June 5, 2025 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording
8:45PM Jun 5, 2025
Speakers:
Steve Peters
Mark Goldstein
Lucy Howell
Henry Goldberg
Brian Daly
Rory Conaway
Kelly Krusee
Kelly Mukherjee
Gordon Fuller
Randy Luening
Jared Bodine
Joseph Sepp Sprietsma
Matthew Roclevitch
Ivory Johnson
Keywords:
middle mile funding
round one awards
broadband access
T-Mobile partnership
nonprofit mission
wireless broadband
digital divide
educational institutions
rural solutions
spectrum allocation
community impact
affordable connectivity
policy advocacy
digital equity
partnership opportunities
Yeah, we didn't hear anything about middle mile awards from round one our you know, and middle mile fibers required to support the last mile connections. And so I'm wondering whether there's a need for middle mile that could be supported by the round one awards, or is, you know, is that taken into account in round two? Is Henry
fun? Fundamentally, middle mile is not fundable other than on a project by project basis. So if a project needs specific middle mile to reach a point of presence of existing or plan network that can be funded. But large scale middle mile is not a subject of the grant. It's a subordinate element of a last proposal.
Yeah, I understand that mark, but I was wondering whether some of the middle mile that may have been funded in round one could impact round two. In summary, so I just don't know. We never heard anything about the middle mile Awards, the ones that I was wondering if there's a relationship other
than ex squared being a portfolio manager for a dot and other fiber assets. I mean, that's generally a good thing that we now have, yeah, quality company and a dot and other fiber under a joint, you know, proactive management regime,
right? Okay, well, all good points. Thank you, Mark for for sharing and Henry, let me see what I can find out and circle back on some of that middle mile. Okay, appreciate it. Thank you.
Any other quick questions for Kelly before we move on?
Just so there was a nice profile just yesterday of Nick Capozzi as a new broadband director on broadband.io and I did put the link his combination of an interview and a profile, so that just came out yesterday.
Okay, well, let's move on then. So, well, first of all, I just want to say that in spite of all of the negative and all the stuff that's happening, and all the disappointments coming from the feds and all of that kind of good stuff, we still have people who are doing good stuff, one of which is a Z st, which we've talked about before, that's providing a low cost solution. And I gotta tell you, when I attended the conference a couple weeks ago, the one of the best things, which you probably all know about conferences is the people you meet. And one of those people that I met is Matthew, who is going to be speaking today with summit telecom and the great work that they're doing. And so I really wanted to get Matthew to present with us today. So Matthew, I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce yourself and talk about summit and some of the cool stuff you guys are
doing. Steve on Mr.
Context, what's up?
Oh, can you folks right here?
You're you're cutting out really bad because of a bandwidth issue.
Okay, hang on one second.
They get Okay. No,
not yet. No, okay, I
any better? Please tell me it is, yeah, yes. Oh, outstanding. Okay, I apologize for the folks. I'm glad I was able to quick, quickly resolve that I wanted to say that with with Steve's comments, very the feelings very mutual. For context, we met the first night that that we got to the conference. I. And shared a fish and chips. Was very it was okay, but it was, it's a nice conversation, grading people. And then, of course, through that conversation, got to meet Erin and and, I mean, through other mutual communication as well. And then also was introduced to Jared as well, too. So a lot of great synergies at the at the conference, for sure. Steve, you meet a lot of great people that you want to you want to connect with. So I'd love to for me. Matt Brock Levitch, again, Mission Telecom, Senior Manager of broadband operations. It's very broad term, because my role does wear several hats, but my, my, my job is to help operationalize this really cool asset that we have that I'll get into with our with our presentation. So let me just go ahead and do a share screen real quick. Hopefully this doesn't become the bandwidth issue. Otherwise I gotta, I gotta fix my situation here. Can you see the screen? Steve, yes. Okay, excellent. Thank you. So we're, we're a nonprofit 501, c4, on a mission of transfer, transform connectivity, a very unique story that dates back all the way to 1983 in which our founder, John Schwartz, was operating a radio station in Pittsburgh and an educational television station in Boulder, Colorado, and the back of a magazine, he saw that the FCC was accepting applications for mid band spectrum or or 2.5 gigahertz. And so he he's he stood up nonprofits made some applications, and over the course of just under a decade, it was awarded seven licenses in not small cities. So we on the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Kansas City, Philadelphia, El Paso. There's usually one I leave off, I'll, I'll remember it. I remember earlier, but, but either way, not small cities. And so we, we were operating educational television and radio stations in those in those markets. Cool thing, I don't, I don't know if any of you ever had exposure to this. I did during my time in school, but there was this thing called channel one. It was like first 20 minutes of before class. You'd watch Lisa lean, do the, do the news and our, our, Spectrum was used to distribute that to schools. So it was really cool full circle moment for me when I joined the organization. But right around 2004 the FCC was approached by a gentleman named Craig McCaw of McCall wireless. He had he'd recently sold all his assets to AT and T and went to the FCC and said, hey, you know, the mid band spectrum has some more potential. You should consider doing mobile broadband. So they ended up making that change. And then we were allowed to to continue to do educational radio and television, but but also do this, this mobile broadband thing too. And so an organization called Clear wire decided to aggregate all these independent spectrum owners, and we were we represented about 25% of their spectrum portfolio at the time, so we got a chance to sign the deal of a lifetime. We signed a 30 year lease deal with clear wire that included two types of royalties, cash royalties, and lines of service on their network. Clear wire over time was purchased by sprint, and then sprint was acquired by T Mobile. So today, that agreement lives on with T Mobile, so we get full access to their nationwide network. And you know that deal last all the way up until the middle of 2036 so we were a sustainable partner in this space. So given this really cool deal that we have, and you know, the network we we get to, we to use, we set up two programs. We have the wireless, affordable wireless broadband program, and then we have also a philanthropic arm, or grant making arm. So I represent the one on the left, but the one on the right works independently. And the way that works is, it's in the it's invitation only at the moment, however, coming up in the summer, they will have an application process in which new grantees will be allowed to apply for our grants program. And the idea behind these two programs is that our program represents kind of a, you know, here's the solution now and then. The grants program is designed to award grants to grantees who are tackling things like multi racial democracy, infrastructure change and telecom justice. And so these get at the heart of, you know, any digital inequities and closing Digital Divide too. So if you're, if there's interest in that one, you know, stay patient on the on the intake process. But I'll certainly let Steve, Steve know in the and the rest of the coalition, when the, when the atake process is available on our website. So,
Matthew, if I can interrupt for one second, please, so the their grants manager has also reached out to me, and we'll coordinate with them about when it's appropriate for them to come join us and talk more about the philanthropic side of the mission. I'm sorry, Matthew, go ahead, please. No, that's perfect.
That's perfect. So in our agreement, we we can't serve individuals. We can't serve for profit entities whom we serve, educational institutions, which include K through 12 and post secondary. Also charter schools are in there as well libraries, nonprofit social welfare organizations and also quasi government agencies, so your parks and recs, or, you know, organizations like that affiliated with the government. And what makes us different is we're a nonprofit. And the cool thing too is our level of expertise is pretty high in that we've taken we built a team with different different backgrounds. Some of us have a lot of traditional for profit telecom background. But then, for instance, my director worked on the Hill and ran the FCC budget for some time, and then also was the number two at the Colorado broadband office, so as extensive work in the policy side of it. And then we also have our executive director ran the Caribbean telecom market. We have our CTO stood up the Afghanistan telecom market as well too. So a lot of diverse experience. And the idea was to bring all these people together and work on a very positive cause to end the digital divide. We offer a large portfolio as well. So I think people, when they hear wireless broadband, they immediately think hotspots. We go beyond that, which I'll explain in a little bit, and then we also provide a support system too. So we're not just about the connectivity. What can we do to support the continuity that connectivity and make sure in its quality as well? And then, while our story was very long, we didn't operationalize until July of last year, but we've been scaling pretty quickly and have the ability to, as I said, be sustainable in this space because of our long term agreement. So we talked about the hot spots, but we do fixed wireless access. We do mobile busses, mobile clinics, we do anything, essentially, that will take a SIM card and and can be power or has the coverage on the T Mobile Network. And then the cool thing is, phones are on the way for us, so we will, we will go beyond wireless broadband, be able to provide phone service as well, but that'll be more into 2026 there's a lot that goes into standing up a phone, the phone side of the business, and then we use a third party coverage map. I'm pretty sure everybody on the call is very familiar with, you know, finding a right coverage map, understanding true north. For us, it's crowd sourced, but also it anchors to the FCC data that the MNOs are required to submit. So it refreshes every six months, but it allows us to ensure, like, where's the where's the tower oriented, what does the signal strength look like in a way that ensures that whom we're partnering with has the confidence that this product and service is going to work for them? And then this is just a few of our partners. Interestingly enough, we've actually expanded this portfolio, but the idea here is to showcase a diverse group. So hood code does coding for inner city use at the housing authorities in New York City. We work with libraries. And then also copy dot, which is a PC refurbisher operating in 25 states. They're very large a nonprofit, excuse me, but they have a very, you know, wide community that they serve. And then also Lutheran services of the Carolinas. They we, we provide service on two of their programs. The first one is the refugee resettlement our new Americas programs, what they call it. So we're day one connectivity partner for those individuals or families. And then also victims of of human trafficking, who assistance, who need support, and are, quite frankly, on the go a lot, so we help those two as well. So I think the the idea here is to see, you know, again, given the context of the conversation, how we can kind of help in terms of affordability, there's any gaps out there that we might be able to fill. You know, as I heard the conversation while we're trying to fill the last mile, a lot of times wireless signal does hit those homes. So we could be a solution now in an affordable capacity. But then on top of that, you know, as Steve mentioned, as we continue to grow, we can give more grants out, and we'll be in a position to help fund as well too. So would love to, you know, entertain any questions you folks might have, but certainly looking to continue to partner, specifically in Arizona, where I know we have a lot of great coverage, and as I mentioned, we own the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum in Phoenix, so there's a little bit of a of a of incentive for us to continue to support
so Matthew. Which cities did you say you cover with this your services?
We cover all cities so we get so that the licenses that we own, I think I just named for, just so we kind of, I think people understand, like, why our deal is so good, because we fill in some substantial gaps for the 5g strategy, for T Mobile, but the we have nationwide coverage, so anywhere there's T mobile coverage, we can serve
really. So okay,
Randy, did you have a question or comment?
Yeah, yeah, no, it was so Matthew, I so it sounds and I've been, I sort of lived through the the world of wireless in the all of the decades when you guys were forming, and I knew a lot of folks had clear wire and so forth. So I guess, I guess my question is, and I know just the history of a lot of the educational TV bands is they were sort of reformulated and applied for, you know, commercially. But so it sounds like today you are essentially a T Mobile MVNO, right, with Ltd and 5g technology, which can be applied in, you know, a broad range of mobile applications and fixed and so it sounds like what just functionally, what you're doing is very similar to what each of the three major Cellular operators are doing in that they have their mobile network and then also they have their fixed wireless broadband offerings that are, are, you know, disclosed separately to the FCC and price differently and and it sounds like you're pulling the data set off of the FCC wireless maps, and we study those very carefully as well for Customers and so forth. But then it sounds like there's another dimension of sort of grants or nonprofit or something separate from the functionality. That is part of the story is that a correct
that's very there's a very good, a very good summation of the entire presentation. The one, the detail I would add to is that while we are we operate as an mbno of T Mobile. It's, it's interesting, the sense that, because of the deal we have, we have a specific rate plan that's truly unlimited, and doesn't, I think, have some of the fettered access that other rate plans have. So it, it's a little bit of a differentiator. And then on top of that, we can only serve those specific segments, which, by the way, are the people who are serving the underserved anyway and the unserved. So
I would have a question. Gordon fuller here in Tucson, what is your 6g plan rolling out past 2030 relating to edge networks and community based infrastructure?
The great, great question. So that's my CTO and our founder, John Schwartz, are actually actively exploring that. You know, the last article I got on kind of 6g is that the the I I triple E, it looks like it's going to be 60, is going to be another aggregation of of cellular spectrum to create a faster, you know, experience, I think for us, it's kind of up in the air, because as we get closer to two, we're having to decide what we intend to do prior to the end of our agreement, too. And that is, you know, do we buy do we buy more spectrum? Are we in a position to provide it to other people. So I think you know time, time will tell on that one. What I can certainly do Gordon is, is continue to keep track of that one and maybe just follow up to see if we have any updates on that one. And I certainly want to take that back to my my CTO, to see if maybe we've got actually more clear answer on that one.
Dave Lucy, you have a question? Comment,
yeah, sorry. Let me lower my hand. That was a lot of information. My brain was going like this. I think it's awesome is. But when you said you covered city cities, and I wrote down the cities that you had other programs in, are you a rural solution? Yeah,
so rurality is kind of something we hope to be a specialist in. Most of our partnerships are there because I think that's where the needs tend to be a lot. So the answer that would be yes. The only thing we have to continue to look at Miss Lucy is coverage. So we, you know, we'd want to look at the coverage map to see the the areas in the the rural parts, are they, you know, do we have the ability to to cover? And then what we typically do then Lucy is we engage in a friendly user trial, or a proof of concept, if you will, to make sure that what we're seeing on the coverage map actually reflects the experience that you'll get in the field.
So just to net it down, you basically are a lower cost provider for those that in need.
Yes, yes. With the with the nuance, because I think I'm not laying the plane on this one, the nuance that the rate the rate plan that we have, one rate plan and the rate plan we have is, is, is, is. It's the best way. To put it, it's valued at $60 on the open market, and we do it for about 67% less. So there's a quality that goes into the affordability as well.
Got it and you're based in Phoenix or Tucson?
No, so we're headquartered in Colorado, in Boulder, but we're actually work from home, nationwide organization, so our teams are kind of spread out.
Okay, got it? Yep,
thanks. You're welcome.
Okay, any other questions or comments for for Matthew, so Seth, did you have something that you wanted to add?
It just brought to mind a position I saw being posted in Sierra Vista for a digital navigator and possibly some collaboration opportunities with idia, the statewide. I don't know if you've you met some of those folks, Matthew, but yeah, that just came to my mind as you were speaking, so I thought I'd throw that in there.
Yep, I'll take that one down. Thank you.
Okay, any other questions or comments going well?
Yeah, see. So I will these slides, by the way, I think the question just came through too. So I appreciate that one. I'm going to provide them to to Steve, for him to be able to distribute to everybody. It does have contact information, and then it has all everything I just went through, but I'd love to expound on any questions that you folks have. I know we have limited time here, but you know, our mission here is to try and connect as many people as possible. And to be frank with you all, we have the we have this beautiful asset just kind of virtually sitting on the shelf right now, and we want to work with partners to be able to get those out into the the hands of the underserved and unserved. Because when, when, when people see firsthand what our right plan can actually do for them. It, it really makes an impact. So we'd love to explore any, any and all partnerships. And by the way, they can be small in one connection, or they can be, you know, more than that. I just, you know, I don't want us to be feel like we're limited in terms of of partnership size. So, but thank you very much. Everybody for for allowing me to speak with you the questions that I got. I think I've got some follow up on a few of them. And you know, also wanted to thank everybody for the work that you're doing as well too.
Matt, thanks for thanks for being here this morning. And as I commented earlier that it was great meeting you at the conference. We had multiple conversations. You probably got tired of talking to me.
No, not at all, not at all. I still talk about you with the with people.
So thank you. Any other questions or comments for Matt? So anybody have any other announcements that they want to share.
Our bi weekly health and health and education task force meeting does fall today, so if anybody wants to join, I will put that link in the chat the topic today actually is on policy and advocacy, so it might be an interesting time to come up. And if you have any specific stories to round up, maybe we can kind of submit all the way in, but Lucy Howell and I'm just co hosting the Health and Education Task Force for this azpsn network. So let me know.
So, so Bryan, I know I always put you on the spot about any spectrum kinds of things, but you're kind of a guru on this group anyway, about what's happening with spectrum, anything more than what we've heard,
no nothing more than, I think, what we talked about last meeting, not much. Not much has happened since, Brian, are
you talking about? I mean, there's, there is, there's a lot of movement in different bands right now. You know, obviously CBRs is being redone, but there's several upper bands all the way up to 100 gigabytes that the FCC is trying to reassign, right or sell, actually,
yeah, that's all. That's all part of what we talked about, the reauthorization for auctioning. And, yeah, I think there's a lot of discussion, but you know, since last week, nothing really has happened a major,
that is correct since last week.
Okay, any other comments and announcements that people would like to make? You again for being here, and as I mentioned to you, it's up. Hope for us to have a special meeting with your legislative folks or whatever. Let's talk offline and and be glad to help any way we can.
Eve, Hey, Gordon Fuller, here Tucson, I would just mention that the Trump administration, in the last 72 hours, I think it was decided that they're going to get rid of the requirement for accessibility and architectural buildings being built henceforth. And so they've made that announcement that that's on their list of things to get done. And so for all of us who are associated with the community, of people with disabilities, 70 million and the 70 million aging people who are two and five will have impairments sufficient to be disabilities, this is very dark time, and the fact that they're going after accessibility will mean there's more barriers in society. And I've heard statistics as high as 90% of the population of people with disabilities never leave their homes. And the reason for that is largely the built environment, the society we've created is in just from that perspective. So it's a matter of spatial justice. I thought I'd mention it because I see an intersection with wireless spectrum community interests, the Digital Commons, and how all of this can come together to our advantage. Thanks for listening, and I've created a 527, with friends on a national basis. It's the same mission. We've always had public awareness, education, issue based advocacy, and so on that note, glad to have any and all of you join up with us on that because we're we're going to start pushing hard on making people aware of the challenges we're gonna face. Thanks.
Thanks. Gordon and I free. Are you still there? I free. I don't know. Have we met you before? No, yeah,
but my name is Ivory Johnson, so I'm with, with Matt. I'm a part of mission Telecom, so I just want to make sure I hopped on and, you know, just listening in. And, you know, I enjoyed everything. I enjoy everything that everyone's doing. And, no, I do appreciate the works. And just want to, but let me do this first also.
Okay, great. Thanks. Okay, so I want
to make sure I show my face and wave to everyone I was just hanging around, just listening.
Okay, anybody have anything else for the good of the order? If not, I believe we are done for today. Thank you all. Judy is gone, I think, but really appreciate the update. Okay, thank you all. Thanks, Steve. Hey, Jared, our woman down here in Tucson that you provided service for she loves it.
Oh, it's good to hear.
Oh, awesome. Just FYI,
all right, that's always happy to hear. Thank you for
that recapture story on that, on uh, as one,
we could do that good,
and should I like the idea?
I mean, we always want, we really want to hear about the community impact stories like what's happening in the Arizona communities. We want to fill up our map with pins. That's really the goal. So if someone has really benefited from getting an affordable device or affordable program that is helping them change their lives. We, we would love to help tell that story. So, Steve, I don't know if you can make a connection for us happy continue. This woman
actually has been working with my wife, yeah, and she was so excited to get Jared. Jared help get her connected right away. And, you know, I talked to her the other day, she said, it worked, great. I love it so good. I assume
this is Pamela you were talking about, yes, yes, great. Good to hear. Yes. It is nice.
So if Pamela's open to sharing the story, we're happy to, you know, interview her, her directly, because that would be the best testimonial for everyone, right? But if she's uncomfortable, then, you know, we'll work with her, and
she would probably do that. Now, all I have to do is help her get her computer working. Okay. She got hit with a virus and is getting a message that BitLocker won't let her into her computer, so she's having a little problem with that, and so that's kind of the next thing, which I know very little about. So, but I've been doing a little research. May have a work around
is that ransomware? Is there someone asking for money to unlock it? You
know, I don't think she knows what happened. She must have clicked on something, and now she can't. Into her computer, and she needs, I think she needs to have a code and she also needs to have her work Windows log in, and I'm not sure if she has that. So yes, that's trying to figure out how to solve that
problem. That's a tough one, but I think you're on the right track. What you're saying is, sounds right. So I think
I shared with you Jared that I went over to her apartment and she said, My computer won't turn on after looking at things. She didn't have a wall switch computer. But you know those, yeah, those are the kind of stories of, you know what people go through? Yeah? And you
know what? If you don't know, you don't know. I mean, don't
know, you don't know, yeah. Anyway, I can tell you my own horror stories in the past week, but I'll spare, I'll spare you that.
All right, history, it ain't The Jacksons. That's what I always say.
Okay, well, I think we're done for today. Thank you all for Thanks, guys. Erin, hang in there. Let us know if we can do anything for you. She's gone. Still here. Oh, there you are, oops. So anything we can do to help you personally, let us know.
