By Ryan Johnston
What is broadband? It’s a question with a lot of different answers. For many it’s the service that flows through the thousands of miles of fiber and copper lines that crisscross the nation. For others it is the entire ecosystem of infrastructure, service, and tools needed to make the most of an Internet connection. While the stories about how the Internet affects households are easy to find, not many individuals truly understand how broadband gets from our Internet service providers to our homes. 
The Institute for Local Self Reliance (“ISLR”) has been working to change that. Through their “Broadband Bootcamps” they provide an in-depth look at how Internet infrastructure deployment works, the differences between deployment solutions such as fiber, fixed wireless, and cellular, and provide hands-on demonstration on how to do everything from crimping ethernet cables to splicing fiber.
On April 30, 2024, ISLR took their bootcamp to Baltimore. In an all day event community leaders, digital equity experts, and broadband infrastructure professionals gathered to learn together. The day began with a conversation with ISLR’s Director of the Community Broadband Networks, Chris Mitchell. Chris gave a brief overview of how information travels from point A to point B over our digital infrastructure. Chris highlighted important junctions such as Internet exchange points, and the critical moments when information transitions from wireless transmission to travel over a wireline network. The ISLR team then presented everyone with a hands-on exercise, to crimp their own ethernet cables.
This exercise came with a tutorial on how data is transferred through wires, what each wire in the ethernet cable does and how they’re laid out. Watching participants, who had never so much as used an ethernet cable before, manage to correctly wire and crimp one in front of of seasoned professionals in the room was a highlight of the day.
After lunch, ISLR’s Associate Director for Communications Sean Gonsalves presented a history of how fiber optic cables have come from being an experimental information transmission system in Chicago in the 70’s to the connectivity staple it is today. This included physical examples of what fiber strands are, the protection they have while in the ground, and the conduit fiber is generally pulled through. The afternoon’s hands on activity centered around the virtual networking aspects of network building.
The room was broken into four groups. Each group was responsible for accessing a different device and finding the IP address, the strength and frequency of the wireless signal the device was receiving, and other identifying information. From a laptop connected to a router to a wireless antenna designed to spread a wifi to a large area, ISLR helped each group understand how these devices talked to each other and how they identified what should be connected and how. 
The day concluded with a discussion of the federal and state broadband policy landscape, including how Baltimore can be involved with Maryland’s BEAD planning, the future of the Affordable Connectivity Program, and the state’s upcoming mapping challenge process.
What ISLR packed into 6 hours, many people have devoted their lives to understanding. The overview and learning experience provided by their broadband bootcamps provides essential learning for practitioners that often find themselves siloed into only one aspect of our digital ecosystem.