Registration Open
Breakfast
Welcome and Keynote, Beyond Gigabits: Building Networks Customers Never Want to Leave
Network performance is no longer measured solely by speed tests—it is measured by customer trust.
Today's highest-performing broadband providers understand that resilient, intelligent network infrastructure is directly connected to customer experience, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and long-term subscriber loyalty. Every outage avoided, every service issue resolved before the customer notices, and every meaningful customer interaction strengthens a provider's brand while reducing costly churn.
Jeff Gavlinski
Mountain Connect, CEO
Gary Bolton
Fiber Broadband Association, CEO
Roger Timmerman
UTOPIA Fiber, Executive Director
Dennis Pappas
NextLight, Director-Fiber Network
Katie Epeseth
EPB, Vice President - New Products
Matt Larsen
Vistabeam, CEO
Alberto Garcia
GFiber, Government & Community Affairs Manager
Exhibit Hall Hours
Roundtables: Deep-Dive Discussions with Industry Leaders
- Where Is Real Growth Coming From Over the Next 3 Years? (WAS Growth Strategies for the Next Five Years)
- Build vs. Buy vs. Partner: How Are You Deciding in 2026?
- Overbuilding: Threat, Opportunity, or Both?
- Partnerships That Actually Work (and the Ones That Don’t)
- Private Equity, Public Funding, or Organic Growth—What’s the Smart Play?
- What Will Break Your Network in 5 Years That You’re Not Planning For?
__________________________________________________________________
- What’s Actually Slowing Down BEAD Deployment—and How Are You Fixing It?
- Matching Funds: Creative Ways to Close the Gap Without Killing ROI
- Winning vs. Losing BEAD Applications: What Are We Learning?
- Post-Award Reality: What No One Told You About Execution
- Rural vs. Urban Operations: What’s Fundamentally Different?
__________________________________________________________________
Network Operations & Customer Experience
- Where Are You Actually Cutting Costs Without Killing Quality?
- Labor Shortages: What’s Working (and Not) Right Now?
- Vendor Overload: How Do You Evaluate Without Wasting Time?
- Customer Experience vs. Cost: Where Do You Draw the Line?
- What’s Actually Working to Reduce Churn Right Now?
- Trouble Tickets: What’s Causing the Most Pain Right Now?
__________________________________________________________________
Technology, Innovation & Security
- Where Are You Most Vulnerable Right Now—and What Are You Actually Doing About It?
- Fiber, Fixed Wireless, or Hybrid—What’s Winning Where?
- Edge + AI Demands: Are You Planning for It—or Ignoring It?
- Future-Proofing Networks: What Does That Really Mean in Practice?
Lunch
Keynote: Broadband Is Not Enough: The Missing Infrastructure Between Communities and AI
For years, broadband policy has focused on one essential goal: connecting every home, business, school, farm, and community anchor institution to affordable high-speed internet. That work remains critical. But the rise of artificial intelligence is forcing a new question that many states, communities, and local network operators have not yet had to confront: once users are connected, where does their traffic actually go?
AI will not run on last-mile connectivity alone. Real-time inference, AI agents, telehealth, cybersecurity, precision agriculture, advanced manufacturing, education, and public-sector AI services will depend on fast, predictable, resilient connections between users, networks, cloud platforms, data centers, and compute resources. If traffic from a community must travel hundreds of miles to reach the networks and compute platforms it depends on, physical distance, inefficient routing, packet loss, and congestion can become hidden barriers to performance, adoption, and economic competitiveness.
This session will help state broadband leaders, local ISPs, policymakers, and community stakeholders understand the missing layer of infrastructure between broadband access and AI readiness: the regional places where networks meet, exchange traffic, connect to cloud and compute resources, and keep data closer to the communities it serves.
Panelists will explain why Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), regional transport, neocloud connectivity, and compute-adjacent interconnection are becoming essential building blocks for AI-ready regions. The discussion will challenge the assumption that distant data centers, national carriers, and major cloud platforms will simply “make it work” for every community—and will explore why states that fail to develop regional interconnection infrastructure may risk falling behind in the next wave of the digital economy.
Brent Legg
Connected Nation, EVP, Government Affairs
Hunter Newby
Newby Ventures, Owner
James Jun
TOWARDEX Technologies, Founder and CEO
Bryan Lubin
Moonshot, Managing Director of Digital & Compute Infrastructure
Exhibit Hall Hours
Roundtables: Deep-Dive Discussions with Industry Leaders
- Where Is Real Growth Coming From Over the Next 3 Years? (WAS Growth Strategies for the Next Five Years)
- Build vs. Buy vs. Partner: How Are You Deciding in 2026?
- Overbuilding: Threat, Opportunity, or Both?
- Partnerships That Actually Work (and the Ones That Don’t)
- Private Equity, Public Funding, or Organic Growth—What’s the Smart Play?
- What Will Break Your Network in 5 Years That You’re Not Planning For?
__________________________________________________________________
- What’s Actually Slowing Down BEAD Deployment—and How Are You Fixing It?
- Matching Funds: Creative Ways to Close the Gap Without Killing ROI
- Winning vs. Losing BEAD Applications: What Are We Learning?
- Post-Award Reality: What No One Told You About Execution
- Rural vs. Urban Operations: What’s Fundamentally Different?
__________________________________________________________________
Network Operations & Customer Experience
- Where Are You Actually Cutting Costs Without Killing Quality?
- Labor Shortages: What’s Working (and Not) Right Now?
- Vendor Overload: How Do You Evaluate Without Wasting Time?
- Customer Experience vs. Cost: Where Do You Draw the Line?
- What’s Actually Working to Reduce Churn Right Now?
- Trouble Tickets: What’s Causing the Most Pain Right Now?
__________________________________________________________________
Technology, Innovation & Security
- Where Are You Most Vulnerable Right Now—and What Are You Actually Doing About It?
- Fiber, Fixed Wireless, or Hybrid—What’s Winning Where?
- Edge + AI Demands: Are You Planning for It—or Ignoring It?
- Future-Proofing Networks: What Does That Really Mean in Practice?
Exhibitor Reception