Fiber Broadband Association Brings Regional Fiber Connect Shows on Road

August 30, 2022 –After a nearly 40 percent increase in attendance between the Fiber Connect broadband shows in 2021 and 2022, the Fiber Broadband Association has decided to take its trade shows on the road.

The trade group’s new Regional Fiber Connect conference series is bringing the industry’s technology and community leadership together with events in targeted locations around the country, CEO Gary Bolton and Vice Chair Joseph “JJ” Jones said in a Thursday interview with Broadband Breakfast.

The most recent event on August 23 in Frisco, Colorado, had about 200 guests, Bolton said. Topics were focused around educating the entire “ecosystem” of fiber broadband, and included funds acquisition and marketing strategies.

Noteworthy presentations included Sarah Smith, National Telecommunications and Information Administration federal program officer for Colorado and Wyoming, and Colorado Broadband Office Executive Director Brandy Reitter.

Attendance at the Memphis-based Fiber Connect trade show jumped from 2,041 attendees in June 2021 to 2,854 registrants for the June 2022 conference.

The regional traveling event series was conceived of as a means to reach industry players and community leaders unable to attend the Association’s annual conference. Typically, 75 percent of regional conference attendees are first-timers, Jones said.

Communities must lead the way

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Joe Biden in November 2021, provided $65 billion for the construction of broadband infrastructure. This investment, along with state funding, has stimulated unprecedented broadband expansion. Bolton has previously called our time “pivotal” and recent broadband investments “monumental.”

Bolton and Jones highlighted the role of local, community-level leadership in deploying funding to close the “digital divide.”

The next Regional Fiber Connect 2022 event is scheduled to be held in Columbus, Ohio, this November.