Why this is a critical moment to be at the world’s largest fiber conference

At a defining moment for broadband, many believe fiber is at the center of what comes next. In this episode of Connected Nation, Jessica Denson speaks with Fiber Broadband Association President and CEO Gary Bolton about why this is a critical moment to be at the world’s largest fiber conference, Fiber Connect 2026.

From AI and data centers to healthcare, agriculture, and long‑term infrastructure decisions, the conversation breaks down what’s at stake — and why showing up means being in the room when big things happen.

Recommended links: 

Fiber Broadband Association website

Fiber Connect 2026 registration

Gary Bolton LinkedIn

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (00:05):
This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband. From closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds, we talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. On today's podcast, we're talking one of the leading voices shaping the future of fiber broadband in the United States and beyond. We'll discuss how fiber can be the foundation for everything from healthcare and agriculture to AI and economic growth. And we'll take a look ahead at Fiber Connect 2026, the world's largest fiber broadband conference, where the industry comes together to define what's next. I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation. I'm Jessica Denson, and today my guest is Gary Bolton, the president and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association, more commonly referred to as the FBA. Welcome, Gary. 

Gary Bolton, Fiber Broadband Association (01:03):
Hey, Jessica. It's great to be here. Thank you Having me. 

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:06):
Great to be here. Uh, great to be here with you as well. <laugh> I'm glad you're here. Um, I've been doing podcast interviews today, so forgive me. Um, if I'm a little, uh, lackluster at moments, I'm gonna try to get my energy revved up. It's the end of the day. Um, how's your day going so far? 

Gary Bolton, Fiber Broadband Association (01:22):
Uh, it couldn't be better. Just, uh, you know, we're getting right down to the conference. We're way ahead in registrations, just a lot of network operators. You know, the ... It's crazy. We ... There's 1,561 fiber providers in the US right now. 

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:38):
Really? 

Gary Bolton, Fiber Broadband Association (01:39):
Yeah, it's growing like crazy. And, uh, it's exciting times.

Jessica Denson (01:44):
Have you seen a big uptick in the last few m- few years? 

Gary Bolton (01:47):
Well, just in the last six months, so I had Jim Stegman, the president of Costquest on, and, you know, they do the broadband data collection for the FCC. And so every six months, they, you know, get reported, um, reports from, uh, the service providers on who's doing what. And I believe that he said there was 42 new ce- uh, fiber providers in the last six months, and 71 of the fiber providers doubled their footprints in the last fiber footprint in the last six months. So, you know, we're in the midst of the biggest fiber investment cycle in history, and it's exciting times. 

Jessica Denson (02:24):
It is exciting times. Um, things are going quickly and changing quickly with everything from AI to data centers to ... And they need broadband for that. They need fiber for, for a lot of that. So, uh, before we dive back, dive in, because this is gonna be an interesting topic, um, today, but, uh, you ... I like to share a little bit about you, about our, our guests before we jump in. So talk a little bit about your background and what brought you to FBA. 

Gary Bolton (02:51):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I've been kicking around the industry for decades, so it's kind of fun to be in a position to kind of pull together, um, all my experience and expertise into, you know, kind of the perfect, kind of perfect storm for me. But, um, as you know, you know, I <laugh> ... I made the mistake when I was in college. I asked my dad, I said, "You know, what should I do? " And he's, you know, for a major. And he says, "Well, if you take engineering, you can do anything." And so I got a, my undergrad was in electrical engineering and guess what? You can be electrical engineer. And I didn't consider that outcome. <laugh> And so I cro- clawed my way. You had to do that for about five years and, you know, went to business school and was able to make the escape out of engineering into, uh, more product management and so forth.

(03:44)
So I worked for out of school, um, Northern Telecom back in the heyday and that was fun. And then I moved to, uh, when the internet was starting to become a thing, um, I had some friends out of BNR, which was the research arm of Northern Telecom. And we got together and started a startup, um, at the beginning of the internet. And, uh, that went fantastic and we sold that to Sienna. So I did a little stent at Sienna and then I did another startup, um, and that was going bang busters until the collapse, you know, the whole, um, collapse of the housing market and that tanked the stock market and so forth. So I had to seek, uh, Safe Harbor. So I went to a public company and, uh, was a CMO for about 12 years. And then I happened to be on the board of Fiber Broadband Association.

(04:37)
And, uh, it turned out that during COVID, you know, we had two revenue streams. One was a conference, another was membership, and when 70% of your revenue is in a conference and you have COVID, um- Oh 

Jessica Denson (04:50):
My gosh. You know? Yeah. I see that problem. <laugh> 

Gary Bolton (04:53):
Yeah. So- 

Jessica Denson (04:54):
Yeah. 

Gary Bolton (04:55):
Anyway, it wasn't good. And we're about insolvent and the board asked me to take over and, uh, it's been great. I've been having a great time. So it was on my sixth year and, you know, we've, um, our revenues have gone up 13X. Um, membership has tripled and, you know, we just, uh, having a great time and it's just amazing team. You know, we've had to burn things down to start re- over, but, um, you know, we're just able to pull together a, a fantastic team. And luckily, the industry has really, you know, kind of found us. And, you know, we're, just this past quarter, we had our working groups. We have about 20, uh, committees and working groups, and they com- in one quarter, uh, cranked out, um, 31 research papers, best practices, white papers. 

Jessica Denson (05:47):
Wow. So 

Gary Bolton (05:48):
Production, uh, you know, we have probably about 2,800, um, of our employees from our member companies that are working on these committees and working groups. So it's just really blossomed into the place where the industry comes together. And, uh, you know, we have, um, regional events all around the country and in Canada, Canada or Canada, Canadian working groups awesome as well. And then we, so we meet all around the country and I, I, I call these events the people who don't know us. <laugh> And so, you know, as we go around the country, these, you know, communities and, um, state broadband offices and, and so forth that, you know, we're helping, uh, those communities see the opportunity, as well as we've been really having what's called policy labs. And so our public policy group meets with state legislatures and, um, you know, we, our last event in, um, Indiana, the governor was there.

(06:46)
Um, we had the governor in Arizona when we were at, in Scottsdale and it's, you know, so everything from, you know, what they're thinking about on AI data centers to, you know, how to get fiber and build economic development. So that's going great. And then coming up here in the next few weeks is our Fiber Connect 2026 and those, that's the event for the people who know and love us, right? So that's-

(07:12)
Mm-hmm. Uh, my team gives me a hard time, as I say, it's 6,000 of our closest friends. <laugh> But it's the whole industry, the whole ecosystem, the fiber industry gets together and it is phenomenal. And, uh, you know, it's one of the most fun times of year and every year it grows and, um, you know, we keep investing to try to create the best audience experience in the industry and the world. And we do that with, I mean, our AV setup is insane. Uh, you know, we have these amazing partners who just wanna really see what, you know, that they've been dreaming about and we've tried to pull that together to have this amazing, um, audience experience. And then we use live music and other things to really help pull together with our, you know, really relevant con- content. And so it's, it's a great time. 

Jessica Denson (08:04):
So, so Gary, uh, I can tell you're excited about the, the Fiber Connect conference and I wanna dive deeper into that, but I gotta stop you for just one second because you, you said some things there that I want <laugh> I don't wanna get, I don't want it to fly by. One, you, you mentioned that you, you did startups and then you, you, you're, you're kind of reinventing yourself throughout your career and, and now we're in ano- the first thing we talked about the moment we jumped on was about how exciting it is right now. Are you kind of drawn to those moments or those, those, um, problem solving things that are needed, whether it's a startup or whether it's, uh, re- reworking FBA, um, to solve those problems and really jump out there and when things are not necessarily difficult, but a challenge and something you have to solve? 

Gary Bolton (08:53):
Well, I mean, <laugh> no doubt. You know, I mean, if you look at kind of what I do in my spare time, it's always pushing the envelope. Um, so, you know, I was, uh, elite triathlete for, gosh, 20 years. Um, I do whitewater kayaking and mountain biking and kite surfing are kind of my relaxation. And so- <laugh> I like to kind of push the envelope and, and so, yeah, I am drawn. I'm a growth oriented person. And so, um, I'm looking to find ... I mean, if I look at, like, the first startup was, you know, Mark Andreessen invented Mosaic and all of a sudden, you know, anybody now could tap into the internet, right? It really unlocked the power of the internet. And- 

Jessica Denson (09:43):
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Bolton (09:43):
... matter of fact, our first investors out in Silicon Valley, um, they let me use this tool they had on one of their new stage, early stage investments, place called Google. <laugh> And so I was using Google before it was even a thing to, they'd let me go in there, you know, his office and only could use it from his computer to, you know, it was just kind of a, a novel search engine back then and, you know, back there, Yahoo was the, the, the thing. And, um, anyway, it's, um, if I think about then, and I think about now what's happening, you know, I mentioned, you know, fiber, we're in the largest fiber investment history, investment cycle in history, but what's layering in on that is another investment cycle in AI. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we, you know, when a few short years ago, ChatGPT was a novelty, and now it's transforming everything we do.

(10:36)
And so that's the thing that's really exciting about this moment is not only just elevating the quality of life for everyone by being able to make sure that we get every home connected with fiber, but also kind of reinventing every business on the planet on how, you know, if you think about business models, just go back to Yahoo and Google, um, you know, so Yahoo, their big thing was, you know, you went from this Madison Avenue print ads to now you could do those digitally. And so you can think of the production, everything, how much money it would save. And, and so, you know, Yahoo was printing money and it was like, "Great, we can just show ads." Well, Google came up with this concept of pay-per-click, you know, because back when I was a CMO, the joke was, maybe not so funny, was you're wasting half your marketing budget.

(11:27)
The problem is you don't know which half. And by being able to actually only pay per click, you could be able to have some accountability for your marketing spend that, you know, that you're throwing money at a platform like a Google, um, you know, eyeballs, and you would know that people actually were clicking on your ad and being able to respond to it. And so you had better, um, metrics on, you know, the success of your campaigns. And so those are the things, you know, just thinking about the internet today, um, no one uses a web browser anymore. You know, you use AI to scrape all the websites, and so you really never visit a website anymore. All that information now gets, um, basically, uh, you know, um, uh, pulled together for you and curated for you. And, um, and so now that changes the way that websites are monetized.

(12:23)
So you think about every possible business and, you know, as we, one, is you have to have this, you know, incredible connectivity of not only scale, but also super low latency, but also think about how, you know, things will operate in the future with AI. And, you know, it's like, you know, having, buying up, you know, spending a million dollars on a taxi medallion, having your taxi business, and then all the next thing you know is Uber and Lyft show up, you know, if you don't reinvent yourself, you know, that million dollar medallion's gonna be worthless, right?m. So you have 

Jessica Denson (13:00):
To 

Gary Bolton (13:00):
Really think about how ... And that's really, you know, if you think about Fiber Connect, the whole mission, how we're very purposeful on how we put the content together, it's all thinking about these two investment cycles coming together, and then what's that mean forever, all our member companies? So all the 666 companies and everybody else there, you know, this 6,000 people that'll be at FiberConnect is we're gonna take them through this journey and it's gonna end on the final day with, um, the AI infrastructure and emerging tech summit. And that is gonna kind of pull it all together so that, you know, we're not ... It won't, they won't have all the answers, but they'll be thinking of the right questions by the end of the conference so that, you know, everybody who attends will be thinking about, okay, how are we gonna be able to participate as quantum computing and artificial intelligence start to build on each other?

(13:57)
So it's just an incredibly exciting time. 

Jessica Denson (13:59):
It is an exciting time. And I think the fact that you have some of that experience where you've seen, oh, this is a moment that's really gonna change things and live through those moments, like seeing Google as a, you know, just as a search engine early on. It will give you some, I think, interesting insights, which is why I didn't want to skip over some <laugh> some of that. Um, uh, obviously you're excited about Fiber Connect. I get it. Um, it's happening in Orlando, Florida, May 17th through the 20th, and there's still time to register, I'm sure, for anyone who would still like to attend, we'll include a link to the des- to the, uh, conference and the description of this podcast. Um, for this, is this anyone within the fiber sphere? So let's really dive into what Fiber Connect is. Is it built for the entire ecosystem?

(14:42)
Who, who should really come to this? 

Gary Bolton (14:45):
Well, you know, we have ... It's a, like I said, it's a very large event, but we break it down into very relevant elements. So for example, something that really took off last year, well, a little bit surprising is we had our first Optic Path Rodeo. And so Optic Path is our fiber optic, um, technician training program, and so we're ramping that out nationwide, and this becomes not only important to building fiber at home, but as hyperscalers and everybody's moving into be able to connect racks of GPUs with holocore fiber, or you're being able to, you know, connect data centers and so forth, um, what we found is that <laugh> all our exhibitors said, "Hey, we want, next year we wanna put our booth around where the, uh, the rodeo's gonna be because there was so, you know, so crowded and, you know, and so much excitement." And so that rodeo's really, um, blossomed.

(15:41)
And so we have a really great set of expert fiber optic technicians all trained through our optic path program from companies around the country, around North America, I say, and, um, that's gonna be a, a fantastic event. Um, so, you know, if you're, um, a tradesman, a technician, you know, that's a great place to be, all the way up to our C-suite forum. So what we want is Fiber Connect to be also very transactional. You know, I remember back in the day of Supercom, you know, and you can look at today even at Mobile World Congress or as they like to say, MWC, uh, you know, all the CEOs go to that event. And so that's just what we want at FiberConnect is we want it to be a place where we have content for C-Suite. And what that does is it also, when you have your CEO in the C-suite, then their entourage are there.

(16:33)
And so that provides opportunities for deals to get done because, you know, these are the meetings you've been trying to get all year. Everybody's now in one spot and so we provide meeting rooms and we provide content and networking so that, um, a lot of these deals can be done. And so that's another example, but also, you know, from whether you're, um, a financier, so we have a lot of, you know, we have Wall Street analysts there, we have, uh, people that are providing private equity. A lot of these are fiber equity driven, um, all the way to, you know, network engineers, to, um, fulfillment specialists, to people who make glass, to make electronics that ... And then the network operators, you know, we'll have the largest number of network operators that we've ever had there. Um, and then during our general sessions, we have a six, uh, operator light talks.

(17:24)
And, uh, we go around, uh, the countries to large to small operators to, you know, so you can hear their vision. And it's always, these are always super interesting to hear about, you know, what different operators around the country are really focused on and how they're transitioning to this new world. And then, as I mentioned, you know, this all culminates with our AI infrastructure and emerging tech summit, um, with my favorite quantum physicist of all time, Mitchell Kaku, you may have seen him on Discovery Channel and so forth. Mm-hmm. You know, the inventor of string theory and all, you know, I've read every one of his books, um, you know, Future of Physics, um, you know, the, on quantum, on, you know, anything you need to know and he's just, um, not only one of the top quantum physicists in the world, he has a unique ability to, uh, break things down into terms that anybody can understand and how it's relevant to people.

(18:25)
So I'm just super excited about that. 

Jessica Denson (18:28):
That sounds very cool <laugh> actually. It is. Yes. Strength theory is fascinating to me. Um, it's, so there's some, there's some, uh, first off for your PR people, I'm gonna say that the, the years, this year's theme is light years ahead. <laugh> I wanna make sure I say, mention that. Um, and that, uh, it's, it's a moment where you guys really dive into not, you mentioned AI, but what are some other big areas that are, that you guys dive into? Is it, uh, I have listed telehealth, precision agriculture, streaming, gaming- Yeah. ... um, data centers and AI, emerging tech. So how, how are you guys identifying these different areas? Is it just what you're hearing from the people in the field that they wanna know more about? 

Gary Bolton (19:12):
Like spaghetti against the wall, but really 

Jessica Denson (19:14):
It's really- No, it's not. <laugh> 

Gary Bolton (19:16):
So just day one, Sunday is our pre-conference workshops. And we will have an actual, um, um, the AI expert from one of the, um, AI companies, uh, I'm not allowed to say which- Oh. ... 

Jessica Denson (19:30):
If they get 

Gary Bolton (19:30):
Really worried about that. But anyway, we'll be doing a AI workshop because people throw around all these AI terms and they really don't know what they're talking about. And so- 

Jessica Denson (19:38):
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Bolton (19:38):
... this will be a workshop that allows people to understand what these terms really mean, really understand AI a little better and how you participate, as well as we have a lot of, you know, um, our, uh, fiber toolkits and other things that have been very popular over the years. Um, and then that goes into kind of our opening, um, uh, reception. And that's always such a big celebration. Everybody's all excited to be in Orlando and at the Gaylord and kind of there to ... And then we'll roll into, you know, Monday morning with our, um, you know, my, um, state of fiber, state of the union kind of speech, but we get into all the, the general sessions. But, you know, the, the key topics that these are building on is kind of not only the application, so whether it's telehealth, um, precision agriculture, you know, the hyper scale data centers and evolving edge, but also, you know, you think about, I'm not a gamer- mm-hmm.

(20:35)
... but the gaming is ... I don't know if, you know, I sit on a plane and I watch F1 with Brad Pitt and, you know, you might have seen that movie- 

Jessica Denson (20:45):
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Bolton (20:46):
... or was it, um, Grand Turismo where- Oh 

Jessica Denson (20:48):
Yeah. <laugh> 

Gary Bolton (20:48):
You know, um, gamers actually now are sitting in F1 race cars because the way these simulators work, you know, whether you're flying a plane or a race car or even operating weapons and systems from tour of duty, uh, th- this is how the world works now is that these simulators, these games are so realistic that if you play tour duty, you can actually operate all these weapons and systems. And that's what the military uses to be able to train, you know, the warriors of the future. And so what gamers care about is, you know, they not only want high capacity, but latency is everything. So, you know, they would never have their gamings, um, console connected to wifi, right? They would have a direct connection with wire. So anyway, we have gaming, but also one of the cool things is we have our smart community, um, interactive theater and experience in this, we'll have this, like, giant Lego, um, community built out and also, you know, showcase all the kind of innovations that are happening, not only with fiber, but also AI.

(21:53)
So that's gonna be really cool. And then we always feature in kind of our proof of concepts. So these are right in the center of the floor. You know, we have well over 300 exhibitors, one of the biggest floors we've ever had, and people are going all out on their exhibits. So we have our proof of concepts right in the middle, and we have our network, our industry analysts that will be judging these, and you'll be able to see some really cool stuff that's, you know, kind of the latest innovations. And then on Tuesday night, we are celebrating our 25th year of FBA and innovation. And so we are having our big gala and that is going to be black tie optional. So all the FBA staff will be in tuxedos and, uh, like dresses look like we'll be going to the. 

Jessica Denson (22:40):
Nice. 

Gary Bolton (22:41):
Um, yeah, and we have some big surprises there, so that would be a super fun event. So anyway, it's just, again, the, what we're trying to do is to create a, a journey for, you know, no matter whether you're on fulfillment or you're on strategy or, um, finance, there's a place and a networking forum for you to be able to, uh, meet your prospects and to be able to get fully invested in what's going on with, you know, the, these investment cycles that are kind of building on each other. 

Jessica Denson (23:18):
And, uh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Connect to Nation is also celebrating 25 years this year. There we go. We're also ... Yeah, both of us <laugh> we're, we're, we're each born in two- 2001. <laugh> The baby organizations. Uh, well, silver anniversary actually. So, uh, it sounds like you've really thought this through and I, and I would encourage people to check out the conference. Again, I'll have a link in the description of this podcast. Uh, before I let you go, just a few more questions. Uh, one, policy continues to play a major role in broadband deployment right now. Is there a lot of discussion around policy and, and that, um, policymakers are gonna be there or should they be encouraged to attend? What, what are your thoughts on the policy side of things? Well, 

Gary Bolton (24:00):
Absolutely. So policy is always kind of the cornerstone of everything we do. We have an amazing policy team. You know, the, our policy committee is one of our largest, uh, committees that we have. And so, um, Marisa Mitchovich is our vice president of policy, um, and we will, we have a number of a whole policy track, and so if you wanna get up to speed on what's going on, you know, if you look at where we are now, our big focus is on, uh, permitting and being able to streamline deployment. So one of the things is, you know, we've just finally s- you know, after half a decade, we finally seen, see the bead, you know, about 20 billion dollars of bead money is now in the hands of the states and those subgreement, um, subcontract, sub awardee, sub-grantee awardees, sub-grantee awardees. It's 

Jessica Denson (24:52):
Hard to say. <laugh> 

Gary Bolton (24:53):
I have now starting to see money, money's flowing. And so, um, you know, one thing that's gonna be kind of funny is we have a family feud, so just part of the fund is we have some state broadband offices, we'll be one of the teams on our family feud competition. 

Jessica Denson (25:11):
Oh, fun. <laugh> 

Gary Bolton (25:12):
Yeah, so we, uh, in addition to, you know, we wanna make sure that our event is incredibly educational and informative, but we also wanna do that, do some entertainment. So again, um, it's always a great place to be able to meet with the state broadband office, but also, um, you know, key legislature, legislators and, you know, also what's happening. So we do have, um, we've have our annual policy summit, which was incredible, and we will have coming up in the summer and July will be our Fiber Day in the Hill. So we meet in the Rayburn building, um, and we have usually a couple hundred, um, people come through from staff and, uh, key offices, um, not only on the Hill, but also the key agencies in DC where we can walk them through what's going on with fiber, make sure that they're all, you know, it's ... In DC, you know, even though you might talk to, um, you know, your Congressman or Senator, you know, every two weeks, they quickly forget what fiber is, you know, they're dealing with a lot of topics.

(26:19)
So we wanna make sure that we, uh, stay top of mind and, you know, what our, uh, our top legislative and regulatory agenda items are. And so, um, right now is a really good time. You know, in the FCC, we see a lot of light touch regulation, and so we're seeing copper retirement and, you know, every dollar that was spent on copper was not being a spend on fiber. So being able to get that retired and move forward and be able to streamline, you know, deployment are all things that are going to help accelerate our future. 

Jessica Denson (26:51):
Um, just two more questions and I'm gonna let you go for the day, because I know you, you and your whole team are still getting ready for this, uh, Fiber Connect. But, um, where would you ... You know, we talked about the emerge, the convergence really of all these really interesting things all at once, you know, the bead, uh, AI, emerging technologies. Where do you think this is gonna go in your mind? Just, I know I'm asking you to, to, to, to guess a little bit, but educated guess. Where do you think s- where do you think things are gonna land five, 10 years down the road? 

Gary Bolton (27:27):
Well, I mean, it's ... So what's ... The next five years, we have pretty good visibility, right? So we are, you know, we have over 60% of our homes connected with fiber. You know, we have a line of sight to being able to get, um, the nation largely connected, every home connected with fiber by the end of the decade. You know, but the key here is how are we, you know, these operators going to participate in the AI future because meanwhile, we're sitting there, you know, wanna do interconnects to, between GPU racks and data centers and then connect data centers. And so as we're getting all this fiber across the nation, um, you know, if you're a middle mile network, how do you participate? If you're a, um, last mile service fighter, how are you gonna participate? If you are, you know, right now, if you look at network operators and AI, what do they use it for?

(28:20)
They use AI to try to optimize their, you know, network performance, but how are you going to optimize in- home experience? How are ... You know, one of the things that we have seen from the recon analytics studies is the quality connection has a big impact on whether a subscriber is participating in AI. So what they found is that if you have fiber, 75% of fiber subscribers use AI daily, um, and it has that connection, the quality goes down with cable, DSL, fixed wireless, satellite, satellite less than 10%, you know, the type of, um, applications you're using. So are you gonna be a producer in AI? Are you going to, are you gonna be just, you know, looking at social media and some emails on a cell phone, you know, maybe Leo or fixed wireless is fine. So these are the kind of things that are gonna be really important to determine, you know, how are you, are you gonna be riding the front side of this wave and being able to build your business on what AI and quantum computer and fiber connectivity are going to enable or you are going to be left behind and, and stuck with, you know, hey, like the taxi drivers of, "Hey, we've been doing this taxi business for 100 years and, you know, we're not gonna change." And, you know, you know which end of that story, so you can askmotack about film or ... You know, I was telling someone today that, you know, growing up, my dad worked for Xerox and we had a star workstation at our house and, you know, we were dragging and dropping with little icons and stuff like that.

(29:54)
And, you know, Xerox did not know what to do with it. And meanwhile, you know, Bill Gay Gates and Steve Jobs ran over to Xerox Park and Palo Alto and stole everything and created the Mac and, and ran off with all that Xerox technology. So, you know, you can be the inventor and, and be left behind as well. Yeah. You just 

Jessica Denson (30:14):
Have to 

Gary Bolton (30:15):
Be able to, I mean, you know, there's countless stories across history where, you know, there's Kodaks all over the place, right? So it's, it's, we have to make sure that our members are on the front side of this wave. 

Jessica Denson (30:30):
I- is that the one important takeaway you'd wanna leave our, our listeners with? Do you wanna add something, a, a key- Well, I think- ... Final thought about this, the event or the fiber association or what you want them to take away from our conversation today? 

Gary Bolton (30:44):
Well, I, I would say there's two things. 

Jessica Denson (30:46):
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Bolton (30:47):
So, you know, we had some consultants come in and look at our membership. Our membership's going great, right? We've been growing membership, but we thought from a position of strength, we should really, really study this and understand why companies are flocking to join FBA and participate, not just join, but actually get involved. And it's, it's obvious <laugh> once they told us, but it's basically, this is where the industry meets. This is where the industry engages. And so if you wanna be part of this industry, this is how you engage. You know, we provide the events, we provide these working groups, we provide a way for companies and employees in those companies to be able to influence the outcome, the direction of this industry. And so if you wanna be, participate, you know, come join us. And at our event, it's not that we're going to provide all the answers, but we've designed this event so that by the end of the event, by the AI Infrastructure Summit, you are asking all the right questions.

(31:46)
And so we wanna send everybody home, making sure they know the right questions asked so that they can analyze and assess their strategy and where their future is. And so we want them to be fully informed on, you know, this, uh, pivot and this transition that's happening and how to get on the right side of the wave. 

Jessica Denson (32:07):
I actually love that because going, a- asking the right questions leads to innovation and, uh, more informed decision making and thinking outside the box. So I think that's fantastic. Well, Gary, thank you so much for your time today. I know you and your whole team are busy right now, so I appreciate you taking some time out, time out of your day to talk about this. 

Gary Bolton (32:26):
Well, Jessica, I look forward to seeing you in Orlando. <laugh> It's gonna be an epic event. It's always so much fun and we have so many great things planned. And if you're not blown away by, you know, every year we're like, "How can we do this better?" And our vendors, you know, our strategic partners, they just get so excited because we challenge them to really say, you know, how can they be best in the world at what they do? And, and they really look forward ... You know, they do a lot of events, but they look forward to our event because we really push them to, you know, see what they're made of. And, uh, they always blow us away by providing a great experience. 

Jessica Denson (33:03):
Well, it sounds exciting. And everybody needs to go on and register, so I'll include links again in the description of this podcast. Thank you, Gary. 

Gary Bolton (33:11):
All right, thanks. And we'll see you in Orlando. 

Jessica Denson (33:14):
Okay. Again, my guest today has been Gary Bolton, the president and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association. I'll include links to the FBA's website into the Fiber Connect Conference taking place May 17th through the 20th in Orlando. I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to us. If you like our show and know more about Connected Nation, head to connectination.org or look for the latest episodes on all major podcast platforms.