Middle Mile: Keeping It All Connected

Managing the Project, Promoting the Value

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

2:40 PM – 3:20 PM CT

Location: Bayou AB

Moderator(s)

Erik Keith

Senior Research Analyst, Broadband Infrastructure
SPG Global
Leesburg, Virginia, United States

Panelist(s)

Robert Conger

General Manager, Software Platforms and Strategy
Adtran
Huntsville, Alabama, United States
Paul Brigandi

Application Technology Leader
Dow
Collegeville, Pennsylvania, United States
Justin Forte

CEO
INDATEL Services
Overland Park, Kansas, United States
CB

Chris Bailey

Senior Director of Sales
Wesco
Canton, Georgia, United States

Pushing fiber further to connect all Americans is the state’s goal of federal programs like the NTIA’s BEAD program. Ensuring that exponential increase in data traffic doesn’t face a bottleneck as it traverses the network is critical. Upgrading the operator’s middle mile ensures that rural network expansion to support FTTx, 55G and Fixed Wireless Access deployments can deliver the services promised in areas with little or no infrastructure today. This panel will discuss why focusing on just the access portion of the network may be setting the industry up for a headache, easily avoided, but putting equal attention on the middle mile and its role is service delivery and customer experience.