At it's annual planning meeting on January 10, 2019 the Iowa Heartland Board of Directors elected officers to serve for the calendar year 2019.

David Schilling (Cedar Falls Utilities) was elected Board President for a second one-year term. David Fyffe (ImOn Communications) will also serve his second one-year term as Vice President.

Josh Robinson (USA Communications) was named Board Treasurer, continuing in the role he assumed in 2018. And Curtis Dean (SmartSource Consulting) will serve a final year as Secretary before he is term limited.

A reminder that the Iowa Heartland Board will be meeting on Thursday, January 10, 2019 to plan the schedule of Chapter trainings for 2019.

We'd like to keep building on the momentum from a successful 2018 by providing the kinds of training that benefit Iowa's hard-working telecommunications workers. If you have an idea for a training topic, email Curtis Dean, Chapter Secretary, at curtiswdean@gmail.com. 

Four current members of the Iowa Heartland Chapter SCTE Board of Directors will return to serve another two-year term and will be joined by two new Board members.

Voting by SCTE members ended Friday. Re-elected to new terms were current Board President Dave Schilling of Cedar Falls Utilities, Board Treasurer Josh Robinson of USA Communications, and Board members Dishon Clark of Mediacom and Ryan Malek of Router 12 Networks.

New Board members will be David Riley of Mediacom and Brandon Halsne of Osage Municipal Utilities. 

Thank you to the new and returning Board members for their service to the Chapter and all of the telecommunications technicians in Iowa!

The Iowa Heartland SCTE's Cable-Tec Games will be in new location this year, making it more convenient for participants from central and western Iowa.

The games will be Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities Office and Training Complex in Ankeny. While the Chapter has held numerous trainings at the IAMU facility over the years, this is the first time the Cable-Tec Games have been here. For the past several years the Games were held at Kirkwood Community College in Hiawatha or Marion.

Registration is now available for participation in the Cable-Tec Games. There is no charge to participate in the Games and the competition is open to both SCTE members and non-members. For a complete description of the Games and the day's schedule, visit the "Events and Trainings" page.

The Iowa Heartland SCTE Board will be meeting in January with to goal of establishing our local training and events for 2019. And we'd love to hear your ideas about what types of training opportunities would most benefit you in your telecommunications career!

In the past two years, we've provided low-cost training sessions on a number of topics, including fiber optics, DOCSIS, home networking, network powering, and many others. Is there a topic that you'd like us to address? If so, please send an email to Chapter secretary Curtis Dean at curtiswdean@gmail.com. We'll share it with the Board and hopefully it can be included in our 2019 training opportunities!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the 2018 Golf Outing and Vendor Day on October 3, 2018!

The latest training opportunity presented by the Iowa Heartland Chapter was entitled "All Things DOCSIS". The presenter was Benjamin Brodfuehrer with Cisco Systems. 

When Windstream decided to accept federal funding under the FCC's CAF-II program, it was clearly not going to be sufficient to expand fiber networks to all underserved rural areas. Instead, the company has been using fixed wireless technology to fill in those gaps.

As THIS STORY in Fierce Wireless points out, Windstream has been using Radwin fixed wireless equipment to cover 9,000 households in Oklahoma and another 200 in Argyle, Iowa, and unincorporated town in the southeast corner of the state. They are apparently planning to use similar fixed wireless technology to reach an additional 34 communities in Iowa with 6,500 households through next year.
​
Windstream is offering a 25 Mbps package for $50 a month in those areas, with up to 100 Mbps speeds available at $70 a month. While those speed levels and prices seem very competitive, the line-of-sight nature of fixed wireless will limit reach in some areas. Also, there's no word on whether Windstream plans to retire its copper network in these areas - something that other large carriers have announced that they plan to do.

​CenturyLink has shuttered it's own IPTV service, Prism, that was offered in some of its larger cities. However, to fill their customer's needs for video services, they are apparently ready to partner with other OTT cable providers.
According to THIS ARTICLE at Fierce Cable, CenturyLink will explore options for bundles using "virtual MVPD's" such as Sling Television, Sony Playstation Vue, Fubo, or others. No specifics on when they might begin offering these services or where. 

Some of these vMVPD's have already worked out deals with the National Cable Television Cooperative that allow broadband providers to offer these services, although in most cases the cable company isn't allowed to bundle those services on their bill.