Speaking
Last mile was yesterday’s problem. I build the edge mile, and I talk about what that work actually takes.
Plenty of people talk about rural broadband. Most of them have never climbed a tower or explained a bill to a neighbor. I do both. I build networks in Bibb County, Alabama, I run the companies that own them, and I live in the same town as the customers.
Rural broadband is only part of the job now. The last mile was about getting internet to a house. The edge mile is about connecting the places where the computing happens, out where fiber will never reach. AI put real weight behind that problem. A model that has to answer right now cannot wait on a round trip to a data center three states away.
What I speak about
The edge mile. I named a company after this idea because I think the industry is still solving yesterday’s problem. Fiber is slow to build and easy to cut. Wireless reaches the edge in weeks. The same radios that serve a farmhouse also serve a tower, a plant, or a camera that has to make decisions on its own.
Rural broadband and fixed wireless. I work in fixed wireless, not fiber, and that difference matters more than most policy talk admits. I can tell you what it really costs to reach the last house on a dirt road, and what the places fiber will never reach actually need.
Private LTE and 5G. You can build a mobile core without signing a vendor contract. I show operators how: what CBRS opens up, which order to build in, and how to get a network running in days instead of months. My Rapid Deployment LTE guide walks through the same material, and Rapid5GS is the open source installer I wrote to make the core part easy.
AI search and small business. Buyers used to ask around. Now they ask an assistant. If a company never wrote down what it does, the assistant cannot name it, so the company may as well not exist. I talk about what changed and what an honest business can do about it. My favorite example is a tower contractor no assistant could name, and how we fixed that.
The open web. Self-hosting, running your own infrastructure, and why staying in a small town beats leaving it.
Theology, though less often now. For years I spoke on Scripture and Christian hope in church settings. I do far less of that today. I care about it as much as ever, but the more I read, the more I see how much I still have to learn. Most of it goes into writing now: why Christianity should be the most hopeful faith on earth, the long argument over the Lord’s Supper, and what it means to walk by someone else’s light.
Where I have spoken
ALANOG-6, Montgomery, Alabama. I spoke twice at Alabama’s Network Operators Group, our state version of NANOG. First I gave a fast overview of LTE and 5G deployment: RAN hardware, packet core options, and builds we had actually done. I also showed Rapid5GS in public for the first time, standing up a full LTE packet core on a $65 computer in under five minutes. Later I sat down with Tony Porterfield, CTO for the City of Montgomery, for a filmed conversation about MGMix, the first and only city-owned Internet Exchange Point in Alabama.
Churches. I have given a lot of theology talks over the years, mostly to churches and church groups rather than at conferences. They come less often now. I list them because they happened and because I still care about the subject, not because they make me an expert.
If you want a sample before you invite me, read what I have written about rural broadband policy, the wireless industry, or AI search.
Formats
I do podcasts and interviews, conference sessions, panels, and fireside chats. Now and then I run a workshop where operators walk through a real build instead of just hearing about one. Remote is easy. In person, I travel most often within a day’s drive of central Alabama, and farther when the topic is worth the trip.
Booking
Email me. The contact page has my address and a form. Tell me who your audience is, what format you have in mind, and when you need an answer. That is enough to start.