March 28, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

6:04PM Apr 1, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Mark Goldstein

Shereka Jackson

Mala Muralidharan

John Kelly

Nubia Estrada

Carrie Foote

Anthony Constantini

John Giarolo

Keywords:

broadband

acp

people

access

services

arizona

building

backbone

funding

week

cable

connect

internet

applications

john

gigahertz

support

isps

move

event

know what's going on hearing the day and having these problems with the captions

well

okay, well, I'm gonna go ahead and get started and hopefully work figure out how to get the captions started again. Come I don't know what's, what the problem is?

They did come on for me FYI, I waited into you just just now but I was able to turn them on on my screen. Okay.

Anyway, so let's, let's get going. And also I forgot to mention Triad Wireless who is another partner and friend for a long time now. So we have kind of a unique meeting today in that the Broadband office folks are not here. They have an event that they're hosting today. So Broadband staff will not be here today. But just wanted to mention that to you. And then moving on that they do have, although they're of course not here today, two new Broadband office staff, Kelly Kursee, who is the Broadband Community Engagement Manager and we've welcomed Kelly back last week she was with the Arizona Department of Education. And we look forward to seeing her and we have not met Jamie Garrett, who is their new senior Broadband Program Manager. So hopefully we will get to meet the Jamie next week. So just wanted to mention that. We know I'm, again, I think you all know and is in my newsletter, that the Broadband office has released an RFQ for Broadband Digital Equity consulting and management services. And actually, the application questions were due March 14, which of course, we've missed that. And then applications are due April 1. So coming up very shortly. So again, that information is in my newsletter, and you can find all of that. And then the Broadband office is is having engagement tours, which is where they are today. And most of them are already done now is March 25 and march 26 to march 27. So all of those are done for now. And then they are there this morning. So that's why they're not here. I don't know. Nicole, are you here today? Okay, I don't think she's here today. So let's, let's move on. And then the Governor's Interagency, Community Broadband Advisory Council working groups. Again, both couple of those are already done March 25, and 25th. And then they have one coming up on workforce development on workforce tomorrow. So you're all welcome. You'll find that information in my newsletter on how to join. So that is Steve.

Steve. I just want to mention that Maggie Farry has now combined three of those groups, but also is about to introduce if she hasn't already a tribal consultive group as well. So I believe that it'll be five groups when she's done with that, consolidating three of them and introducing one new one.

Yep. So yeah, thank you, Mark. So she did combine infrastructure, permanent permitting and mapping. And then there was a Digital Inclusion, workforce development and the new tribal one that mark just announced. Okay, so moving on. Just let's do a quick update on on ACP. I don't know if there's anything particularly new but the way you want to give us update.

Yeah, there, you're right. There's nothing particularly new. You know, ISPs have sent out their second notice. So we are obviously still waiting to see if something happens in DC on the Extension Act. It doesn't look good. It was not in the funding package that was approved. I think, last week, right after this meeting, I think or maybe right before, I can't remember. And there was nothing in there for ACP. And so it's not looking really good. At this point, everybody's focused on the wind down. And obviously trying to support low costs, you know, support the 525,000 Arizona residents that are going to need to go on to some kind of low cost plan. Working with ISPs to see some of some of the smaller ISPs are Oh, thanks, Mala, for putting in the new Benton tool. Some ISPs are actually keeping their customers on the program. So that there's no gap in case something does happen in the next couple of months. And then Mala just put in the chat, the new Benton ACP risk assessment tool so that people can take a look at that. And it's by zip code, to see if the area that they're in like, what the risk is for people who are going to lose their, you know, lose ACP. It's a huge number for Arizona. It's a huge number for the country. And, you know, we've done all kinds of letters and things of support documents and things that we've sent to Capitol Hill. Lots of groups have signed on to different letters. So that's really the update. There's there's really nothing. There's really nothing good to report, unfortunately. Steve. Yeah,

I thought I saw a report yesterday that the 216 members of Congress had actually signed on to support ACP. Of course, it's not in the budget this time, but

yeah, oh, no, it's, it's got all kinds of support, but unless it goes to the floor, or less, it's included in the budget. It's just not gonna happen. So

anyway, okay. So let's move on to John Kelly, Are you online? And think he's here today. Okay. Well, let's just jump into our president. Steve,

if your issue for John was the rural legislative Broadband Forum, or else other

I don't know, whatever he wanted to report. But so

ATIC John, John Kelly is our lobbyist, and officer, and he has been working on arranging an ATIC briefing for the rural Legislative Caucus, and that seems to be shaping up for April. So you know, that'll be Sandip and a few others. Presenting and engaging with the Rural Legislative Caucus on of course,

thank you. Let me see a couple of people. I wanted to see if they're on yet.

Okay, well, what's going to go in? Well, I wanted to tell you about a couple of things. So I'm thinking the next two or three weeks, we're gonna do a presentation from EX2, which some of you know who Ex2 is. And Mark, you want to tell people who Ex2 is?

Are they the ones who are getting the contract from the Broadband office? Yes. Are from a dot perhaps not all of us but they will be the commercial management partner for Arizona's highway right away. These are the segments built from filling in the gaps from Nogales to Flagstaff, and the new Broadband deployment underway from Flagstaff. to California, there was a KPMG study in 2022. That laid the groundwork for an expansive, Arizona middle mile network that would be stayed on but open access. additional investments are unknown, but there may be additional monies from the Federal flow or from revenue that comes from middle mile leasing, that are reinvested in additional state owned middle mile segments. Okay,

so they're going to be on sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then yesterday, I had a great conversation with the representative from Copudrop. And not only so we're going to hear from them not only about what the work they're doing, but they are also a part of a national coalition to look at some funding options for ACP. And so we're going to have probably an extended discussion with them about what they're doing, both with their organization, as well as with this national group that's forming, I guess it's being led by AT&T. So, so that's coming up, and then some time, and actually, I would love if some people would like to help me put together a panel discussing the pros and cons and benefits of municipally owned infrastructure. It's been a topic that seems to be coming up more and more, it's been an ongoing issue, obviously, that a lot of people are interested in that issue. But I want to have a lengthy discussion about the pros and cons, what it is what the models are. And of course, when we did our strategic plan back in 2020, we did include more thanks to Mark and we're in his work to provide examples of model networks. But the

Show More on that very point. Gigi Sohn, who was the nominee for FCC Chairman that did withdrawal was, you know, here for three events let earlier this week, but she runs the American Association for Public Broadband. They have just published I think it's about a 40 page booklet on that very topic own your own internet, how to build a public Broadband network. So I don't think that is appeared yet. In your newsletter. I posted it last week. I just reposted it.

I have not. And I know Elena, before you say it that yes, I will be contacting Drew, because I know that Benton Institute also has been working on that is Gigi working with Benton. She is

employed by Benton and she also runs this American Association for Public broad Broadband. I believe she's a senior fellow or some such title been as as Drew.

And I was aware of that mark, but thank you for reminding me. So that's probably going to come up maybe in two or three weeks. And we'd like to have some local people and energy. Kind of have a discussion about this, about this particular topic. So any thoughts or comments about that? So Mark, you want to just do a quick or anybody else who attended the the event last week? Or I'm sorry? On Monday, the Broadband event?

Yeah, I don't see Mignonne Hollis here so I'll get it started her group AREDF the Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation has a kind of companion site Arizona Broadband for all. They produced a on site only event on Monday from 11 to one over lunch and then a panel. It was kind of old home week. A lot of the usual subjects and a number of people on this call but Jeff Sobotca Ben Blink, Derek's Masseth and Holly Henly was there. Ilana and I were on a panel with Sandip and Drew Garner and Gigi I mean, it was a great like I say kind of old home greeting to physically see many our friends and meet for a future. Meet meet in person a few I've only seen on on video on the ACP. Gigi had an interesting perspective which she did express both at that event and And the two events that followed that I'll only briefly mentioned after I finish on this or was that she felt the FCC had the power to initiate a reform of universal service that might, in the end incorporate the concepts and functions of ACP, that that could well take a year. But there was an active political will, she was strongly encouraging and encouraging others to lobby for. But she kind of saw that as you know, that the funding maybe seven or $8 billion of funding that might arise to continue ACP, though it's looking less likely as time passes would bridge a year and that year could well be used for an FCC driven universal service reform that she didn't feel needed legislative action, it was a matter of political will within the FCC. So I didn't want to highlight that. The other two events was Aaron card, Jordan held a big row fundraising and awards gala that very evening at the Phoenix Art Museum, and a number of us were there, from this call this group. And the next day Lev, Gonick, ASU CIO, grand, the sixth annual ASU Smart City conference, and again, a little more limited set of this audience. We were there, but some of the national people that came in like Gigi Sohn, Larry Irving, former very important to Broadband in his roles in US Department of Commerce, they were in town for this kind of trio that had come together those two days. And let me defer to others. A lot of you were on the panel to your, your thoughts and observations.

Yeah, I think you covered it pretty well. I think it was really interesting to hear from Gigi Sohn. She's really involved in a lot of different areas. And it was I mean, it was really an interesting couple of days hearing from national folks, as well, as you know, here on the local level. Nothing, I don't think, you know, I'm not sure anything was announced that those of us on the call don't already know or haven't already been privy to. But as Steve said, it was it was nice to see people in person and, you know, just hear from them. So and Mark did a really great job on his presentation, kind of showing the history of Broadband in Arizona, to the group on on Monday. Really put into perspective, kind of like where we've come from and where we are now. So, you know, kudos to Mark, for sharing that information with everybody. Oh,

thank you, and that file is in the chat. But if you save the chat, you don't get attachments. Maybe Steve will post that file in a public forum for the newsletter access.

I will. Okay, so the one sorry, the one thing,

the one thing I just like to say that was said at the dinner that I think is good. From this perspective, this perspective of being from Arizona, was the shout out from the other Oregon people from not from Arizona, and how well Arizona is doing and coming together and bring people together around. That was so multiple. I made that comment. Yes, yes. So that that was cool.

Okay, thank you. Shereka. Okay, moving on. Before we jump into the presentation, Nubia, I see your online i don't know if you have anything much to tell us these days with with ACP situation, but you want to give us a quick update.

Yeah, hi. Good morning, everyone. I'm not much.

Excuse me. Nubia. Could you introduce yourself, please? Oh,

yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Nubia. Estrada, I am with Chicanos Por La Casa CPLC. And I am still the ACP admin. Um, as you all know, there's not very good news with ACP. So currently, what what we're doing is when we still get calls, and unfortunately, we have to, you know, provide individuals in the community the news that we are not, you know, they're, you know, it's we're not they're not accepting any new applicants, but we are definitely sharing the information. We did create a flyer to inform not only those that were enrolled in ACP, but also those that were potentially interested and they know someone, you know, we're trying our best to share that with everyone and You know, we told the different programs, we collaborated with the unfortunate news. And yeah, I mean, we're keeping our eye out in case something else comes up, we did see that they did come up with some news of some partial coverage in May. For those in non tribal, I think, I believe, and I, you know, please someone correct me if I'm wrong, the that partial coverage or partial benefit was between seven to $16. So, so yeah, I mean, we still get some news, and we're some calls and we try to update our community as much as we can. But we've, we're sharing our success stories and, and, you know, just the impact that ACP has in our communities, and but you know, unfortunately, it's not looking very, very good out there.

Yeah. Okey doke. Thanks. All right, let's jump into our presentation this morning, we have a unique and interesting presentation and want to introduce John Grl. Is that how you pronounce your name? John?

Very good. Steve.

I didn't ask you that when we talked the other day. But yeah, he is with representing a company airline. And I'm just going to turn it over to you, John. And you can tell people who you are and, and airline and you're interesting technology? And do you need to share your presentation?

Yeah, I'll, I will be able to, I should be able to share. So far, first of all, thank you for inviting me to this event. I'm with with airline communications, my name is Josh Rollo, I run the sales organization for for our company. I've been with air airlines, a company that's been around since 2017. I've been here coming up on on a year with the organization. As I was listening, you know, kind of kind of a Broadband and you know, all of the funding and the BEAD funding and things that are going on in the different communities, it's interesting to see how engaged you all are, you all are. One of the things that we do, and we'll go into, as we go into it, you'll see, you know, a lot of the Broadband initiatives are getting connectivity into communities, you know, fiber and, you know, getting fiber to buildings and into into the communities. What we do is we look at bringing that, that those services inside the facilities, right, whether that's a low income housing or, you know, educational institutions and things like that, and, and distribute. So that's kind of what we'll we'll talk a little bit about today. So let me, let me share my screen here.

Okay, you seen seeing my screen? Yes. Great. I'm going to put it in presentation mode, I hope, you know, go. Alright, there we go. Okay, so, again, the organization were found in 2017, we've been shipping for our product for, I guess about just about a year. So I kind of came on board as just as we were getting the product out into into the market. And one of the things that we've done is familiar with wireless. Do you think back for some of us folks that are older, you know, when we, when we first when Wi Fi stirred first became available, people were like, well, what do you mean, I don't need to plug in my, my computer into the wall anymore. And right, so what we're doing is we're focusing on bringing wireless to the, to the to the backhaul. So if you're familiar with connecting networks in your, in a building, right, you have an X Wi Fi access point, or a security camera or an access control of some sort, or now with lots of IoT gateways, it's, you know, you basically, it while it's maybe a wireless device, you have to connect a wire all the way back to where the Point of Presence comes in, right in. In the case of internet, it's where the internet pop is into that building. So usually that's either in a basement or you know, the, somewhere in in a building is not where the services need to be. Right. So we we what we do is try to remotely put those services out without having to run cable. So saves saves money time. And guests get services deployed quicker. So, you know, we won't focus on a lot of these. I think the ones that are really applicable would be applicable here are kind of the education market and multi families We're doing a project in. It's interesting because a lot of a lot of wheat when we, in the market, when you hear about like, the BEAD funding and connectivity, you always most people think of the rural areas. And while that's that's important, bringing the rural communities and get it connected, surprisingly enough, there's a lot of inner city locations that don't have affordable, either affordable or even internet access, we're working on a project in the in the south side of Chicago. So it's an area that's senior housing for low income seniors senior housing, and they don't have internet in the building, right. So their internet is either on a mobile device, if they can afford to get a mobile device, where they just don't have it. So they don't have access to a lot of a lot of the, you know, health care and all the things that you know, that we rely on internet access for so well, what we're able to do is kind of we're working with POA happens to be the via the organization that owns the buildings. And, and helping them to get Wi Fi into that service affordable Wi Fi. So we work with a local carrier. And we're the buildings done and to run cabling along down the hallways ripping up, you know, or getting into people's apartments is just not it's not a tenable forum. So we're able to kind of bring a wireless backbone network, so that they can get connectivity get it quickly. So it's just kind of some examples. And we we focus on hospitality as well as industrial and large venues. Because we're, it's wireless, I mean, we could set up, you know, in an emergency situation, you know, there's a, an area where you need to get Wi Fi connectivity or internet connectivity, to to, you know, a facility, you can put these things on tripods, and quickly set up a Wi Fi network, or could be even a private, private CVRs, or private LTE network. And you can do this very, very quickly. And we'll kind of go into a little bit about that. These are some of the some of the markets, and kind of where we we kind of fit so that, you know, with VA, I kind of present this we sell through a lot of different partners, right, and the people that do a lot of the installations as systems integrators, low voltage companies have, you know, internet providers and things like that. So we try to like just to give them a little heads up, they, you know, where is it that we we kind of fit, right anytime the you know, there's a new school or there's an addition being put onto a school or there's a portion of a, you know, Senior Center, maybe that that was used for, you know, just for, you know, for, for a lunch luncheons and things and now all of a sudden, they want to use that. So that center to be able to do training and education in those centers, but they don't have any internet services there, right or any Wi Fi. So what we this will allow us to do is be able to get an access point or get cellular service into that into that location into those locations, without having to bore holes in a wall, do cords rolling, you know, or, you know, rip down ceilings or whatever, to be able to get the cable in there to provide those services. So, again, these are some examples of use cases of where we got I won't spend a lot of time on this one, because I don't know how applicable would be for kind of your Broadband connectivity. But this happens to be a Costco store that just shows the vendor that we work with, they had done a bunch of stores, and it took them basically four evenings to do go in and put in these these access points. And the reason is, you can only work at night, you know, it was anywhere where there was food, which isn't a Costco is pretty much everywhere. You know, either had to remove everything that move everything or had to get covered, although all the cabling had to be put into conduit, and it took them basically four nights to be able to do this. And then we were able to come in and say okay, we could do this, and we did it in in one night. Right. So that's just shows you the difference in time, right time, time. Time is obviously cost savings, right? So, you know, in this case, your one store was an average around 2530 grand and ours was around 15 to 17. So, to show that kind of the value, this is one driver was kind of interesting. For an MDU, multi, multi dwelling unit. This would be you know, maybe a low income housing Could be any kind of, you know, Senior Center, those kinds of those kinds of things. And to provide that service, this is really what we're doing in Chicago. But instead of putting in the air vine solution on the left, and it actually in both of them the wired solution, those are access points in every single the Wi Fi access point in every unit in the project that we're doing in Chicago, because we can't get access into from privacy standpoint, we couldn't get access into the facilities, we're actually putting the access points in the hallways, and, and again, not having to run wires all the way from from the from the units to back to the wiring closet, right and IDF. And so we're able to do that wirelessly, obviously, you still have to have wires, you've got to be able to, you know connect to an access point or to a security camera, or something like that. But those runs are basically it's just a small jumper that comes off of the device that we have. And I'll talk a little bit about that kind of product. This shows a live environment in a factory, again, probably not not so much of an application from, you know, the BRI OR Broadband initiative. But again, it's very quick to install, you put it up and put it up on on a ceiling, this is kind of where it would go regardless of where where the application is, you put it in on the ceiling, and then you shoot between our devices wirelessly. And what we're able to do, we've we've figured out from a technology, we use 60 gigahertz, which is a spectrum, that's unlicensed spectrum. So you don't have to go to go to you know, pay for any license anymore, or, you know, lease it from a carrier or anything like that.

And we chose that for a bunch of reasons. One is that it has lots of bandwidth. So every there's there's seven available channels in the US in the 60 gigahertz space. A lot of people use 60 gigahertz. Yep, and you know, you probably you probably using it and a lot of your areas in the remote areas for wireless internet to homes, right, some of the carriers are doing that. And it's it's, it's basically a line of sight. So it's a micro almost like a microwave link, that goes goes to it, we've chose to do it indoors very similarly. And, and but we've used our technology, we've been able to figure out, and that's what we spent some 2017 to last year is taking the energy of the RF, that the signal, and I use the analogy to kind of do a flashlight on the wall, you get a big, big, you know, big piece of light, and then you got you do a laser pointer, and it's very pinpoint, right. And that's what we've done with the the the energy on the 60 gigahertz to be able to have a pinpoint accuracy. And that we're able to penetrate through walls. So that's important because if you're going through wireless, and you want to have you know, your back, you're doing a backhaul, more than likely you're gonna you know, you're gonna have to go through two or three sets of walls. And we that's what we've been able to accomplish with the technology. Before I go in a little bit of tech at any any questions on that? Okay, so, so with this is what the system looks like, if you're familiar with an Xbox, it's about the size of an Xbox, it basically sits up on a ceiling or, you know, into into a ceiling depending on on the structure. It's very simple, simple to install. And I mentioned we use 60 gigahertz. So the system set up that there's a radio on each side. So basically, we we transmit on the left hand side that left and right and we transmit out the other side as well. So we can put these in, in, in line, if you will. So we can have you know, two or three or four or 567 Doesn't really matter. In line to be able to get longer distances in buildings, we can create a ring, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But we've we've figured out how to kind of steer, we do beam steering so we can actually go around corners. So if you think about a building or hallway, you know, a lot of times it might be a courtyard where you have, you know, three three hallways in there, you got to make two left turns. That's so that's something that we can do. And again, if you're doing it with cable, you know you obviously can bend cable, but now we're able to do this wirelessly here. And it's you know, we talked about the distributed IDF. So the IDF or the point of presence where where the internet service is being being brought into the buildings, almost 99% of the time where that service is brought in. It's not where this year it needs to be used, right? It's, if it's in the basement, it needs to get distributed out throughout the entire building so that people can have access to the internet. And what we do with a login and basically remotely put that put that IDF wherever your services need to be. So So we basically designed this as a very simple device, easy to install. And we realized that you'll see on the in the center of center of the unit, there's sort of SOS for Ethernet ports, and those ports are P OE ports. And that's what how we, we would power an access point or a security, you know, an IP camera, or maybe an IoT gateway or something, something along those lines. In most cases, what we're doing is we're providing Internet service, so it's typically a wire, typically a Wi Fi. But we also do a lot with, you know, remote access control into, into a lot of the buildings, right, or into a part of the apartments, where you have a device, maybe it's a mobile device, or it's just some way to be able to remotely open that, that, that door for somebody in from a security standpoint, I mentioned that we have, you know, there's two radios, there's a radio on each side, the importance there is that, you know, a lot of people ask me, you know, well, can't we do this just with a, you know, with our access points and just mesh them together and create, you know, a backbone with them, you can, but what happens when you do that in with with Wi Fi access points, even with Wi Fi seven, every time you make a hop or create a mesh, for every hop, you have the throughput. So if you've got a gigabit backbone, you make one hop, it's now half a gigabit, you make two, two hops, it's, you know, 500 megabits. So it's, it's just over 250. So it just continues to get get reduced. And obviously, you can't scale it doesn't scale very well. So we, when we design this, we wanted to make sure again, because what we're we're being the value proposition is that we can install services very quickly, without, you know, having to do lots of cabling. So we need to make sure that was very, very simple to, to install. Basically, this the system is that it has a Wi Fi access point in it for for our management and configuration standpoint. So I have an app, there's an iOS application, I happen to have an iPhone, I'll I download it, and basically, I log into one of the devices. And if I have three or four devices on it, you just need to log into one. And then you have from that device, you can now configure all of the the other devices, this is very, very simple to install. And it's simple to manage, right, so we have a software set of software suites that that's the operating system and then the management system to make sure that you can you can verify that you've got connectivity to the access point or the security security camera or making sure that you're getting the performance throughputs that you want. So we're a backbone, that's, you know, like cat cat five cable, you got basically its gigabit cable, we can support, you know, distances up to, we claim up, you know, we follow kind of a similar pattern of a cable cable length is basically 100 meters, 300 and something feet, we've tested it at up to 225 meters and still maintain over Gigabit of throughput. So, you know, for large, you know, large, large areas, so you can definitely move these things pretty far, far apart. Talk a little bit about this, this is really kind of the vine suite, that kind of the management side of it. Again, it's really, really about being able to quickly be able to turn up services and deliver those services to to, you know, to the end to the end customers as quickly and efficiently as possible, and then be able to manage kind of managed through after the they're installed. And again, real simple to install with these things. Again, they mount typically they mount on on a ceiling. So there's a little bracket that you have your mount on the ceiling, you snap the unit into into the mounting bracket. Yeah, yep, it needs it requires power. And the reason it requires power is because we were also powering other devices. So And we, you know, you could we could be powered by Poe, but then we can't power anything else off of that. So, so we were looking for just standard 110 power. And then we, we plugged one at one of the Ethernet ports or one fiber port into, into the internet or into the backbone. Right. So, you know, as you're developing and bringing the Broadband services to the building, we would connect to that, and then distribute the, that, that Broadband services throughout throughout the building with the wave tunnels. So, you know, reduces the time the construction, there are no construction costs really, in here, it's just physically doing an install, I mentioned you distributing the IDF to not you know, from the, from where the Point of Presence comes in, to where the services need to be, be delivered. So we do, you know, basically a bus topology butter chain, so we can, this tree, we just show this as root node, and by node is just how we denote them, but you can call them whatever you want, any, any one of the nodes can connect to, to the, to the backbone, or to an Internet, and any, any node, in fact, you can have multiples connecting to it, for redundancy, and then any other other the other nodes that have the access points or, or the

cameras are, whatever services that you're providing, you know, connect, connect off of the, off the switch ports, and then we power those off with over po Poe. So we can connect it in line, so we can kind of go down, down, you know, down a long hallway. Or we can create in a ring environment. So if you had, you know, a building that had, you know, had courtyard type environment, you could create, you know, for create four corners and create a rain, it really, you know, it's just a lot a lot of flexibilities. And in a ring environment, if one of the one of the units goes down, it's kind of like, if you're familiar with, you know, sonnet, you know, in the Viber world, for the for the backbones, it would just reroute the traffic through bypassing the failed unit or powered down unit, and keeping all the services up for the for the others. So, let's just kind of kind of wrap up where, again, we're, we're creating a backbone, it's multi gigabit, we see, you know, today, we're seeing about two gigabits of throughput, as we continue to develop the product and do more things with bonding in the 60 gigahertz space, because there's so seven channels, we think we'll be able to get those that, that that backbone, up to, you know, probably like 10 gigabit. So, again, going through being able to penetrate walls, which is something that, you know, want to if for the folks that that know about kind of 60 gigahertz and challenges with that, that spectrum, you know, for out and when it's outdoors, and you're shooting through, you know, out to somebody's home, you have to make sure that there are any trees in the way that because once the leaves get on the trees, it literally blocks it would block the signal. And so they always question well, how can you go through a wall when you know, this, this product that's, you know, outside can't even go through a leaf. And again, that's kind of the secret secret sauce that we've done. And what we have to do a lot of, a lot of times it's just do a proof of concept with people to show him that it actually does work. And it really it really does, you know, we've we've gone through four sets of walls and maintain multi multi gigabit. So we're, it's pretty a tried and true solution. You know, again, it's simple install, you know, the one in the corner here, the bottom that was showing you how to kind of go on a 90 degree angle, and it's, you know, there's no magic we're not bending RF, basically, we're just steering it. So we've got a basically a 60 degree steer in any one of our diet devices. If you see the one the one unit that's in the corner, that little the little box with the looks like a looks like a V it's an it's an A for for airline but that's on a 45 we tilt down on a 45 degree so that now we can you know can make that make that 90 degree turn around there. And again, it's done without any any disruption to the to you know, to the tenants and you know very little or no construction costs. Be able to do that

yeah, miss, I just repeat this. It's just the you know, kind of where we fit. And again, I think from from, you know, what you all are doing, you know, it's really providing, you're getting the getting the Broadband to the communities to the community centers, to the to the housing, you know, either as low income housing or senior housing or, and then, once it's there, you know, how do you distribute that to, to, to the, to the tenants, to provide those services or into the community centers or libraries to be able to, you know, have have internet access available to people in the community. And we can just kind of help do that once you once it's in the building. Any questions?

Sure, John, Mark Goldstein, in a mixed environment, let's say enterprise public, a Costco, a community center even to readily support alternate SSID. I mean, many, many, most, most Wi Fi routers will support a two SSID is where you can keep one proprietary channel for enterprise use and open another maybe for public use. Yeah, so good

question mark. So so we're not the AP, right? While we have an AP in it that we use for our management, it's not open to for use it you can't use it to get to the internet. So we're connecting, we're connecting, there would be an access point that would be, you know, connected. So if you're, you know, if you're using a raucous one or Cisco, and we've tested, we've tested with them all, we have a very good relationship with ruckus. But yeah, it's we would, you know, so it would be dependent upon the the access point that would be connecting. But yeah, you're right. So

you pair, a user provided access point at every location that you put your device,

now, it potentially, potentially you would, or sometimes it's, like, we had one where we were, there was one location where they needed an access point. And it happened to be in an industrial environment where it was going over the production production facility, and they didn't want to have to take the production facility down, they couldn't run cables over it. So they needed to do to go, you know, I want to say it was like, almost 200 feet. And so, so we used to have our boxes wanted to want it the Point of Presence, and one where where the access point needed to be. But the x where the access points need to be located really is depending on kind of the coverage that covers it. So what we do is you could have, you know, up to four, four access points hanging off of one of these, wait one of these wave tunnels, right? Because you, you know, and then you would use, that's where you still have a physical cable, right, you still need to have a connection to that access point. But instead of running 100, and you know, in the you know, 150 feet of cable, you're running a small jumper, maybe it's 50 feet or 20 feet, depending on where they have to be one might be right on top of the top of it.

helpful, thank you understand better now. Thank you.

Any other questions for John?

Steve? Yes, I posted a question on in the chat. Just checking whether John, you've applied for elite eligibility. Because I think this is a this is a good solution, especially for historic library buildings, where we really don't you know, it takes a lot of effort and to get permission permission to run cables or you know, do any internal ripping and stuff like that. So just wondering if you have applied for E Rate eligibility.

So um, yes, we have we have applied and I know even with like the the E Rate we were kind of waiting for our final final number for that. The other the other pieces is that we're also made in America. So we make these down into air. They're made in Dallas, Texas. So you know, why No, with a lot with a lot of the funding that's available, you know, by American compliant has to has to be in play, and we adhere to that. Thank you.

John, could you stop sharing your screen, please? Oh, yeah. Sorry.

No problem.

Add your contact information. So that was good. So any other questions for John? once going twice, if not, let's move on with some of our updates. So Mala, you want to give us an update on what's happening with the library. And Anthony also welcome. And we'd love to hear from you also.

Yesterday, lots happening. In fact I should I woke up this morning, just to download the data for for this meeting because yesterday nine o'clock was the deadline for our E Rate application applications. So we always call it the morning after data. And that's what it is. With, there are still applications that could come through after this, you know, till April 10. FCC allows late applications. With a waiver, you have to apply for a waiver. This this year, it's gone down a little bit. The rate reimbursements. Normally it's about 85 million, that is about 100 million. With the discounts. It is about 85 million that we get back for the state. This year, it's about 85 million total that was applied for so with the discount, it should be around 70 million that we would get. Eventually, if all of the applications are approved. There is a reduction in category one applications because I think mostly the fiber laying laying on fiber has already taken place with several other programs like our middle mile and other initiatives that we've had. So I'll keep you updated as more applications, the last few come through. But this is just the morning after data. FCC has announced the funding cap for 2020 24, which is 4.9 billion. This is this is the inflation adjustment increase from 2023 2023 was 4.7. And we are now at 4.9 billion. And annually this will be adjusted. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is there's been a lot of discussion about the Universal Service Fund, which supports, as you know, the high cost program, the rural health care programs, the Lifeline program, and II rate. The last week, FCC announced the next quarter contributions, and that has gone up again, it's now at 24.6% for the first quarter contributions to be made by telecom service providers. Again, this is totally unsustainable. As I've mentioned previously, traditional telecom companies are basing it on the shrinking landline users budgets amounts coming in. And not only are the landline users reducing, but the landline usage is mainly by our seniors or her veterans or people who are homebound. And that's a population that you really really don't want to tax anymore, because where would the telecom providers get the funding from it's going to be taxing our seniors at home, the landline users, the rest of us are all already on mobile devices. So a lot of studies have been done on this. The one that is I've previously mentioned was the Shelby but um, look forward, that is the one that shall be had done last year, in compasses also got a lot of studies that they have put together on their website, and I will post the link to it once I'm done talking. I think that is very it's an it's talking about the increase in the base. Because even for ACP To be continued, or the hotspot program to be continued. You do need a larger base for the Universal Service Fund. And if that's if the contribution is going to decrease, it's going to put a burden both on the telecom service providers as well as the people who they will ultimately tax to get it. So Senator Cruz has Um, I think I mentioned this last time, too. He, he is in the Senate Committee on Commerce, science and transportation. And he put forward an eight page blueprint on protecting Americans from hidden FCC tax hikes. That's what he calls it is the it's a blueprint for the Universal Service Fund. base increase. And some of the things that he suggested is to avoid duplication between programs like lifeline hotspot lending, to stop subsidizing larger telephone companies and to target low income groups that are not adopting the internet access. So that's, that's, again, something worth looking at, you know, his suggestions. Okay, so moving forward from you, USF. Then National Education Technology Plan is, again, something that's worth looking at this is done by the Department of Education. The three principles that they are using is digital, digital use, divide, digital design, divide, and digital access divide. And they are addressing the different opportunities to improve these, especially for students, and educators. And to to address the digital divide. Again, these documents are the backbone of what we need to do with the BEAD funding, and with the Digital Equity funding when it comes through. So it's worth looking at it worth studying it, and maybe even at some point, trying to see if we can implement any of those in our statewide implementation of the BEAD program, cybersecurity pilot programs. FTC had actually put forward this $200 million grant application. And the comments and reply comments, deadline is passed. It was it was at the end of February accumulated all of the comments, the most, there were five most important comments here. One is to shorten the duration. Because the three year pilot free timeframe was too long. More funding was required more than the 200 million funds for learning suggested about 312 million. They also suggested not to restrict the eligible services to but to allow technology neutral neutrality in cybersecurity implementation. They wanted a mechanism to try to measure success in a way that wasn't too burdensome. And also for how they could address privacy concerns. Because they need to be careful when collecting this data and when tracking it to make sure that the cybersecurity posture of the applicants was not exposed, that could show vulnerability or attack on previously, you know, which which needs which should not be disclosed. And it might threaten the security of the system itself. I wanted to draw attention also to the NTIA mapping tool and permitting an environment tool. Again, I'll put the link in the chat. This is a new tool that they have come up with permitting is again, a big problem for us in Arizona, especially because we cross some some many tribal areas. And they also have a new mapping tool that is available again. I'll put all that in the chat once I'm done. Okay. Back to you, Steve, because I know we are running out of time. Unless, Anthony, if you have anything else to add to what I say.

No, that was that was great. I don't have any big updates for you. I'm still getting my feet wet. I attended the smart regen summit earlier this week with Megan and Holly. And that was really great. Right now I'm just kind of working through our LSTA grant applications. So I'm just really working on the digital Digital Equity and the Wi Fi hotspot grants right now. But no major updates.

Thank you Anthony and welcome. So moving on. So John Holcomb, I think has left us carry Do you have any thing that you'd like to report regarding telemedicine.

Thank you for the ask. I appreciate that. No, I don't have anything to report. Mike was at the panel meeting and dinner earlier this week. So I know he made a lot of valuable connections and also appreciated the shout out that we got at that meeting as well. So thank you for that.

Okay, thank you, Carrie. So I think John Kelly, I see you joined us. Do you have any legislative updates that you want to share?

Yeah, sorry, I'm in the car for a background noise. But real quick last week, I counted the alarm that there is going to be a strike over the amendment, the Senate government committee to basically disassemble the Arizona Commerce Authority, including moving the Arizona Broadband program to the department ministration. That bill did pass that committee does appear to have the votes to move forward. And then on Monday and in the House Appropriations Committee, that is another strike every the amendment to save and continue ACA in its current form. So we have this competing set of proposals still going through the process. Ultimately, I think that will likely get tied into the ultimate budget negotiation in what you might describe as a leveraged, leveraged decision making environment, but so far, I'm much more optimistic. about ACA is face today than I was last week.

Okay, thanks, John. Anything else? That's all for me. Thanks, John. Be safe driving. Okay, anybody have anything else that they want to announce or share? Where we end for today? Going once, going twice. If not