-hmm.

So next year when I talk to you, you're going to be raging about bandwidth hogs, that old language from the DSL days.

Joshua Edmonds (16:36)
I mean, it's like, I'm thankful

that they're using the network, but I'm like, my gosh, you are really using it. Like, I liken this to like, if I was maybe the owner of a buffet and I'm like, yeah, I know I said all you can eat, but like, seriously, three plates of bacon? Like, come on.

Christopher Mitchell (16:57)
So let me ask you, what do you think ⁓ the greatest impact that you've made is? We've talked about how you've built the network, you have neighborhoods, a lot of your subscribers have never had Internet service before in their home. ⁓ You are providing digital skills training. You're providing ⁓ physical ⁓ exercise now. What's greatest impact in the city of Cleveland from what DigitalC is doing?

Joshua Edmonds (17:17)
laughter ⁓

You know, there's so many different ways to answer that question. There was a council member who had said something before, and he said that...

So Glenville is a historic neighborhood, it's historic black neighborhood that we are adjacent to. We're in the Hough midtown area, but Glenville is adjacent to that. And he sits on the Utilities Committee and he had said something about how I needed to be more present in the neighborhoods. For which we do our door knocking, but regardless, heard. There's always more that we could do. And he was like, the kids today need to see you. He's like, you just walking around, you just being you.

they need to see that as an example. He said, you even operating and running DigitalC, that means something a lot for the black youth in Cleveland, giving them that example and you showing up with something that actually works. He said that goes so much further than you could ever realize. And so, it's, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (18:25)
Yeah, you're going to be against the Titans. International companies

with a Cleveland born and bred brand here.

Joshua Edmonds (18:33)
So, there's this cultural anchor piece here, but then I look at other cities who have reached out to us who are saying, hey, you all have shown us a sense that this is possible. It is winnable to do it the way that you're doing it. We can build this from the ground up.

And it can be something that our residents are buying into or saving them money. We're showing up as a city supporting our residents. And so I'm seeing even that impact being multiplied as these seeds are being planted of possibilities that people didn't maybe they didn't see the possibilities before and doing a model like what we're doing. And then I would say just for the residents themselves, ⁓ being able to provide the service and arguably what I've been calling a fiscal pandemic.

You know, know that before we had the COVID-19 one, but this one is like people can't afford basic things. And in addition to that, AI or whatever is causing the job market to be completely skewed where you have people who are very qualified who can't land positions. And so right now the economy is one that looks very much like, again, a fiscal pandemic for a lot of people. And to have the city, Cleveland, that is the butt of so many jokes.

actually be leading something that is legitimately saving people money. I think that's also something where residents are seeing, heck yeah to our city, like yes, we did it. Like we're actually showing up and being valuable in one of the toughest moments for a lot of people. And so I just even look at the residential impact at scale that in some of the toughest times, if you can save people money, I just think that that's, you know, one of the, ⁓ I would say that's a bedrock for success for any initiative really.

public sectors.

Christopher Mitchell (20:18)
It's funny

to me that you came back to money because when I, when I, when we studied Lafayette, Louisiana, and they went through this multi-year battle, one of the most ferocious battles that we saw, and this was in the early to mid 2000s, ⁓ the Aughts, they, ⁓ they ⁓ discussed how after they got the network built, one of the things that made them feel good was that pride of having it local and being on the map internationally.

as having one of the best networks. And I feel like you walked right up to there to that, like that local pride and that, know, and then you came back to saving money. But I, I think it is important to note that there's a lot to be said for that local pride in this era of like McDonald's everywhere that, ⁓ you know, that you've done something that's, that's local, that's amazing. ⁓ You know, providing jobs for 39 people who are making a difference in the community. That's, it's remarkable.

Joshua Edmonds (21:13)
Agreed, okay, fair point. And I'll say the interesting thing about the local pride piece because in Cleveland, I think there's an ⁓ original pie that was sliced up between the sports teams, the pastors, and the politicians. That's kind of it. And so here this DigitalC is carving out its own lane in its own weird way to be like, well, that's pie too.

Christopher Mitchell (21:15)
You

Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (21:42)
And like, you know, people are to your point, lifting it up. They are, you know, saying, man, I'm proud to have my DigitalC. When I see residents posting some of the reviews, the install team that we have, a lot of them are from Cleveland as well. And so it's like Cleveland neighbors are quite literally installing Cleveland neighbors. And, you know, they're mentioning my name. He was so great. He was so nice. He was this, he was that. When we were going through some of our tougher times at our

the table, the media's having these campaigns against us. When the residents begin saying things like, keep your head up, CEO, we're rooting for you. Cleveland's behind you. This is one of the greatest things that ever happened to Cleveland. The way that the residents are protecting us, shielding us, uplifting us, I mean, I'm not an emotional person, but if I was, I'd be crying telling that because it was just the way that they showed up at our last council hearing we had before the ⁓ council approved.

a 4.35 million reimbursement for us. We actually had three residents who came. They knew they weren't going to speak, but they just wanted to show up and just be there in solidarity. Like those are the things that, to your point, the local pride piece, yes, absolutely, it pulls at my heartstrings and it really just keeps the team going.

Christopher Mitchell (23:02)
And Cleveland has made a major turnaround. know, like if you had done this in like St. Paul or Charlotte, cities where there's a great need for what you're doing, it would have been one thing, but Cleveland was toward the bottom. And, and now it's a national model. I mean, that's just, it's a remarkable turnaround. I want to ask you, but I want to move on to, the performance based contract and, ⁓ and just, I wanted people to have a sense of like how the contract

that you have with the city is structured, which we talked before, we're not going to go back over it. You have assembled multiple philanthropic and grant based awards in order to support your network build and your operations. The city is one key part of that. So if people can go back to previous interviews to get a sense of how some of that works, but how does the contract with the city work?

Joshua Edmonds (23:50)
Yeah, so we have every year a performance goal that is split in two ways. ⁓ One on Internet households and then two on ⁓ residents going through training. And so we training goals, Internet goals. And so this year we have to do, I think, 17,000 trainings and these all have to be new. Like I can't just go train the same 17,000 people every year and call it success. No, it has to be new.

and they audit every single person, address, and signature to ensure that they're all new people.

Christopher Mitchell (24:25)
Yeah, you have fresh

scars from the most recent audit. We might talk about that in a second. We'll see what kind of time we have when we get there.

Joshua Edmonds (24:27)
Yep. Please. And then

in addition to that, we also ⁓ have to connect 7,100 new households to the Internet this year. Now, what qualifies for Internet subscribing households per this contract would be households that were receiving the Affordable Connectivity Program, for which as we know in Cleveland, that's a,

That's a lot of residents historically. mean, a lot of the big cities had huge numbers of that. So that helps us significantly. But the other one is if a resident did not have access to the Internet in the past or if they were receiving Internet but it was not at broadband speeds. So we are very grateful to the FCC for making those broadband speeds 100 over 20. That just helps us a lot. those are essentially the broader.

Christopher Mitchell (25:17)
Right, if they had a more

aggressive goal, it would be harder for you to hit those milestones.

Joshua Edmonds (25:22)
That or if it was just a more relaxed FCC who said, oh, let's just keep it at 25.3. And I'm like, ah, no. So all in all, what makes this hard is the sense that this is a reimbursed, reimbursable contract. And so we have to do all the work and let's say that we do this year 6,800 households instead of 7,100. Well, now we're at the mercy of the council. And if the council says, you know what, you fell short, you get zero. Well then.

Christopher Mitchell (25:27)
Mm.

Joshua Edmonds (25:52)
get zero and all that work just doesn't count.

Christopher Mitchell (25:53)
And that happened

last year with where you fell a little short, but you still got they prorated the contract, which was fortunate.

Joshua Edmonds (26:02)
Fortunate, but I think...

Christopher Mitchell (26:04)
Which was, yeah,

better than the worst case scenario is a different way of putting it.

Joshua Edmonds (26:08)
Yeah,

I think the thing that makes it hard though, and you know we've had conversations with them behind closed doors, ⁓ is the fact that within the first year of our contract we were still building a network and then expecting to subscribe people simultaneously.

Christopher Mitchell (26:21)
Mm hmm. Right. And I start

I misspoke. I want to make sure people get it 2024. You didn't hit the milestone 2025 you did.

Joshua Edmonds (26:28)
Absolutely, and exceeded. But in 2024, we were building our network. in January, we didn't have anything. And so we were building this thing while at the same time still trying to get subscribers and still trying to navigate municipal permitting to do so. And so when the permitting was slow on things, we're like, we don't have any control over that. And we still essentially got punished for it. And so I think that's that's what made it hard. And

Christopher Mitchell (26:30)
And exceeded.

Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (26:56)
What people see maybe from the headline is like, well, DigitalC was penalized a million dollars. No, we were penalized more than a million dollars because we had other funders who saw that and said, you know what? This is a little bit too hot for me. I'd rather invest my money elsewhere. And so we were almost like triple penalized for something that was originally out of our control. But it taught, you know, it taught me just a really valuable lesson here, which is like you.

If you're doing any type of these projects, any broadband thing, you're leveraging philanthropic capital or whatever, you have to be so darn good at managing the narrative. Like every step of the way, it's almost obsessively good. If you are not, and someone finds any way to like carve something in or weasel something in,

they will use that as leverage against you in ways that you just never want. Like never get hooked. Like do your best to control end to end as much as you possibly can. And if you can't and you end up on our situation, fine. I mean, you got to figure it out. But if I had to do it again, I probably would have been raising the flag on permitting much sooner.

Christopher Mitchell (28:06)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (28:07)
and just

letting everyone know, if we don't hit the goal, this is why, versus after the fact trying to say, well, it was because of that. No one wants to hear that. If you promise results, you gotta give them results.

Christopher Mitchell (28:14)
Yeah.

At the same time, you risk alienating the permitting office and those folks, those folks. And so you got to have a good relationship with them. So it's, there's, this is the sort of thing that like, I feel like people don't appreciate when they haven't run a business, which is, ⁓ you can stand outside and be like, well, you should have done this other thing, not understanding the implications of that other decision.

Joshua Edmonds (28:39)
That's right. There's so many times where even if we take a hit, if DigitalC takes a hit on our brand or whatever, ⁓ we're questioning the legitimacy of your numbers. We're doing this, we're doing that.

Sometimes you also just have to let it happen because it's like as someone's looking for blood you almost got to be like, okay fine There you go because like they are looking for something And if you're always just trying to fight and be defensive on everything too, it then just makes them just stay attacking you ⁓ there's been a lot of lessons that we've learned at the intersection of like politics business community and public perception

like managing all of those at once, ⁓ it allows me to sleep really good at night. I should put it that way. The amount of brain power that we're using just to keep positioning DigitalC, I think that we've made it through some very tough fights, just some things where we were very worried in some cases. Now for us right now as we move forward, the big thing is the focus on sustainability. Like this is not something that I want to be like.

a flash in the pan. We've done a great thing of making the big corporate giants adjust the way they do broadband in urban markets. I mean, I think that's a great thing, but I actually think that there's a way to sustain the work that we do, but it does require just more discipline. It does require a lot of creativity and, you know, skating where we know the puck is going to be. When we look at some of those non-deployment funds for BEAD, you know, we're looking at that with a degree of optimism.

When we began even thinking about what another presidential administration looks like in the future, how do we position the work that we do here? It would be nice, or it would have been nice, with all of the infrastructure and jobs that money allocated, all the ARPA money allocated, that there would have been other cities with other examples for what urban broadband could do. And I'm not saying that we're the only one, but...

I truly, and I know you would know this better than me, from a big city standpoint, I don't know what other big city, from an urban broadband, alternative broadband perspective, what others did with their ARPA money. And that is a real conversation needs to be had. Like these mayors and everyone else stood up, beating their chests saying they're gonna do it. And now all of a sudden, we have a pilot in Detroit and we did what we did in Cleveland. I would like to see what other cities did as well.

Christopher Mitchell (30:54)
Mm-hmm.

And we're going to, come back to Detroit. Um, on that though, one of the things that always sets me off is it happens more in DC than other places, but it happens in other places too, is there's this idea, whether it's among lawmakers or in the media that we're all rowing in the same direction, right? Like you're connecting people, AT&T, charter spectrum are connecting people and we're all just trying to figure out how to get people connected. And we've got some different ideas on how to do it, but we all have the same goal.

Does it feel like that when ⁓ you're in Cleveland here making these investments?

Joshua Edmonds (31:43)
No,

we do not all have the same goal. You know, for us, ⁓ DigitalC No, it's not.

Christopher Mitchell (31:55)
I ⁓ don't want to put you in a bad position to bad mouth. It's important

for people to know that you're not facing inquisitive city council members who just are curious about your numbers. City council members don't usually have significant staffing, but it turns out that when it comes down to being able to grill you, they get these unpaid staffers from the big telecom companies that are feeding them all kinds of information and everything else, and they're suddenly experts on this stuff.

Joshua Edmonds (32:24)
I'll say it is frustrating, but at the same time, my mind goes into its refining. It's refining us in our operations to be more disciplined when it comes to data. As we know, with nonprofits, nonprofits and public sector alike ⁓ might not be the best at keeping their data or making sure that lockout, tagout with respect to like...

I would just say making sure that everything that we do is in line ⁓ with our impact. You know, one of the big things I see within the digital divide space, for example, if I were to ask an organization who might have been doing digital literacy training for a decade, how much more digitally literate is your city now? I doubt that they could actually answer that question. ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (33:11)
Yeah, we've,

I'm sorry, this, this strikes so close to home because I've for the past three years, every few months, I'm like, give me a good example of a person that will stand up and say, this is how it changed my life. And we know that a fair amount of the people who are going through this, this might be a hard part of their life and they don't want a bunch of scrutiny and like to be in the media as like a person who was down on their luck, who didn't have the education that they needed.

and then they turn things around, right? I can appreciate that. But there are some of those folks and we are not tracking those folks. We are not telling those stories.

Joshua Edmonds (33:46)
And that's the part where it's where I would say it's refining when we're working with counsel and the staffers and whoever else is in the background. It allows us the opportunity to say, fine, if you guys are gonna come that hard against us, well then we're just gonna go that hard in making sure that we have the system in place where we become impenetrable. So it's like, it works both ways where I'm like, okay, we know what you guys are doing. So now all of sudden.

If I see an iceberg a mile away and I still hit that, I'm blaming me. I'm like, shame on me. I know where you guys are coming. So if I hit that, shame on me. So for example, this year, I know we had to connect 7,100 households. No, I had to connect 7,300 households because I'm going to assume that someone's going to say, well, wait a second. You mean to tell me 100 % of those households, you got to go extra. But it's like, I've already told my team this. This is no surprise. We need to go over the goal.

Christopher Mitchell (34:18)
You

Joshua Edmonds (34:43)
because I'm assuming that some of these households are just gonna remove for whatever reason. That's just an assumption.

Christopher Mitchell (34:49)
Yeah, nobody

knows what their service was. And so they may answer a survey and they may appear to qualify. And how are you? can't like, you're not going to like bust into their house and do a search of their records.

Joshua Edmonds (35:01)
And I think this is the part where it's like ⁓ we're playing a game, so to speak, that has massive implications, but there's clearly ways that you could win this game too. But it's like the minute I even play these obvious things, then all of a sudden I'm now publicly getting scrutinized for, well, you should have, you should have. That's like, I don't even have the ability to do that. We had to win so definitively on this contract.

because that's just what it requires. That's why I made the point earlier when we said 2025 exceeding the goal, because it's like, if I don't exceed the goal and I just arrive at goal, that just gives someone the ammunition to say, well, two of those houses don't count. And actually you connected 7,098 instead of 7,100. So zero. I'm not even playing that game. So it's just interesting, but even on the broader data point,

with respect to just the impact on the nonprofit side. You know, I've been maybe more vocal about it in the past, but it's a nuanced part-run vocal. So I don't necessarily attack the notion of a digital navigator. I believe that is absolutely valuable. But I think sometimes in the digital equity conversations, there's...

I prioritize infrastructure heavily because I believe doing the thing that is in someone's home is going to have a greater impact. That's just what I believe. Someone else might say, well, there's a lot of Internet networks, just people are underserved, but the digital navigator, that's going to connect them to the opportunity that could, and I could see where that rationale comes from. I'm looking at PEMDAS where I'm like, the P is the infrastructure, that comes first. But someone else could be like, no, no, no, no, we're doing this thing. And so,

I would even say within the digital equity space, I don't even think that we're all rolling in the same direction either. I think that there's like a prioritization matrix that just differs depending on what organization you're running or where you're sitting in.

Christopher Mitchell (37:03)
Right. I sometimes think of it like, if you imagine a neighborhood where everyone has a vehicle and in 40 % of the homes, it's an old van on blocks and people are like, you know what we got to do? We got to teach you people how to drive. Like that is what we got to do here. And it's just ignoring the fact that a lot of the folks don't have a connection that really works for them. and, and giving them training, isn't going to change that fact, whether that's affordability, whether that's a reliability issue or just trust with a company that

may have ruined their credit. mean, you know, for people who haven't been poor, you don't understand that like you get in these circumstances where like Comcast sending a bill to collections is perhaps the cascading thing that ruins your credit. And, and even though you know, you should have paid that bill and you should have figured out, you know, you should have made different decisions along the way, you should have been more lucky. Like, you still have that, that feeling that like, that's the one that broke my back, you know,

Joshua Edmonds (37:59)
That's right.

Christopher Mitchell (38:00)
And like now to be told, well, you have an option from them. All right. Great. Thanks a lot.

Joshua Edmonds (38:05)
And I think that's been the probably one of most illuminating things for DigitalC because we get to show up, no one knew who we were. And so it's like, not like there was this history of DigitalC sent me to collections. Like we did, the nonprofit sent you to collections. No, we didn't. And so there's this clean slate approach that we get to show up with. Now, are we always going to have that? No, there might be residents who might've had a bad experience with us. That's absolutely plausible. But at the same time,

Christopher Mitchell (38:19)
Thanks.

Joshua Edmonds (38:33)
we get to show up and say, we haven't sent any of y'all to collections. We're not the reason why you might not got approved for that car that you desperately needed to make it to your court appointment and you didn't make it. And so now the result, this spiral happens. Like we are not the reason for that. So a lot more residents are willing to give us a chance. They're still skeptical because they don't know who we are, but they're willing to give us a chance because one, they see that price point. Two, they see that we're local. And three, more than likely,

their neighbor, their grandma, their aunt, their uncle, someone is like, no, no, I have it, it works great. I've been saving money. One of the greatest deals that we have is with the school district here where they make the service free. So it's free for families in the school district and that has done wonders, one, for our sign-up goals, but two, just for getting the word out. Because if you're skeptical about a service but someone says, it's free, what?

Christopher Mitchell (39:20)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (39:25)
what do you have to be skeptical about? You're not paying anything. And so that has been probably one of our bigger shot in the arms. But what that's done is now that has opened up the pathway for the training to be much more effective because now we have a base that we're operating from. You're now going home to your Internet connection that we installed. We know it works. We're monitoring it.

Christopher Mitchell (39:28)
Yeah.

Joshua Edmonds (39:48)
And then at the same time, you can come here with any of the questions you have. I think that's the way that this should flow. And if it flows another way, great. But that's the way that we see it. And I see that as a very effective counterpunch to the digital divide.

Christopher Mitchell (40:02)
Just as we move on, I want to say that I think it would be really funny if you were able to say to people, no, we've only sent one person to collections. It's not you. And he knows what he did.

Joshua Edmonds (40:12)
Ha ha ha

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Christopher Mitchell (40:16)
I wanted to talk about being under a microscope. I think you've already covered that pretty well. want to ask you about, to get a sense of like what a city could actually do. Let's just say for a second that ⁓ I made it my life's goal and I succeeded in becoming a super popular mayor of Cleveland. I brought Wemby to town. We won a bunch of championships. Like I was right in my popularity, city council's doing what I wanted to do. And I said,

Joshua, I don't want to just give you more money. also, we want to build more city infrastructure. We're going to add on some municipal fiber. You know, what would help you? Would it be like, you know, arterials and fiber that like you could lease at a reasonable cost if there was like municipal infrastructure that was available? Would it be actually going so far as to connect homes in some neighborhood that was like heavily connected? So it takes some of the stress off the wireless. Like what could, what could a leader do to like take some stress off and help you hit your goals more?

Joshua Edmonds (41:10)
⁓ wow, what a great reality. Not to say that that's not happening, but man, we were... ⁓ So I would say the city had a plan at one point.

Christopher Mitchell (41:14)
you

Joshua Edmonds (41:25)
⁓ to bring SiFi networks in and they were going to build a fiber optic network throughout the entire city. And we were looked at more so as the emergency response to the current digital divide and SiFi was going to be the long-term plan for the future of Cleveland's connectivity needs. Public sector could leverage it, residents could leverage a business, like, I mean, I get it, but that didn't happen.

And the reason why I'm bringing that up is, and you remember the fights that we used to have in Detroit with respect to us trying to do the municipal open access. ⁓ You know, I still strongly believe in that model. But why I believe in that model is because it, one, it brings competition. I think the $18, what it does to Cleveland is it forces the other telecoms to lower their prices too.

Christopher Mitchell (41:59)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (42:16)
It forces the other ones who think about increasing their bill every six months is like that dang DigitalC in the background. If I increase this, that company, that customer is jumping. And we've had stories of customers who didn't jump, but they threatened to. And as a result, the other cable company said, you know, we'll find, we'll, we'll reduce your rate for X amount of years or whatever. ⁓ So like there's power in that. And I think there's power in competition, but what I would want.

or what I would desire from this person who's doing all these things, this very charismatic mayor, whatever, is for them to sit down and almost draft the plan that they see with respect to the future of the city and then leveraging the asset that you already invested in. So for example, we're doing ⁓ millions, billions, I guess, of renovations to make a lakefront for Cleveland, a world-renowned lakefront.

Lakefront we deserve and I love that. But you know, I would think that this is where you would want to leverage your asset that is in all these neighborhoods. This should be the welcome to Cleveland that you see that then goes end to end. ⁓ As new buildings are being developed, the consideration is, hey, I'm going to put that thing that we invested in here to show that we're capable of building local here too. ⁓ I think that we in many cases

stay in the conversation of the nonprofit that is making a difference in the neighborhoods. But if someone were to see what we really could do, expanding that capability to developments all across and really just pushing and promoting, I think that would go really far. I'm not going to say it would go further than building a fiber optic network that's an open access one. I think that's probably what I would want more than anything is just even a side of DigitalC. I think that's just a thing that a city should do. But

you know, short of that, I think it would just be someone having a nuanced vision and just championing no matter the opposition from the big companies championing this thing and saying, this is a reminder that we did what Cleveland would do. That in absence of investment from here or here, we decided to take the matters in our own hands. We built something we all could be proud of and we were going to leverage that.

Christopher Mitchell (44:20)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (44:42)
end to end within this city. Like that's what I would want.

Christopher Mitchell (44:45)
So I left open the possibility that it would be exclusive to you and you went immediately to it should be open. I mean, you want a level playing field to continue to ⁓ compete and to keep you honest is what I'm hearing.

Joshua Edmonds (44:56)
Yeah,

yeah, you know, because the thing is, before I was the CEO of DigitalC, like I was fighting for fighting for open and that was a genuine fight I was having that wasn't, you know, just for the spur of the moment. That was something I legitimately believe even beyond my days of DigitalC. Whenever that time comes, I'm still going to be believing in that because I inherently believe American telecom is so non-competitive.

Christopher Mitchell (45:05)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (45:26)
that we're in the position that we're in. And we use other factors like politics and garbage, whatever else in the background that then shapes quite literally the futures of our kids in America. Like this is crazy that we can't understand that there's a superior model that brings in more competition, that holds providers accountable, that requires very little public oversight because once it's built, it's built.

To me, that is the greatest model that should be built. And the reason why that model is not being built is because whenever that model gets proposed, there is some dumb lobbying campaign that goes against it. People get scared and then they just recluse and then we just keep going with the same dumb system we have. Like at the end of the day, that is the model of superiority that I believe in. I love what we're doing at DigitalC because I believe an element of what we're doing here resembles that approach, which is holding others accountable.

And if you all decide to keep doing what you have been doing historically, we will build our own. And so I think that we are the precursor to that more universal model, but we're showing that it's possible.

Christopher Mitchell (46:36)
Yeah. Amen. All right. What is happening in Detroit before we run out of time?

Joshua Edmonds (46:42)
⁓ So Detroit, know, we have our pilot that is up and running. We have three public housing communities that we're in, all leveraged within the Detroit Housing Commission. Merit Networks has been phenomenal.

Christopher Mitchell (46:56)
Research

and Education Network across Michigan. Great partners, yes.

Joshua Edmonds (47:00)
Phenomenal partner, we love Merit. So we leverage them for the backhaul for our network. So I think that what we've been able to show there is it's possible to leverage these rents to make a massive difference in their urban context, and even suburban and micropole and rural, ⁓ wherever the rent is, this is a model that's replicable. ⁓ In addition to that, ⁓ we actually have, I think on June 5th, a community event that we're going up to.

just be supportive of within those housing communities as well. So think it's much more the traditional community engagement, the data collection, showcasing the impact and the usage. And I will say the folks up in Detroit, they're getting a 500 over 100 plan.

And so it's great to be able to showcase, like here in Cleveland, we do the 100 symmetrical. We have started tiering with the 200 over 100, but we're able to do more on the bandwidth side. And so to be able to do 500 up there, that just shows the full range of what Tarana is able to do within an urban context.

Christopher Mitchell (48:01)
That's great.

so let me ask you then, ⁓ is there anything else? mean, this is, this has been wonderful. mean, I feel like, ⁓ what you're doing is so great and, would love to find a way to, actually, ⁓ that does remind me actually as I say that is that like, if another city was like, we really want to get this started now in the past and other episodes, we have talked about the unique circumstances that DigitalC had, ⁓ years before as one community.

building ⁓ trust among certain stakeholders, having a network to draw upon revenues. ⁓ But if a city basically want to say, you know what, we're going to take this seriously, we got $10 million as seed funding, and we're going to get going. Do you think it's possible for other places to do this sort of a thing?

Joshua Edmonds (48:47)
Absolutely it's possible. ⁓ I think what we had to look at the delta between impossible and improbable. ⁓ I don't think it's impossible but I think it's very improbable that they will because... No! Right, yeah there's two. But no, and the reason why I say it's improbable is largely due to the factors of risk that are associated with it. We've had to make promises on faith.

Christopher Mitchell (49:00)
because there's only one Josh Edmonds and he's a track star in DePaul.

Joshua Edmonds (49:16)
that this stuff would work out. If you would have asked me in 2023, did I really think that we could have 10,000 by summer of 2026? I probably would have told you on a podcast, absolutely, because of digital divide, I would have gave you that answer. But after that interview is over, I'm sitting there like, how in the world are we gonna make this happen? Like how? And I don't really think that cities often get the luxury of being able to promote, especially in the vein of technology.

that this will work and promising your stakeholders that and then actually not believing it. I think that they would see through it. ⁓ And so I think that it would just be improbable due to political factors and lobbying from corporations that if you have a mayor, a council or, you know, other public stakeholders who are true to their roots and who are committed generally.

Christopher Mitchell (49:48)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Edmonds (50:15)
Yes, it can happen. But if there is anyone who is wavering or who wants another position or wants another thing,

I just don't see it happening. It's not a matter of technology. It's not a matter of mental capability or competence. It's not even a matter of that anymore. To me, it is purely a matter of political will. And if that political will is just not insulated properly, probability increases.

Christopher Mitchell (50:46)
Right. We need to do hard work to build coalitions, to put backbone in the elected officials to make this a high priority rather than priority 12, something that they'll mention in their speeches, but know that they're not going to get around to.

Joshua Edmonds (51:00)
Absolutely. Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (51:03)
Joshua, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure talking to you. And I know that you inspire so many people with the work that you've done and just so thankful for everything you're doing out there.

Joshua Edmonds (51:14)
Nope, I appreciate any chance that we get to connect. I genuinely enjoy these. I like this intro. I liked your other broadband when you used to do more, but I like this intro too. All right, all right. I like them both, but it's always a pleasure.

Christopher Mitchell (51:24)
This is, we're still working on it. I, know, I don't think it's there yet, but we'll figure it out. I mean, the other one came from

Travis, Travis and his wife actually, ⁓ who got annoyed. And so he would listen to it each morning that it came out and ⁓ loud, like not on headphones. And his wife was just like, my God, it's that Chris Mitchell guy again. And, and so I started hamming it up and it turned out to be gold. So I just have to find another muse, I think.

Joshua Edmonds (51:45)
Yeah, yeah, I really I

really like that I mean whenever you do it I would always laugh like this is like legitimately comedic for me I mean this one's good, too, but yeah

Christopher Mitchell (51:54)
Hahaha.

Yeah. All right. I'll find some way to, make myself less serious in order to do a better intro.

Joshua Edmonds (52:03)
Thank you. You got it. you.

Christopher Mitchell (52:05)
Thank you, Josh.

Jordan Pittman (52:08)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unbuffered Podcast. We have transcripts for this and other episodes available at ILSR.org/podcast. While you're there, check out our other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcasts. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show. Follow us on Bluesky. Our handle is @communitynets.

You can catch the latest research from all of our initiatives by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org While you're there, please take a moment to donate. Your support in any amount helps keep us going. Unbuffered is produced by Christopher Mitchell with editing provided by me, Jordan Pittman. Until next time, thanks for listening.