So good morning, everybody. It's been a couple of weeks since we, since we last met. We're going to get an update in just a little while from a number of folks who attended the Digital Inclusion Conference in Philadelphia last week. But a couple things. Give me just a second here. Oops. There we go. Okay. So first of all, I want to thank our sponsors CareFirst, Arizona, Karen Ziegler, consulting services, Valley Telecom, Group G, and triad, and any of you who are so motivated and would like to be a sponsor, we can certainly use the funding and what appreciate your support. So, moving on to the agenda this morning. Excuse me. So today, we're gonna, instead of our usual presentation that we often have, that today, we're going to hear from a number of the folks who attended the excuse me attended our the net Inclusion Conference, a lot of exciting stuff, like Aaron was saying they had like, 1300 people. And from what I saw, it looked like a pretty amazing and exciting experience. So before we move on, as we generally do, I want to introduce any new people who have joined us. So Alan cost do you want to introduce yourself quickly?
Sure. I'm Alan Kost. I'm on the faculty at the college optical Sciences at the University of Arizona.
Now, when do you want to take just a minute to to I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, that's okay. What do you think I should mention? Well, I
was just mentioning that, you know, you're doing some interesting online kinds of stuff and thought you might want to take a couple of minutes, because I think there's some people on here who might have an interest in collaborating with you.
I, for the past few years, I've been doing a lot of interactive online content, particularly around optics and photonics. So these are, its online content for online courses, where students go through and they see D, they see 3d visualizations of different types of optical processes or optical machinery and they interact with it. And we build realistic simulations that actually show people exactly what they would see if they were using the equipment or they give them accurate representations of the of the physical concepts that we're trying to teach them.
Great. Thank you, Alan. No, appreciate it. Let's see who else do we have? That's new today. Brian Fickett.
Brian, are you there? We're gonna want to say hello.
Sorry, I unmute myself. Hi, my name is Brian Fickett. I'm the general manager for the Tohono O'odham utility authority. And glad to be here.
Good. Glad you could come join us. You want to take two minutes? Just tell us what's happened. I know. You could probably take an hour. But do you want to just take a couple of minutes about what what's happening? Yeah,
we we are. We actually just received a reconnect three grants of just under $10 million. Which is going to by the time we get that build out completed, we will have about 90% of the or 92% of the the reservation, complete with fibres at home project. So where what will be left is to connect the main reservation to Santa Vir district which is just south of Tucson. And then we've got a couple little communities, one little community in Florence and one little community is outside he lived in and once we're done with those projects will have Broadband services capabilities of 120 all the way through the whole nation.
Pretty awesome. Any questions for Brian before we move on? Okay. Dario, I think you've introduced yourself before. Let's see. Absolutely, yeah. Glad to have you joining us again. And, Judy, I know we're gonna hear from you later. And I know you've introduced yourself before, but you just want to take a minute to tell people who you are, please.
Hi, everyone, I am with Senator Mark Kelly's office doing, you know, Broadband and Northern Arizona outreach and constituent services. So we work with federal agencies and the local jurisdictions just making sure that the interface and, uh, you know, is, is great, and trying to help people through any kind of red tape that they might have. So, you know, maybe in terms of easements or questions on grants or appropriate, you know, protocol or policy when it comes to dealing with different federal agencies waiting for the update. So I'll, I'll wait a little bit because I, we have a legislative assistant in DC Morgan, and she will, she'll let us know that the senator did, you know, sign on to the ACP letter back in, I think, October or November. But we've no updates on that yet, or the status of that. So
that's it for me. And Steven Crosby, this is your first time here, I believe.
Yeah. Good morning. My name is Steve Crosby, I'm with Frontier Communications. And as you probably know, Frontier operates in a handful of counties in the state of Arizona. And, you know, we're, you know, looking forward to participating in this particular program and ongoing, as well as working to try to help bring more BEAD funding to the various counties where we operate. So I appreciate your time.
Great. Thanks, Steven. Glad you reached out and decided to participate with us. Absolutely.
Thank you.
Yeah. And I'm Tom tardy. I know that you've been here before, but you want to, it's up to you. I know you joined us last week, I think or last time. You want to just tell people quickly who you are.
Sure, I'm Tom tardy. I'm the owner of ginger sec. By to do a little bit of everything from MSP and SSP side to low voltage Cabling and Fiber. We manage the it for St. John's. So we're very eager to get them off of point to point and get them some fiber and cable up there. So they can actually get internet possibly managed some other places that are impacted by this meeting, as well. We've added their IP as well. So
great. Thanks, Tom. Glad to have you back. Yeah. Okay, do I miss anybody who's new to us today? It sounds like it. So why don't we just jump into the Broadband office? Aaron, are you doing that update? And any I mean, you were other folks, you have several people on the you're first of all, you want to introduce everybody who's who's on the call from your office, please?
Sure. So I'm Erin Lorandos. I am the Digital Equity program manager with the Arizona Commerce Authority. Let's see who all is here. I can't see everybody all at the same time. So Krystal is here. Krystal, do you want to say hi? Yeah. Hi.
I'm Krystal Saverse. I'm the Broadband data and GIS analyst with Arizona Commerce Authority. Today, Sandeep estimated give the the BEAD updates for the challenge process. So I can start with that if you want Aaron. And
yeah, sure. I think I think Vanessa is the only other person online so she can say hi, when when you're all done. Yeah.
Okay. So we are on you want Candace to go first? Or do you want? Or do you want to go first or what? Oh,
I don't think I'm sorry, I was just making sure I didn't miss somebody. And then we can say hi to
Vanessa as well. Have a good memory. It's just a little short. No worries. I like that everyone's names are right under their faces. It helps.
Go ahead, Crystal. Okay. Um, so lots of engagement planned. I don't know I probably many of you have already attended some of our challenge process. roundtables for each basically permissible challenger. So the last one for February is today I think that's at 10. Just confirm, yeah. 10 And then we'll have another round of roundtables in March. So those are all going to be posted to our website soon, we also plan to have a lot of the challenge process. Through like overview materials posted to our web page by this Friday, we're in working closely with Mark comms to get everything up on the website. One of the big milestones coming up is going to be the release of the challenge portal. So that's going to be happening on March 1, that's when you're gonna see the public facing map, anybody can look it can go into there and view it. So permissible challenges, we would ask you to go to that our website, click on the navigator, map for the challenge portal and then register. So there's a 15 day period for folks to kind of play around in there and register and then the challenge process is gonna start March 15. So if you have any questions about that, feel free to reach out we're gonna have a lot of training materials available and lots of roundtables going hand in hand.
So can you just take a couple of minutes? I know, we've had Sandy, a couple of times who attended and kind of talked about the challenge process and everything. But can you do just a quick recap. And again, I certainly encourage people to attend the webinars that ACA, including the best one that's happening today, I can use his take couple of minutes just to give a quickie what that was because we do have some new people have joined us. And also, just to recap the schedule for for the challenge process brings. Okay,
also I will start really broad. So this is for the BEAD grant, which Arizona was awarded nearly $1 billion for. So we're promising to bring Broadband service to unserved and underserved locations. So any location that gets less than, like 1000 by 20 megabytes per second download and upload speeds. So every state has to go her NTIA who's sort of administering this grant, each state has to go through a state challenge process. And it's a chance for individuals in a state to challenge sort of the authoritative data set that the FCC has provided. So it's basically given people's intimate knowledge about what's happening in their own local community, they can challenge what locations are eligible for BEAD. So if we're, for example, if we show that a location is going to get Broadband service under artif, and you have intimate knowledge, that that's that this provider has defaulted. And it's not populating on our map, it's a chance for folks to challenge that and make location meet eligible. The timeline, so we'll be reposting our volume one also. So that'll have really detailed information on how this challenge process is going to work once it's been approved by NTIA. So this timeline is kind of really, really, really fine. But that will have instructions on permissible challenge types. So the timeline is we've got this 15 day registration period, march 15 marks the first day for folks to submit a challenge. And so there's you can submit a challenge for a time like time period of 60 days. But once you submit a challenge, an Internet service provider has can then rebuttal it, or they can choose not to. And so once we have all of that evidence from the challenge, and the rebuttal, our office will adjudicate those, and we'll release our final determinations afterwards. So roll and date is going to be I think, June 30, is when we're gonna round up all of this evidence and release all of it.
Thank you. I know there's excuse me lots more detail about that process. But I don't want us to take the take more time in this meeting today to go through all of that. So again, if you're not sure about it, and you've missed any of the other webinars that they presented today at 10 o'clock is the date to do that.
And there will be recordings posted on our website of the previous webinars as well as the slides that Sandeep is using. So those will be reviewable as well.
Okay, Aaron, do you have anything else that you want to report?
Um, just really briefly, um, We are kind of in our holding pattern for the Digital Equity side of things right now, we submitted the final draft of our plan to NTIA just before net inclusion. It was due on travel days. So we actually got it in early, we got it in on the ninth. So that's kind of exciting. And so now we are in our 45 day carrying period for that part of things. And we are just waiting, you know, for feedback from NTIA if there's anything else that they would like us to, you know, to change in our plan or updates to be made. Prior to that submission, we did have a 30 day public comment period. So I just wanted to thank the folks that are on this call, either from their own personal perspective or from organizations that provided us feedback, it is key to making sure that our plan reflects the actual needs and challenges faced by folks all across the state. So thank you so much for participating in that part of the process. We are Yep, just waiting at this point. Um, we anticipate getting comments, you know, in the next few weeks, and then we will sorry, my dog wants to join our meeting, then, you know, we'll we'll address anything and the final submission back to NTIA is effectively the end of March. And we will plan to post the finalized version of the Digital Equity plan on the website as well. So you'll be able to see any changes that were made based on their feedback or based on our public comment period as well. And I'll just share that link in the chat as well, just in case you aren't sure where that is the the current version of the plan that's on the website is the before public comment period. So just keep that in mind. This is not the final submission that's up there right now. But if you haven't had a chance to take a look, you can definitely still do that. And I think those are my updates at this point. I know Vanessa is on the call too. If you'd like to say hi, Vanessa is our grants coordinator. I think she's still here. Yeah,
I'm here. I'm just driving. I'm sorry. So Vanessa Figueroa. I'm the Broadband Grants Manager and I'm just driving to work. So I'm gonna keep myself on mute. So you don't hear all the traffic and the honking Yeah, Phoenix.
So you're gonna be busy, busy, busy, even with all the grants and money coming down?
Oh, yes. And I'm so excited. It gets it gets the adrenaline going disease.
Okay, anything else from the Broadband office? I believe
those are updates.
Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for being here today. We are always glad to have you guys participate in the meeting. I don't believe Nicole is here today. Again, well, yeah, you've missed most of it. But the webinars, the ACA BEAD roundtables were February 26 27th, and 28th. And so those are all close to being done. Okay, moving on quickly. And Aaron, maybe you or your other folks can talk quickly about you have three positions that were or are open at this point, the Arizona State Library, but senior Broadband Program Manager, is that position been filled?
We don't have any further updates on either of our open positions at this time.
Okay. And what about the Deputy Director, position,
the positions that are open with ACA right now? We don't have any updates on? We're still working through the process. Okay. We'll share as soon as we can.
Oh, sounds great. Thank you. So let's do some quick updates. And Elena. I know you follow this pretty closely to Soto a number of folks about the latest with the Affordable connectivity program, which I don't believe is good news. But you want to comment on that and anybody else who might have some thoughts about where we are today.
Sadly, we're no further along today. I don't think that we were last time we met. There's lots of conversation around it. But I don't really I mean, I honestly don't have an update as to where it is in Congress and where the conversation is leading. Lots of people are sending in. There's been some letters created and sign up sign on letters created which I could I would have to look at the dates. on those, but if there's any that are still available to sign on, I can certainly share those with you. I think you I think you shared a couple. So obviously, putting some pressure, you know, on Congress for continuing ACP? I do I feel like a broken record. So, unfortunately, unless there's somebody that knows something that I don't Yeah, Judy, you know anything?
Well, and I just got an update from our ledge SAP, and they said that right now that the senator is working with Senator Luhan, on the Universal Service Fund reform, and there's a working group that hopefully, they, you know, is if they can protect the ACP, then they can preserve ACP long term. So that's, that's kind of where they're working right now.
Yeah. And in talking to folks at net inclusion, and I know, we're going to update on that, but there's not a lot of hope for USF reform in the near future. Yeah, there's a working group. Yeah, they're talking about it. But a couple of speakers that we got to listen to, we're not optimistic about any kind of reform at all, let alone in the near future. So that's, that's really the update, Steve, unless John, or I know, John Kelly's on the phone on the call. I don't know if he's heard anything different. That you know, somebody else that I talked to a net inclusion, basically, or somebody who was apparently in the know, said that, you know, there's just so many things that are happening in Congress right now. And there's so many issues, that it's, they're just not, it's not a priority right now. Honestly.
I'm not sure what it is, frankly. But that's,
I don't think they know what is either. But actually, March, if we don't hear anything on the budget, by March 8, I think what's the date, then it's dead than Ace, then there's no chance of getting a CPU renewed.
Okay, so
March 8, is the witching hour day.
Anybody have anything else about ACP? Before we move on? So along with the disappearance of ACP, that the organizations like yours, and that got grants to do outreach? I guess all those grants are now on hold. Is that correct?
Yeah. So the city of Phoenix put us on pause. And that's our grant, we were a sub grantee from the city of Phoenix. And yeah, you're absolutely right. They have not decided yet, if any of the money could be used for outreach for wind down purposes to help. And that was something that, you know, we had all talked about it. And that inclusion was, you know, ACP outreach is ACP outreach, whether it was outreach to get people signed up or outreach to get, you know, get them help, as the wind down takes place. And so they're still having some conversations about the possibility of using funds. To do that. We have, if anybody's interested, we have a wind down flyer in English and Spanish that they can use with their own organizations, very simple steps as to what people should expect, with their bills, how they can transition, how they can choose a new plan. But that's a lot of you know, that's a lot of information for people who are new, we're new to the internet as a result of ACP. So it's not necessarily as easy as a flyer, but it's some place to start. Of course, our net our navigators at the state libraries, and ASU, you know, the Digital Equity Institute, the navigators are trying to help people through that process. But, you know, it's, it's not as easy as you know, just hey, you've got to pick a new plan. Now, there's a lot of, you know, for those that have never had the internet before, or can't afford the internet, they don't know about speeds, they don't know about, you know, a lot of the intricacies that go into picking, you know, picking an internet plan for their families. So all of that, you know, often needs to be explained. And right now. The, like I said, the grant money cannot be used for that type of outreach. But they are discussing whether or not they're going to let grantees use that money.
So do we have any sense at this point about the ISPs that have been servicing ACP about how that process is going?
I don't know if anybody from Cox is on the phone, I do know that they have also, you know, course ISPs have already sent out their first notice and possibly even their second about the wind down. And Cox did recently did a little webinar for navigators and others who are who are working with customers to explain their other to low cost programs. So they have to low cost programs that were already in the works or that were already being used by residents. So connect, assist and and connect to compete for for families with kids. So they're already moving ahead with promoting those plans to their to their consumers. I'm not sure about what Verizon or AT and T or any of the others are doing at this point.
Okay, thank you have any questions for Elena? Okay, before we move on, I wanted to just go back for a second to open positions. And, of course, we can get to this also at the State Library. But Meghan Hammond, do you want to say anything about where are you guys are with your navigators and so forth?
Well, our thanks to Steve, I'm making him in them Library Development administrator at the State Library, our digital navigator team is fully staffed now. And we are interviewing for doing the hopefully final round of interviews for the Digital Inclusion library consultant on Monday. So I hope to have be able to introduce a new member in the next few weeks, but we'll see.
Awesome, thank you. And we'll get to baby doing any other updates. I haven't seen whether Mark was online today. Bye don't know. Right? Yeah. Okay, well, we're gonna hear from you in just a little while. So before we get to talking about the net Inclusion Conference, John Kelly, you have anything that you want to share?
You still there.
I'm here. I'm just trying to navigate on my phone with all the little tiny buttons. I don't have a lot to share the obviously my focus is on sort of the legislative environment. I am curious to know other than Senator Kelly, if any other members of the Arizona delegation signed on to the ACP letter, I think that'd be good information to have. And if we don't have and then maybe we can send notes to, to our friends to find out where they stand or what their rationale is that the legislative environment is in the middle there. They're finishing sort of the first half of the game. They're trying to get a lot of bills passed. I think the ACA continuation bill is likely to be on the floor today in the house, it's going to pass I believe, I think the votes have been secured on that it has a much more challenging future in the Senate, it's likely to be its fate is likely to be tied up into ultimately, budget negotiations along with what I call other hostage negotiations that are taking place. So I'm feeling more confident that ACA is future is is in a good place. It's just we're still gonna go through some hurdles to get there. I mentioned on the ATI C call last week, Representative Tim Dunn who represents the Yuma area has been a very strong supporter of Broadband. I met with him last week and he's interested in in US organizing a small Let me repeat that small briefing for the rural caucus on the state of Broadband development in Arizona. So Sandy would be the star of the show, I checked in with San deeps folks at ACA, and they they approve it as long as it's a bipartisan group. But I also think we might want like Nicole and or and a couple other people. So we'll have some work to do to talk about who we want in the room. We can't have a lot of people. But it's a great opportunity to sort of cement some of our key messages about the importance of Broadband Digital Equity and the work that's going on in the state.
Thanks, John, any questions for John? And just to clarify, because I I learned this from John the other day, is that he doesn't really focus on federal legislation. So he's really focused on what's happening here in Arizona. And I think you all know, but just in case that the Arizona Commerce Authority is the home for the Broadband office. So sure they see you go away, which doesn't sound like that's going to happen. And we'd have to figure out where's the new Well for the for the Broadband office. And that will be an interesting discussion. So, anything else? For John? Okay, well, let's, let's do a quick overview or summaries of the net Inclusion Conference. As you know, we cancelled our meeting last week, because a number of people who were on this call today were, were attending that conference. And so we just decided, and it was available online also. So I've asked Erin and Elena. But I know that Michelle Simon's on the line, and mom was on the line, although she attended, I believe, online. And I'm not sure who else that's on this call today, attended the conference. But if you did, feel free to chime in and share your thoughts, that'd be great. I understand. It was a great conference. So with that, if you want to kick that off, and then go to anybody else who wants to chime in?
Sure. I'm happy to I actually have some photos and videos to share, because that's how I am. So if I would be able to, to show Oh, no worries. I have some fun pictures. I don't have like, you know, anyway, I'll just share. So yes. So before I do that, I was very lucky to attend my second met inclusion. Last year, when I was with the State Library, I was very thrilled to attend my first and there were 800 people at that one this year, the scales tipped 1300. And so it is definitely a growing space. It is such an exciting room to be in as well. I think everyone who was there will agree with that the the energy that people have for this work is just infectious. And it just energizes you just to be in the space where, where the where the conversations are happening. So I'm going to go ahead and start my little share here. All right, so everyone should be able to see my pictures now. All right, so um, this year is not inclusion was held in Philadelphia, which it was chillier than then San Antonio last year. And it actually snowed, which was kind of fun for those of us who don't see it all the time anymore. But it was, it was it was it was a really great city to have it in because it's very walkable and all of that as well. So a couple of quick facts for you. The history of net inclusion, the very first conference was hosted in May of 2016. And the first couple of them actually were hosted in public libraries. So that again, gives you the kind of idea of the scale and the scope that has changed just in a few years. So as I mentioned, this conference had over 1300 people in attendance. And the the point was made that it is arguably the largest gathering of Digital Equity and inclusion practitioners, policymakers, advocates, researchers, and other leaders in the country, if not in the world at this point. So it's, again, just a very exciting place to be. So one of the things that I do when I go on conference trips is go to the conference, of course, but I also like to explore the city. So I've got some pictures here of things that we we did in our off time. Of course Philadelphia is a fun place to be but you can see our snow up in the top corner here and and a few other places that we went. So our big news that we brought home from the conference is that next year is that inclusion is going to be here at the Hilo River Indian Community. So that is absolutely thrilling. You know, it'll it'll put Arizona and especially the work that that McHale is doing with digital connect in the in the healer River Indian Community in spotlight, which is just absolutely amazing. So we've got some pictures here of McHale making the announcement that it was going to be hosted here. And I do have a video for you as well. This is the announcement happening. Hopefully you can hear it. So anyway, oh, everyone was very excited. And there's our announcement happening, that it's going to be here it will be in May of 2025. So that's a little bit different. For us. We've been having it in the winter in the last few years. So it will be in May so it'd be nice and warm. I have to steal McHale's jokes that he made that you know, anybody who was called at this year's net inclusion will not be at next year. But they do tend to kind of do a little bit of the offseason you know just so that it is is a little bit more affordable for people to get there and all of that kind of stuff. So I think that might be part of it. But Mikhail is also, he also announced that he is on the board of NTIA now. So we've got a lot of really amazing local involvement with NTIA at this point.
I just want to say, just interrupt for a second. Yeah, go ahead. I was doing amazing stuff on the healer River, and it just incredible. And obviously, he's now that he national recognition for the great work he's doing.
Agreed, yes. That is definitely He's wonderful. If you don't know Him, He is the Executive Director of Digital Connect, which is a part of the Gila River telecom. And they provide digital navigation assistance in Gila River.
They're a great example of an ISP, supporting Digital Equity, Digital Inclusion.
Great guy, he's just a really nice guy, too. So um, so a couple other really cool things that I want to highlight before I relinquish the reins here. One thing that this conference does that I haven't seen other places, and I absolutely love is they have shared notes documents for every single session that was happening during the program. And so I'll show it to you live here in a second. But through their scheduling software, you can actually click into any session, whether you attended it or not, and read all of the notes that anyone in that room took during the during the session. And the reason I love it is first of all, I'm the type of conference attendee that I want to, I want to, I want to sit, I want to listen, I want to pay attention. And I find that if I'm trying to write down every little detail, I miss things, right. And so I like it, because it refreshes my memory of all of the resources and everything that were shared as well. The other really great part about it, of course, is that, inevitably, there's concurrent sessions that you really wanted to attend, or, in this case, one of the sessions that I was able to attend was a closed stored session on implementation of the Digital Equity plans, and it took, you know, a large chunk of one of the afternoons, which meant then that I, you know, wasn't going to other sessions that I may be had, had seen, you know, that were of interest. And so it really helps, you know, be able to maximize the, the information that's shared and all of that, and, and, you know, you've always seen those people in in sessions that are just, it's like, they're professional transcriptionists, you know, they're just taking everything down, they're typing the whole time. And that helps those of us who may be, you know, want to participate in a different way, or whatever it is, get the most out of it. So I'm gonna show you that live here in just a second. But I have a couple more pictures to share with you. These. This picture here is a T shirt that the Broadband office made for our team. It's hard to tell, but it's it's the outline of the state of Arizona. And if you've read our Digital Equity plan, you'll recognize this really awesome theme of Arizona's six C's. So of course, those of you who have been in Arizona for more than a minute know that the five C's in Arizona, are copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate. And now we have connectivity. So we all wore our T shirts on Statehood Day, whether we were here in Arizona, or in Philadelphia, either at net inclusion or SPL n. And Perla and Crystal took this really awesome picture of the shirt by the Liberty Bell. And I just wanted to share that with you all. And then last but not least a couple more fun pictures. The Arizona contingent, if you will, was there in force, you can see photos here of so many amazing people that you know, you probably recognize from this meeting and from Aiden and from the work that's happening here in Arizona, and we had a fantastic time. And we are just thrilled to be able to share Arizona with everyone that next year. And so before I before I give it up, I just really want to quick show you what I meant with the scheduling documents and all of that that that inclusion uses. So this is the website and there's also an app, so it's super convenient. The program or the platform is called SCAD. And not only is it the entire schedule for everything that's happening if you click into any of these sessions when you're logged in. So these are things that you know attendees have access to, you can click into a collaborative notes document, which is just a Google Doc. It's amazing. It just links right to Do it. But, you know, it gives you all the information of when and where and who you were listening to. And then, you know, whatever notes that people were able to add, and then, you know, link to all the resources that were shared as well. And what's great is, you know, let's say I went to the session and I, I looked through this, and I'm like, oh, but then they also talked about this, this is, you know, editable by anybody. So it can be added to and grow as people are coming home now and having some time to decompress, you know, there might be more. So if I bring this up to say that the, the main part of SCAD, the landing page, everybody should be able to get to this, whether or not you attended, you should be able to get to this part of it, where it's just the the schedule. And so I just wanted to offer up that if anyone sees a session on there that they'd like to see the notes document from, that's something that I could, you know, download and share with people as well. So, those are, those are my highlights that I wanted to share. The you know, there were there were so many amazing sessions, as I said, I really appreciated having the opportunity to be in that closed door session with people who are in my role in other states, you know, that we're helping write their their state's Digital Equity plan, you know, to kind of see what's next how people are thinking about their implementation strategies and whatnot. And NDIA is releasing a guide to state's on implementation, like they did for the the writing of the plan, as well. So I'm, I'm looking forward to reviewing that and utilizing those resources as well. So are there any questions for me? Otherwise, I'd be happy to let everybody else share their experiences.
Did you have any takeaways, anything new that you just said? Wow, we definitely should be thinking about this in Arizona.
Yeah, so a lot of that stuff is definitely from that implementation session that I went to, it was really, really great to hear from states that, you know, maybe different, but similar in a lot of ways, I had a conversation with a gentleman from Alaska who, of course, you know, that's a very rural area as well, you know, in so much as you have to fly between some of the cities in Alaska, you can't even drive there. And, you know, some of the some of the things that they're considering ways to to leverage the funds that the, the tribal communities are going to be getting, is something that I'm looking into, I can't share all those details, because it kind of goes into some of the things that won't be released until we get the NOFO for the capacity grant. But there are definitely a lot of things that I'm planning to, to utilize. You know, the other sessions that I attended, that were really great were around sustainability of resources, you know, that's a conversation that we have here in Arizona quite a lot. You know, we don't want to start a whole bunch of these programs or increase, you know, reach and work for, you know, the groups that are doing doing the work now without having a clear idea of what will happen when the the money that we get for the Digital Equity program ends, right. And so there's a lot of really great resources shared there about how to ensure sustainability that we are looking at. Also, one other one I'll mention, you know, we are hoping to, as part of our implementation, create a couple of toolkits and guidelines for various things, some around website accessibility, some around, you know, targeted guidance for working with covered populations, etc. We talked about some of these in our Digital Equity plan, if you had a chance to read that. And some of the the takeaways of other states are doing will also be you know, utilized in those. Oh, and I didn't mention this, but in case you didn't hear, Maine was the first state to have its Digital Equity plan approved by NTIA. So we are now moving into the phase of having plans approved. And so that's another thing that that we do here in Arizona definitely is look at other plans, you know, and learn from best practices, etc, across across the country, either, you know, in good ways or things that maybe were like, Okay, we could do this differently, and maybe it would be more successful here in Arizona. So we also look forward to looking at other plans as they're posted and released.
Hey, thank you, Aaron. You want to share some thoughts? Yeah, sure.
Man, Aaron, you know, I'm, like, totally jealous of that report. I did not put any kind of PowerPoint together for you all, although I do have some really great pictures. I did put one picture in the chat of the contingent from Arizona. I think we made you know a big Clash. So I think that's great. If we weren't on the on the map before, so to speak, we're definitely on there now. And of course, you know, of course, having the conference here next next year will be fantastic. I also, so I use scared, but because of my background, and I guess I should say who I am. So I'm the Arizona director for Common Sense Media. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Ilana Lowery. And in my previous life, I was a journalist. So I took my own notes. And so I, I put those in the chat as well do with them what you will. But they were notes from some of the fireside chats, for example, with Jessica Rosenworcel. For those of you that don't know who that is, she is the chair of the FCC. And there were lots of lots of great speakers. So I do, I would highly recommend. And again, if you want any of the notes from any of the sessions, like Aaron said, either one of us can share him with you, or Michelle, we all have access to that. I think one of the things that when you talk about takeaways, as somebody who's not with government necessarily and working from the sort of the side of nonprofits, and coming from the side of practitioners, I would say, for me hearing about the capacity grants, and what is going to some of the things that we need to watch out for when we're applying for them some of the things that we need to consider when we're applying for them. That that was all really interesting to me, there is going to be a huge focus on tribal lands, you know, for obvious reasons. But the two big takeaways from from that session that I listened to was the focus on tribal lands and collaboration. So if you're a nonprofit, or if you're an organization in a plant that's going to apply for a capacity grant, you know, really pay attention to the NOFO. And keep, you know, keep that in mind. So that was a big takeaway. I was hoping one of the takeaways would be about ACP. But even Jessica Rosenworcel didn't have anything terribly positive to say, unfortunately. So that was that was disappointing. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to take up any more time, Steve, I think, you know, if people have any questions, feel free to reach out to any of us that were there. You know, it was a great experience, like Aaron, you know, like Erin said, being able to not only be with colleagues in person, front here from, you know, in Arizona, we it was a great opportunity to meet folks from other cities and states that were doing similar work, and talking to them and hearing them talk about not only challenges, but their successes as well, and being able to bring that sort of back to the work that you're doing. But I think that connections are probably the most important thing that you get from going to something like this, the information is great, too. But you can get the information from being on a call with somebody over zoom or whatever. But this was, they were just really great conversations with people who are doing the same work. So I'll leave it at that. And if anybody has any questions, you know, feel free to ask us. And if you can, if you can attend next year, if you're doing this work, and you can attend next year, since it's in Arizona, I highly recommend that you do that. Right.
Thank you, Bobby, it will
be at the wild horse pass just so everyone knows that is the plan.
They will have a local planning committee, and it's my understanding that that local planning committee will be made up of a lot of folks who are on this call right now.
Thank you, Elena. Michelle, do you want to share your thoughts?
You know, honestly, after all of that, there's really nothing more for me to share except for that. I came back extremely excited, but also focused on what the priorities should be, you know, obviously for Pima County, but how we can work together for the betterment of our state.
So,
you know, how, again, how are we in Pima County, good neighbors, to the counties around us, and how do we leverage everything that we're all doing to really move this effort forward and not waste the opportunity that's been presented to us?
Thank you, Michelle. Anybody, anybody that ba ba or you are online. I don't know if you had Anything that you picked up while you're online with,
it wasn't as exciting watching it online, you know, you don't get the energy out of it, that you would if you were in person. And I definitely definitely plan to attend the Arizona one next year. Though, the one thing that I took away from the sessions that I attended, and most of those had to be in the main ballroom, because that was the only one that was transmitted. And Jessica Rosenworcel, you know, kind of spoke about, among other things, the importance of internet as a vital communication channel for teachers, to parents and parents to teachers, you know, which is something we normally don't think about, you know, for word parents communicating with teachers, especially in rural areas, using the internet paying for it through ACP. She mentioned also that 70 75% of the households use internet for telehealth, which also is an amazing statistic. You know, we always think about people using it for job applications or working from home, you know, business or banking and things like that. But, you know, telehealth 75%, you know, I'm not sure that I got the citation, or where she got this from, but obviously, if she's quoting it, it has to be from some somewhere authentic. And the senator Luhan also spoke about me in his recorded speech was aired, and that he also spoke about the importance of internet but also about the USF ones. And although right now, it doesn't seem a priority. I think if we have all the ducks in a row, when the time is right, it can be presented. And you know that right now, it's in the in the Fifth Circuit Court, you know, where, if the argument is about is USAC, the right vehicle to disburse these, or collect these, you know, that could be an argument that could be worked on. But if the very fundamental idea of the USF collection of funds being another tax, that's a harder issue to contend with. So let's wait and see. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that, you know, that the tech companies would do what is right, eventually and pay into it so that the burden on the service providers that are currently participating, the landline service providers, it's eased a bit because it this is not sustainable with 35%. Last quarter, almost 35% contribution from the service provider. So that is, that was one takeaway that I had to add to what everyone else said back to yesterday.
Okay, thanks, Mala. We'll want to hear from some more from you in just a minute. Before we move on, even though it wasn't on the agenda, and he didn't clarify, can put you on the spot for a minute. And he just hosted a really great workforce development meeting. And handy if you want to just take two minutes to share about that, about that meeting.
Hey there, Andy. Maybe he'll come back on and just a couple of minutes. So let's move on to just doing some quick updates on some models already addressed. But let's talk about some federal any other federal legislation. And, Judy, if you have anything else, and then what you've already shared? I don't know. I think you may have covered it, but you have anything else that you want to comment on?
No, not not at this time.
Okay, well, thank you for thank you for joining us. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mark. Yeah,
I posted something in the chat that there is a bipartisan, bicameral, meaning both houses of Congress bill that would make recent grant monies and upcoming grant monies for Broadband infrastructure, tax free to providers. So why that is important is if you're doing a $10 million project and had to put up 25% As a match, you got seven and a half million dollars. You are going got to pay taxes on that that was going to cost you another two and a half million of your grant funding. So if that is passed and known going into the BEAD process, that will certainly affect a provider's competitive posture and proposals in in the BEAD era or later this year.
Hey, thanks. So I'll make sure that gets to our lead legislative staff and the Senator. Thank you.
Okay, anybody else have anything from the Legislative from the federal legislative mouth? Do you have anything else legislatively? And then? Well, before we go into the State Library update? No. I do want to get to Michael hope pokum. Because we've sharts shifted him on time for the last few meetings. So I want to make sure we get to him. But do you have any other federal legislative issues?
No, no. I'll do my state update when after Michael finishes. Okay.
So with that, Michael, do you want to give us an update? What's happened with telemedicine?
I actually don't really have too many updates. Today, we are going to be attending the tribal health literacy. Summit. That's going to be in Phoenix, march 12, and 13th and 14th, I think. And we'll just ask, basically sort of connecting type of request. Anyone who's kind of working in the tribal connectivity space, we definitely would like to connect with you. And that would, you know, learn about what's, what's happening in those particular areas more. That's something we hope to gain, also from this tribal health literacy meeting as part of our work on the Arizona Health implementation plan or health improvement plan. But really not too many other updates today. Thank you so much.
So a couple of things, Michael, first of all, can you introduce yourself? And then secondly, what's the status of you guys have a new director yet? Or is that still in the process or?
So I'm the Interim Director for the Arizona Telemedicine Program. My other role here is the Associate Director for Information Technology, and are down Founding Director Dr. Weinstein, unfortunately passed away in December of 2021. And he led the program from its inception in 1996. The search for the new director has not come to a close yet. So that's still pending. And we recently had had a candidate a candidate out for a site visit at the end of January and don't have any updates beyond that. I'm not on the part of the how the College of Medicine runs this as there's a search committee. And the members of the unit are not on the search committee, we do get to, to meet with candidates and that sort of thing. But in terms of the the hiring decision, and all that we're all part of that. So.
Okay. Last thing, Michael, is, have you been impacted? Are you going to be impacted on all the issues going on with the U of A in terms of budget issues and stuff?
Well, I think it's kind of remains to be seen, but the university is considering you know, they're planning for a budget cut to address the financial situation. We don't know how that will impact us just yet. But the College of Medicine, I would just say is one of the units on campus that is doing well in terms of not having deficits and that sort of thing. And so the college of medicine I think is in a position as I understand it more they're not going to need to you know, change commitments are anything it definitely is going to impact the speed with which progress can be made. I guess you know, the future for a bit here but I think that the college of medicine is in good shape. The university just briefly you know, there's a big centralization ever going on cross it HR, marketing, communications and business and finance. That is going to have an impact but nothing just yet there, there's some sort of formality things happening. But the university is definitely committed to making good on its commitments and continuing business, you know, so it's, it'll be done thoughtfully, I think.
Well, Michael, can you just explain briefly for folks who may not know about the centralization issue? You guys have been a federated University forever? And can you explain about that a little bit.
It's really, it's just, you know, as in any other organization, it's about efficiencies and achieving those to reduce costs. But there's also, in terms of it particularly there's the centralization brings improvements, and compliance and information security practices, that, you know, the university is in a better situation if those are uniformly applied. So, you know, I think it's, organizationally, it's a good, good move. And, but it is a big change.
So just to clarify for people that almost every if not all of the colleges on campus, basically had their own it, operation, their own network. And historically,
I think that, you know, starting even, you know, probably more than four years ago, and especially about four years ago, when these discussions started many units, including ours, basically started the work of moving in that direction. So like our program were already centralized, we have done the work to transition to central resources for business computing and that kind of thing. So there definitely are still many that need to do it. And you know, how to have some work to do.
But thanks, Michael, any questions for Mike? Okay, if not, so, Mala you want to circle back here and anything else you want to share in terms of what's happening here in Arizona? Yes.
Yes, we are hurtling through the the ERate application deadline March 27. application deadline, the RFP deadline is on February 27. So if anyone wants to do a new RFP to change their service providers, February 27 is the deadline to do that. And then there there is a 28 day wait period before they can award contracts, they can use the state master contracts after that if they do not want to do their own RFPs. The state master contracts are available for Category One, which is internet recording services. But for the internal connections, routers, hubs, switches, etc. The Mojave contracts are eligible are available for those who are eligible to use it most state government, institution organizations as well as public libraries, and schools are eligible to use them hobby contract. The last time I saw it was not up on their website because they just renewed it like a few days ago. And it takes time for the new contracts to be up on the website. But I do have the contract information. If anyone is needs it before it appears on the website, please contact me I'd be happy to share the contract details that you would need the contract information, the service providers, entity number and those kinds of things. So I'd be happy to share that with anyone who needs it. The a couple of other things that that are going on. One is the cybersecurity comments deadline was January 29. And, you know, we we were all aware of what those comments are likely to be that the the the cybersecurity pilot program that Jessica Rosenworcel put up was for three years and we definitely wanted to shorten by a year. That is a comment that has come up over and over again among the people who have posted the comment, shorter duration, more funding was supported by funds for learning as well as the Consortium for schools School networking calls in. They're done. Interestingly, they're done an average cost per applicant for a robust cybersecurity system and it came in the average came up to 146,004 applicant that is per school network or a library system network. And they said that in order to, for all the schools and libraries to use it, this 200 million is not going to be sufficient. And their estimate was 312 million. And they of course, wanted it or one cycle one year cycle cycle, to estimate and evaluate how the program is running. So that was an interesting piece of statistics that we that was on that on the comments. Now, the other thing, the the other comment NPRM, that was up was the hotspot lending from libraries and schools through the E Rate program, there was again, mixed support for that. The need, of course, everyone agreed on the need for some kind of bandaid until, you know, the BEAD program came into effect. But whether it was the right solution was debatable party because of course, it has a good mechanism, a tried and tested mechanism to do the application, but the rigor of keeping statistics, the notes on who they lend it to, and how long they had it, and which of those hotspots are being used, etc, was not was something that they didn't want to keep stats on. The cost concerns were also there, the again, an estimate was done by funds for learning. And they said it was that it would cost the E Rate program, about $198 million per year to support the cybersecurity program. Of course. We know that the Erie program does not have that kind of funding. And we'll see again, unless the USF bases expanded. So let's see where that goes. Again, we're going to wait and see what reply comments we'll bring. One other thing that I wanted to share with you was that there was an interesting Shelby Broadband deployment webinar where New Mexico had done a study on pole attachments, and what that would cost and whether, you know, the service providers, of course, maybe taking that into account when they are putting to be a sub grantee in the BEAD program. But it was interesting to see the statistics that they had provided, they said, you know, assuming that they needed about 15,000 miles of fiber layout, and assuming that 50% of them are aerial and 50% are buried underground, the aerial costs, of course, less than the buried fiber. And the the cost that they said was about 3004 50% of the replacement, they said would cost about what do I see $75,000 at the rate of $3,000 a pole that would that means that for New Mexico $225 million would go just in pole replacements in order to do that, in order to fulfill the BEAD requirements. That was staggering. It was a staggering amount. But again, it's something that we need to note and the service providers probably but note that when they are quoting a subgrantees I will post a link to the PDF that on on the poll comments there from that shall be webinar. One more One last thing that I want to say is that during that webinar, they also there was an interesting model that were showcased it is called the Vernon Berg Berg model and I'll put that in the chat once I'm done talking. This was a statistical model that they presented on fibre, fixed wireless and satellite options to use the BEAD grant. And they show a slider on it, that if you have if you, if you decrease the fiber and increase the fixed wireless or the satellite, how this would affect the total amount that you would deploy in the rural areas for for bid for the BEAD program. So that it was very interesting to see how that model worked. Maybe something that Paul would be important, interested in but also at the same time, I think the service providers would be interested in seeing when they do a quote, as a sub grantee. So back to you. Not that I know much about those two models, but I'll give you the PDF link for those who have more statistical mathematical abilities than I have.
Okay, thank you. Thank you Mala. So we're just about out of time. But Carrie, I'd like to introduce you if you're still there. I think this is the first time that you've joined us and just tell people quickly who you are and what you do.
Good morning, everybody. Not my first time here, but I haven't been here in a couple of weeks. Steve, so fair to you that you don't recognize my face.
I recognize the name but
All right, well, now you get a face with a name and a voice. I along with Michael Holcomb work for the Arizona Telemedicine Program and I am our Associate Director of administration. And as Mike mentioned, we are a sub awardee of the Arizona Health Improvement Plan. And Broadband is a big piece of that. So we remain invested in these conversations in these meetings and then also without Broadband telemedicine is not possible. So yes, we have a vested interest in Thank you for having us this morning.
That you want to just tell people quickly about the Southwest Resource Center. Sure. So
we also have a federally funded subsidiary called the Southwest Telehealth Resource Center. This is funded by HERSA. We have a region and our region is Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and the four corners. And we truly are a resource center. So whatever it is that folks need around telemedicine and telehealth, that's what we provide through information, resources and technical assistance. We have newsletters, we have blogs, we have webinars that we push out to anybody who's interested. We also have every quarter, our Arizona telemedicine council meeting. Our next one is in April, I would be happy to put the link to the chat if you would like to register and come please feel free to do so.
Great. And Sherry, my correct that you actually coordinate that regional center.
I'm the Program Administrator for it. So it's Mike and me. And then our director of that program is Dr. Elizabeth Lipinski.
Right. Okay. Any other questions, comments from anybody before we end for the day? We'll end the meeting. And then as you know if anybody wants to stay online and kibitz for a while, if not, we'll be be done than any other announcements. So, Andy, are you back? Andy, are you there? Yes. Oh, so Andy, I was looking for you to just do a quickie. You did. I had a great meeting the other day on workforce development. And I thought maybe just want to share quickly about that. Okay,
I coordinate well, I mean, the Sinclair and I'm the caps Capacity Development Coordinator at the Arizona department of economic security. And I put on a quarterly meeting. It's the community economic development and advisory Consortium. The goal of the meeting is to look at non traditional ways of reducing or eliminating poverty. This Tuesday, this past Tuesday, we had a meeting related to workforce development in the cyber area. So we had Leah Palmer, Executive Director for the Arizona advanced manufacturing Institute's semiconductor technician Quickstart program at Maricopa Community College, also had Peter Costas Costa, who spoke at AZ BSN digest a few weeks ago. He's the founder and CEO of ball two technologies. He addressed bringing workforce development into business and also working with industry euros to increase their raw cyber workforce skill sets. We also had Marysol Ron Rivera from Mesa Community Action Network who address their program working with AT and T, the program is called connected learning center. And that's where a TNT part or with a community action agency to teach cyber skills to low income people throughout the Mesa area. So it was a pretty good meeting. Pretty good speakers.
Yeah, it was great. Great job. And Alan, I'm gonna introduce you to Peter, because I think you guys will have a lot in common. Thank you. I was hoping he'd be here today. But you know, we're going to be talking next week about some things to collaborate on. Okay, so anything else I'm going to stop the recording? And if you want to stay online and kibitzer ask questions or whatever, and if not, you can go do what you got to do. Great.
