Broadband Nation Expo: The role of mapping and data analytics in expanding broadband access

Today's episode is a bonus interview from our coverage at the 2024 Broadband Nation Expo.

We were joined by Justin Fazzari, Senior Broadband Strategist at Sanborn. We speak about Justin's background, some of his daily activities and what is the present and future of Sanborn. Be sure to check out the links below!

Recommended Links:
Justin's LinkedIn
Sanborn's Website

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:45 Meeting Justin Fazzari
• 1:40 What does Sanborn do?
• 5:00 Justin's day-to-day responsibilities
• 6:37 Current Sanborn challenges
• 7:42 The importance of networking events
• 10:44 What is Justin excited about in broadband?
• 12:38 Key takeaways

Transcript

Grant Ahlbrand (00:07):

Welcome to Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband. From closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds, we'll dive into technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. This week we are at the Broadband Nation Expo, located at the Gaylord Convention Center just south of Washington dc. On the podcast this week, we will be joined by innovators, leaders, and difference makers from the broadband and technology industry. I'm Grant Halland, and this is Connected Nation. I'm Grin Al Brandand, and today we are back in time at the Broadband Nation Expo in Washington DC for the special bonus episode, I'm sitting with Justin f, senior broadband specialist at Sanborn. So Justin, how has your time at the Broadband Nation Expo been so far?

Justin Fazzari (00:53):

It's been great. Thanks. Sanborn has really gotten into the broadband business over the last couple of years, but we have a history of couple decades worth of broadband work and really getting to meet the state leaders and really see where we are in the program and talk to them has been a great couple days.

Grant Ahlbrand (01:13):

So yeah. Where'd you come in from? Did you take a flight, train or drive yourself or what'd you do?

Justin Fazzari (01:18):

So I flew in from Omaha, Nebraska and I got an opportunity to meet someone from the Nebraska broadband office. So she's going to help me orientate. I just moved to Omaha and so came in from there and I lived in Washington DC for 15 years. I went to George Mason University, and so very familiar with the area, and so it's always nice to get back to dc.

Grant Ahlbrand (01:40):

Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit more about what Sanborn does?

Justin Fazzari (01:43):

So Sanborn provides comprehensive geospatial solutions. The sector that I work in within Sanborn is the broadband sector. We really focus on the state work and supporting the bead program. The reason I came over to Sanborn was I was working at NTIA and leading the data analytics group and really wanted to get more involved with working with the states. And so Sanborn offered me the opportunity to really interact with the states, understand what their needs are, and then we build that into all of our workflows and our support for the states. But the area that we really support because we partner as everyone does in this space, we do the mapping and data analytics. And I can talk a little bit about the challenge process if you want, because we

Grant Ahlbrand (02:32):

Lot work there. Yeah, tell us a little more about that.

Justin Fazzari (02:36):

When I joined Sanborn, the bead program was in its planning stages. We've moved all the way through now getting to implementation, but in that, as part of that planning process, Sanborn saw the opportunity to build a mapping and data analytics platform to support the challenge process and create a challenge portal. So we did that and we've worked with several states upwards of around 10 states that have used our challenge portal or all of them have, we're not quite finished with all of them curing. But yeah, we played a really big role there and it was a very interesting process, and I think we can get into it in a second. It gave us some indicators of I think what we might have ahead in the next stages of bead.

Grant Ahlbrand (03:22):

So previously at NCIA, now at Sanborn, how did you get into the broadband space as a professional?

Justin Fazzari (03:28):

So my PhD and my original area of concentration and passion is economic development. And so I really viewed from the very beginning to today as economic development as broadband is a part of economic development. And I think if nothing else, COVID taught us the importance of broadband and really what it can do to connect folks to work to school and things like that. And so when I was in the economic development field working for the Economic Development Administration, we did all across the board, all kinds of economic development, but I was always more interested in the technology side of it, of economic development. And broadband was a niche sort of within that. And so got really interested in it and attended a lot of conferences sort of like this and met enough people and saw the opportunity to move over to NTIA to really get into broadband space specifically. But also it was a really unique time because there wasn't a lot of money in broadband in 2018, 2019. But NTIA had been tasked with setting up the national broadband availability map, and for better or worse, it was a very good faith effort to stand up something that had never been done before. And I think it sort of helped lead into where we are today, which is all the mapping and data analytics that folks, not just Sanborn, but across the board are doing.

Grant Ahlbrand (05:01):

So you touched on this a little bit previously. So in your position now at Sanborn, what are some of your day-to-day responsibilities and tasks?

Justin Fazzari (05:08):

So with our state work I work with, we have a data analytics team and we have a software development team. Those are the two primary teams that I work with. And then we sort of pull folks from those teams that support the states. And so in each state it's sort of a slightly different role. Each state has their IPV volumes one and two, so it's the same program, but there's different details. And so really making sure that we're staying on track with the states that they're fulfilling. And I'll go back to the challenge process because really where we dug into bead and making sure that that process went smoothly, I'll tell you, everyone will say, or maybe they won't say, but the challenge process was challenging.

(05:54):

It was difficult and there were a lot of curve balls. There was unexpected things that were happening. There was guidance coming out from NTIA and to no fault to their own. They were learning also as they're kind of going through the process and they're saying, Hey, I know we're doing it this way, but we really need to adjust and do it this other way. And so really helping the team remain agile and be agile because that's a tough day to day when you wake up and all of a sudden guidance just landed and you say, oh, okay, now we got to build this functionality into, or we have to set up these requirements. So I think that day to day for most of the last year has been the really exciting

Grant Ahlbrand (06:37):

Part. So as an organization, what are some current challenges that Sanborn is facing that you're looking to find innovative new ways to overcome?

Justin Fazzari (06:47):

So I think what we're seeing in a lot of the new opportunities, state opportunities that are coming out is the next phase of bead, which is implementation. And so what we're looking at is, okay with our software development and data analytics, how can we position ourselves to support the states to be successful there? And then there's a lot of unknowns. I think as we sort of cure and wrap up the challenge process, most states are starting now to move into the sub-grantee selection process. And if there's anything we can take from the challenge process, it's that whatever we think we know today is going to change a couple months down the road. And so just sort of maintaining that outlook that we need to plan and position ourselves, but really stay agile because there's just no way to know some of the details. And again, I come back to the guidance, but the guidance that's going to come out from NTIA.

(07:42):

So I think those are things that we're trying to do and we want to make sure we are a mapping the Sanborn mapping company map company, and we want to make sure that folks in the states sort of maintain the focus on the mapping element of this program because it really is a geospatial program. And with the BSLs and getting service to all those locations, having really solid mapping is really going to benefit the states. And I'll take it out a year or two, but the transparency that states are going to need, the political dynamics of political interest, wanting to know what's happening in the program. If you can put up a really good informative map and then talk to that, it can really educate folks as opposed to something that's more tabular. So I think that's where we see ourselves, but it is very much developing, we're very much looking at the options.

Grant Ahlbrand (08:35):

And you mentioned just a little bit earlier that throughout your career you've been to all kinds of conferences and expos. How important do you think collaborative efforts like expos and conferences, but also more intimate efforts like last night, our broadband and bruise event that connect the Nation, Verberg group and Sanborn hosted, how important do you think those are to in particular the broadband industry?

Justin Fazzari (08:58):

I think tremendously important. I think it goes back to the theme of these programs. They continue to evolve, the technology evolves as we come to these conferences. Zoom and teams are all great things, but there's nothing better than talking to someone and saying, Hey, okay, so we meet with state X, what's really going on? What's your real problem and what are you worried about? And really what do you need to overcome? And so I think those types of conversations, the types of conversations we can have. And like we had at the event last night, really just getting to know people on a more personal level and get to know them so that they feel comfortable just picking up the phone sometimes and saying, Hey, I got a problem. Can we get on it? And so I think all these developing relationships are incredibly important. And then here we're sitting in the expo hall just seeing who's here, the equipment makers, the ISPs, the consultants, folks that do sort of the breadth of broadband sort of across the spectrum.

(10:03):

And one thing I relating back to your last question of how are we planning for the future? How do all these things fit together? Because eventually they need to. And I think we have a really great partnership with Connected Nation is a good example. And so there is so much skill needed to support the states that these partnerships are really important. And I think what these events do is kind of solidify those relationships so that the same way, if we have something that we have to tackle that's challenging. Now I know all the folks on a really more personal level so that we can really, really get down to solving the problems

Grant Ahlbrand (10:44):

We had. So it would've been last night, but now in podcast world, it's now been two weeks ago we had Brian D on the episode from ULA and he spoke, he's had a long career in broadband and technology and he spoke about the importance of these events. He said more than anything it's personal relationships, it's trust, and especially with Connected Nation and Sanborn, I've been around you and your team all week and my team as well. And you can just see there's a level of personal relationship and trust and just a genuine good working relationship. So with that, I will take it, is there an innovation or some kind of new trend or opportunity that you see in broadband that you're really excited about?

Justin Fazzari (11:30):

I don't know if I'd say trend. I think what I see is there's still a lot of questions to answer that we certainly haven't gotten to the root of, and you bring up Brian, so I'll sort of speak to sort of not speak for him, but how I see us maybe working alongside the whole idea of when we start getting down the road and what data, because we're a data company, what data can we use to really help validate and understand what's actually happening as far as the infrastructure build out? And that's going to be hugely important with the federal program. It's going to be something that the ISPs are going to have to submit into the states. And each state is sort of going through the process of figuring out what does that reporting look like, what does that validation look like? And Brian, with their ULA data, they bring one piece of the puzzle together. And so I think figuring out how those things fit together is going to be important, but it's going to be over the course of the next 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months.

Grant Ahlbrand (12:38):

Awesome. Is there anything that you would, like anyone listening our audience today, what would you like them to take from this conversation?

Justin Fazzari (12:47):

I would say don't forget about mapping. The challenge process was set up. It was required that you build a portal and it was very instructive and prescriptive, which was good. This next phase of bead doesn't have a lot of those elements as far as prescriptive on the mapping side in the data analytics side. But everyone knows this is this incredibly heavy data lift data analytics lift, but don't lose track of the fact that this mapping component is going to be incredibly important to be transparent with the public, be transparent across the board, and to really show hopefully the success stories of what are happening in beat. And I think that's broadband. If someone, you talk to someone in your family or one of your friends, they say, what do you do? You're like, do you have 10 minutes? Because it's really hard to get into and explain what this is. But if you pop up a map, again, something visual, okay, I kind of get what you're doing. And so I think those are the things I would talk about.

Grant Ahlbrand (13:52):

Of course. And well, Justin, it's been a great time spending time with you this week with your team. I really like to let anyone know that's listening to head down to the description, this podcast, make sure you check out the links to Justin's LinkedIn and to the Sanborn website. So yeah, thank you for joining us on the Connect Nation podcast.

Justin Fazzari (14:11):

Thank you very much. Have a good day.