July 18, 2024 AZBSN Digital Acceess Task Force Recording

1:20AM Jul 19, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Erin Lorandos

Mitch Gorsen

Bill D'Agostino

Kristi Baker

Rhonda Maun

Gordon Fuller

Scott Zufelt

Mike Tureson

Albert Garcia

Keywords:

broadband

cisco

arizona

leverage

provide

state

funding

networks

work

move

ultimately

community

digital

entities

talk

equity

areas

projects

bead

create

Okay. All righty. Good morning, everybody. Glad to see you. I had a good amount of folks showing up this morning. And I have to work on you guys showing up a little bit earlier. But that's alright. We're not, we're not too far behind. So a couple of quick things. First of all, as always. As always, I'd like to acknowledge our sponsors, CareFirst, healthplan, Karen Ziegler, consulting services, Valley Telecom Group Kajeet, and Triad Wireless, though, again, we appreciate their support. Second be is if you haven't already, if you want to connect with the folks who are part of the task force, I might suggest that you use our Google Form and, and put your information in there. So people can find you. And I can find you find your contact information, phone number, and so forth, that I'm gonna send it cordially encourage you to do that. And so, next thing is that our next meetings are August 118 1520. So I'm sorry, July 25, August 118 1522, and 29. And I'll talk to you about the 25th in just a moment. Excuse me. So. So moving on, just to reminders after the meeting, we have what's called kept seeing with colleagues, we turn off the recording and just chat anybody who wants to stay on, we might have two people, we might have five people, we might go for five minutes, when might go for an hour, it just depends. But it's just very informal. Opportunity for sharing and discussion. So moving on quickly. So you may have heard me talk before that we were going to do a public networks forum. And we were scheduled to do that actually next week. And we've postponed that President bet forum until August the 29th. That program is going to be a little longer than it'll be in our usual time slot. But it's going to be a little longer, probably till from eight to 930. Pat, perhaps a little longer. But we changed the forum. I mentioned this last time, we changed the forum from municipal networks to public networks, because public networks actually has a broader a broader perspective than just municipal networks. So I'm just going to share this with you quickly. The public home networks may include municipal networks, co ops, open access, tribal, public private partnerships, and other community and member owned Broadband networks focused on ensuring universal robust connectivity. The panel that we have confirmed at this point includes JG SOEN, which many of you probably know is the executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband. She's nationally recognized as a as an expert in the public networks, space, and we're really pleased to have her and then our own mark Goldstein, who's chair of at AIC Sandy Olmeca, who has that course, as you know, is the is our Broadband manager with the state, the Broadband office, Chris mozzerella, who is the CIO with the city of Tucson. And Chris is going to bring a particular interest interesting perspective because the city has opted not to do a public network. And so we're going to hear from him about why he made that decision. And then Rory Conaway, who you probably all know who attends pretty regularly or meetings, is the CEO of Triad Wireless, Dave crassa are someone else, whoever they choose from the city of Mesa, and their free public Wi Fi project. And then from empty UA is Garrett and Garrett, Are you online? Don't think so, who was with the NCUA and then I hope to have somebody from Mojave Electric Co Op, as soon as I find who that will be. And then in August, sometime in August, we're gonna do a presentation from Wycombe on what they're doing here in Arizona. So those that's kind of what's happening. For the time being So before we get going any further, do we have some new people who have who are participating with us today?

I know we have some folks from Cisco and we'll get them introduced in just a little while. Christy Baker with weak speaking of weak calm. Christy, do you want to introduce yourself real quickly?

Sure. Hi, I'm Kristi Baker. I'm the Grants Manager at WWE calm. And I'm so excited to be here and hear what you guys have to say today. Thanks.

And then we're going to work on getting a date for you guys to do a presentation to this group in August.

Great look forward to it.

Thank you. Sure. Oh, let's see who we've got else. Rhonda Maun.

Hi, Steve. Yes, I'm Rhonda Maun with Consortia Consulting. One of my colleagues Valerie Demet has been on this before. We are consultants for rural Broadband carriers and several here in Arizona and interested in everything Broadband and Digital Equity etc. Sounds

great. Thanks, Rhonda. Thanks for joining us this morning. Let's see who else we got that might be new. Any UCAS Eileen Harris, you've been here before me cheer

Eileen, are you there? Okay, well, moving on.

I'll just say hello.

Who is Gordon Fuller

from Tucson with plan systems.

And okay. Great. Thanks.

We're into spatial spatial computing.

Community Network. Great. Want to hear more about that at a future time? Let's see anybody else that I've missed? It's new today. My tourism?

Yeah, good morning, Mitch Gerson from Cisco public funding office. Great, thanks.

Let's see who else Scott Zufelt.

Scott Zufelt IT director from the Town of Oro Valley.

Thank you. Welcome. And I think that's everybody that's new today that I'm aware of. Thank you. Oh, good to see you. And let's just jump into the updates from the Arizona Broadband office.

I may be the only one here today, Steve, I'm sorry. I'm not sure I can't see everybody right now. But Hi. My name is Erin Lorandos. I'm the Digital Equity Program Manager with the Arizona Commerce Authority. For folks who are maybe new to this space, the ACA is the administering entity for both the BEAD and Digital Equity funding here in Arizona. So up at that state level, we're kind of helping guide things. And we're the ones who are, you know, applying for the money and distributing funds and all that kind of stuff for both of those programs, currently, so I don't actually have a ton of updates. I just wanted to pop in and say hi, since we had so many new folks joining us today, I'll put my contact information and our website in the in the chat. And if there are any specific questions on anything, I'd be happy to to answer them as well. Sir.

So Aaron, can you just quickly run through kind of the timeframe? You got a couple of events coming up? And and and then the timeframe for one thing, when we expect to hear from the feds and so forth?

Well, if I knew that, I would be in a very different situation, but no so so general timeline things, we are wrapping up the, you know the the determinations from the challenge process for the BEAD side of things. So we hosted public facing maps, where folks could take a look at the potential locations that were considered to be Broadband serviceable for the BEAD funding. So these are locations across the state households that were not currently getting at least 100 by 20 connection speeds. And then also looking at community anchor institutions across the state. So our libraries or schools or health care facilities, places that focus militate the use of Broadband to vulnerable populations that may not have access in other places. And so so that piece of the puzzle was up for public comment for the last couple of months. And then now we're in the phase of looking at all of the data that was submitted during that challenge process, and looking at different pieces of evidence that may have been submitted either for or against that location being, you know, served or or needing funding in some way. And so that all that that part is all wrapping up. And we, you know, we're still on the timeline that we anticipated to move into those next stages of sharing what those project areas look like, for folks who are eligible entities and beads or ISPs or local governments, for example, some of this, you know, the partnership networks that Steve were just talking about, for those further meetings. All of that will be released soon, but the exact information on that is reliant on our volume to being approved by NTIA. So we're kind of in a little bit of a, you know, doing as much behind the scenes as we can to prepare for the next stages, but can't really do a lot until that gets approved. And as Sandeep says, we've been hearing that will get approved any day for about the last month. So any day, we'll we'll have that update for you. And then, you know, we will move into the next stages, which include making sure that all of the eligible entities are prepared to apply for funding, we do anticipate that sub grant process for the BEAD funding still to happen this fall, you know, to kick off, and so more to come when we get our volume to approved but through our website, folks can read all of the documentation that has been created. So far, all of those milestone documents, including Volume One and Two for BEAD, the five year action plan, etc. And then on the D side, we've got a Digital Equity plan that's approved and posted on our website. And our next steps in that process. We're in the process of applying for the funding to implement the plan. And so we're working through those, just those milestones and those processes with NTIA. Again, no exact dates on anything on that side. But we do anticipate again in the fall to be able to move into that potential sub grant process for organizations and entities across the state that are doing Digital Inclusion work or would like to, you know, start new programs and projects. Anything that aligns with the goals and objectives that are listed in our plan will be eligible and considered as long as they're coming from eligible entities. But again, a lot of those details, we're just still waiting to get our final approvals before we move into those next stages. We do have a number of events coming up, as Steve mentioned, all available on our website, we we do host monthly Digital Equity and BEAD related conversations that are they're hosted by our staff in our office and meant for different groups to engage with this work at a deeper level. We actually had our two of our three BEAD webinars and our D webinar this week. And then we do have another one coming up later. And if you go into let me just scroll to this real quick for you and give you an exact link. This page that I'm posting a link to right now are is where you'll find upcoming webinars on the the BEAD side of things. And then on the Digital Equity side, we keep those on the Digital Equity page, which I just dropped as well. In addition to all of that, we are going around the state on a an in person engagement tour to ensure that relationships that you know, we've been building throughout the planning process for both BEAD and Digital Equity are maintained, and, you know, people's cups are being filled. And then we also just want to make sure that everything we're doing still aligns with the needs and the you know, the barriers that are being faced at cetera at the local level. So we plan to continue having that in person engagement throughout the implementation. Yeah, you know, as needed. Of course, we were always happy to come even if we've already been to your area, let us know you'd like us to come back and we can do that. We'll have a few restrictions around that during the open procurement pieces, you know, for those some grant processes for, you know, for procurement, efficacy and all that, but we you know, going forward past that we'll be able to come back out again. So we do have a contact page on there. If you send us your information Through that, or again, I'm gonna drop my email here briefly. We can connect you with any resources that you may need or answer any questions that you might have.

Any questions for Aaron? So where is the potential subgrantee? Survey still open? Actually, yes, please. Yeah.

So for the Digital Equity piece, this is not a requirement in any way, shape, or form or a precursor to applying for a grant from us. But we were just interested to kind of see what sorts of projects our stakeholders might be considering for Digital Equity. And so I did put together a very brief survey, very high level, a number of folks on this call have filled it out. And I really appreciate that it helps us with our planning, and it helps us just get an idea of what people are thinking about, in a general sense. And so I will share that link as well. I keep extending the due date for it, because it's not really any buddy looking at it other than me. So right now, it says that it was open until the end of this month, but I'll probably extend it again. So don't worry. It's really just again, just to get an idea of what is happening. There will be obviously a more formal application process when we get everything approved, and we actually move into that phase. But it's just really helpful to know you know, who, who's thinking about what? And so let me be grab that link real quick for you all. And if you have, you know, when you take a look at that, if you have any questions, again, feel free to reach out to me. It, it is definitely the type of information that we'll be looking for in the application, it just will probably look a little bit different because we'll, you know, be able to put more specifics in and things like that.

Okay, any questions for Erin? So in the next few weeks, we're going to have some discussions about Digital Equity and some issues and concerns and really start using this forum, or an opportunity to really have some discussion and just updates. So so stay tuned for that. Anything else?

Not at this time? No, thank you. Okay. I

don't think Nicole is here this morning. I haven't seen her. And I don't see Brenna or Judy this morning. Excuse me, Elena. Do you have anything that you want to update us on?

No, there's really not. There's really nothing since last week, to be honest with you. I will say that, Senator Luhan. Their office has reached out and they are looking for stories for impact stories. If anybody has any impact stories about people who were on ACP and then lost it or just regarding their internet experience, or access challenges, please reach out to me. And we can maybe try to connect and and document some of those some of those stories. So really no update on on the bill or anything like that.

Probably don't expect anything at the moment, but what's going on? Right? Yep. Okay, so one quick announcement and then we're going to jump into excuse me into the program this morning. So, USDA, I don't think Matthew is here this is but USDA Rural Utilities Service. Broadband Technical Assistance Program is holding workshops on July 17, which of course you've already missed. And then July 31, the Rural Utility, the Rus or, as it's known, his agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and they map their accepting applications for the Broadband Technical Assistance Program for fiscal year 2020. For the Technical Assistance Program provides competitive cooperative agreement, funding to eligible entities to receive or deliver Broadband technical assistance and training that promotes expansion of Broadband in rural areas. That information by the way, I want to remind you and Aaron mentioned a bunch of different dates. So I want to remind you a couple of things after this meeting, as I think most of you know, that I do send out the chat that has all of the has links. And then I also include in my newsletter, that I send out any contacts and information that I shared in this meeting. So if you miss any of it, again, you'll be able to get the chat. And you'll be able to see my newsletter with all the dates and weeks and all of that sort of stuff. So, any questions about any of that? Before we move on? Let's see what we've got to chat. Are there any announcements or anything before we move into the program this morning?

Okay, so moving on, then let's just jump right into our program this morning. So I'm going to introduce Mitch Gorsen. Mitch has been attending our meetings fairly regularly, and really appreciate him being here. He's the public funding advisor, and sales, business development for Cisco, or Cisco Systems, as many of you may know them. Been around for a long time, big, awesome company. And he arranged for me to meet with a number of his team members who were on this call today, we had an awesome discussion about what they're doing, what resources, they have opportunities for partnerships, funding, and so forth. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Mitch, I'm going to stop sharing Mitch, and if you have anything to share, or if you just want to, and then you can introduce your team and take it away. Thank

you. Thank you, Steve, I want to begin with complimenting you, I have the opportunity to listen in to Broadband task force around the country. And I got to say, after you know, that you really run one of the best in the country, the materials you send out afterwards or comprehensive, detailed, and the it's a real testament to the those on this call, how will this group works together and the value you offer each other? So first compliments to you and everyone on this call, you run a great task force.

Thank you. Before we move on, Albert, I see you have your hand up. Is there something to question or something before we move on?

No, I must have gotten something.

From the beginning, he really made me feel very welcome to task force. But as you pointed out, I'm just one of many people at Cisco. I'm going to introduce my colleagues real briefly on the phone on this WebEx and then they're going to share with you their wit and wisdom about Broadband and more. So beginning with PJ Carlin, PJ Karlin is our account manager. Now the routines are our face to the state of Arizona, particularly the state of Arizona as a entity, and he is going to be a pathway to all of the Cisco colleagues in Arizona. So I'll tell you later that if you have questions about Arizona, start with him. And then of course, our subject matter experts in business develop in how Broadband is really implemented at the at the ground floor. And that's Albert Garcia, who's going to share with you how Cisco is involved, literally from the ground up of the plumbing of the of your of the state. I'll just leave it at that. And then lastly, Mike tursun Mike is my counterpart in the public funding office. He is knowledgeable about funding and grants for a wide variety of technologies, not just Broadband. But if you have any questions about ERate, and more, Mike is the local person who covers Arizona, and I'm gonna let him speak for himself. So you've heard me on a couple calls. So I'm going to stop and then in and hand it off to TJ, who's going to talk to you about our presence in Arizona. Thank you, TJ Tureson.

Awesome. Thank you much. No, and thank you, everyone for inviting us today. So as Mitch said, I am the account manager here for the state of Arizona. So I support the state all the relevant agencies, as well as some of the critical infrastructure in the state, namely Central Arizona Project and valley metro, our transportation. I guess to start, I hope everyone has a baseline but if you aren't familiar with who Cisco is, we are one of the global leaders in networking, telecommunications and security. I know when I speak with some customers, you know, we are typically known as you guys are the network guys. Yeah, you're the switch guys. We are we are that certainly but we are so much more than that. We have probably one of the breadth of portfolio that is unmatched in the industry from networking, telecommunications, secure At, I know we're speaking on Zoom today, but we have our own premier collaboration platform known as WebEx. We do data center compute. So when we talk about servers and switching in the data center, as well as providing you a whole host of different services and software to help you provide the visibility that you need, really into your network to help you guys succeed. Our real big mission is ultimately, to connect people and organizations to collaborate securely. That is really at the end, what we are trying to do, and we, for the most part, Cisco has become synonymous, we'll say, with the internet with the backbone of the internet. And there are statistics out there, I believe about 80 plus percent of the world's internet traffic goes over Cisco Networking and Security Products. A lot of people, you know, what does that mean? Well, who cares really, at the end of the day, and what that means really is the amount of telemetry and data that we collect from all that different traffic that travels over our networking and security products, really helps empower our innovation, as well as the visibility that we have into networking and security to really help keep organizations efficient, and secure. So like I said, and we provide this from small startup businesses, to large enterprises, to government entities. And as I said, our portfolio structures routers, servers, cybersecurity tools, cloud IoT solutions, you name it, we we likely do it. And what we're really focused on is being that foundation for innovation and growth in this digital age, to really help organizations and communities close that digital divide gap. And we continue to be at the forefront of those technological advances really helping shape that future, on how people connect, communicate, and collaborate. We continue to continue to make huge amounts of investments, I think Cisco is one of the largest organizations that make huge investments in research and development to ensure that we're staying on that cutting edge, making sure that obviously, I think the hot buzzword now is AI, I would be remissed. If I didn't say AI, I'm actually required to at least say it four times in a presentation. So AI, I mean, we are looking at building that into all of our products to ultimately make, again, you guys more efficient on how you support your network security solutions. Now here in the state of Arizona, we have a really a huge partnership with the state of Arizona. So if you are familiar with the as net contract, so many of the state agencies consumed their networking and telecommunications from what we call the as net contract. So really, the backbone of the state government is Cisco. So we talk networking, when we talk wireless, when we talk telecommunications, that is Cisco behind there helping support the state agencies, that is all managed ultimately by one of our partners lumen. Who helps manage that as well. We are in the state. I don't know if anyone is familiar with ACA, but that is the Arizona cyber threat response Alliance here in the state. So they help pretty much information sharing between both public and private sectors to help keep really the whole of State Security Strategy help us keep secure. We are one of those founding members of ACA and help really help fund and stand them up with tooling to help provide them that visibility that they need. They do interface. So when we talk about that telemetry and data, a lot of that partnership is then with our Cisco Talos group. So Cisco Tallis is the largest commercial security intelligence agency in the world. So outside of those big three letters, we talk FBI, CIA, so the largest commercial security intelligence agency and Cisco Talos. So again, they are that agency in the background that is pulling in all of that telemetry data, and making sure that that is proliferated out through our products and solutions to again, keeping you guys secure.

TJ, can I interrupt for one second? So as you know that this is not a webinar, this is an opportunity for exchange and discussion. So if you have any questions or comments while these guys are presenting, please raise your hand. And we'll, we'll include you. And then of course, afterwards, we'll open it up for questions and comments and so forth. But I did want to make that comment that we're trying to make these as interactive as possible. So anyway, sorry, PJ.

Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, please ask questions. I mean, we could go on I mean, like I said, just based on the portfolio itself, we can go on for probably days talking about stuff. So obviously after this, if there's any sections that we mentioned that you want to dig deeper in, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself. Like I said, I support the state. But I do have other team members on my team who support our K 12. Our large cities and states large community universities as well as my commercial side. Help support a lot of the private sector entities as well. I think one of the other great partnerships we have in the state of Arizona, it is again, specific to cybersecurity is where we partner with the Arizona state's Homeland Security. So the Homeland Security they offer through their cyber readiness program, they do offer a lot of free tooling to a lot of state and local and education entities throughout the state. So if you are looking for specifically, we offer our MFA solution duo is a part of that program. So if you are in need of MFA, and maybe budget constraints are there, you can look at the Homeland Security filling out their participation form, and potentially be granted, you know, ultimately free tooling in that space. And Cisco is offering, like I said, our MFA solution or multi factor authentication solution through that program with the state. And we continue to build out more and more solutions that can be consumed in that type of grant model for you guys here at the State. So that's just I will say a high level overview of really were Arizona partners. Within the state, like I said, we also have this is just from my perspective at the state level, but like I said, we have very strong relationships across the board, and many of the K 12, large K 12 organizations, pretty much all the major state universities, ASU, U of A and GCU. All of those we help and partner with as well. So what I wanted to do now is is kind of shift first, I'll stop and ask, are there any initial questions? Any initial feedback?

Any questions or comments for PJ?

So what I will do now

is I'm going to pass it over to Albert Garcia, who is our kind of our Broadband specialist for our public sector. So Albert, if you want to take over,

yeah, thank you. Can you guys hear me okay?

Yep. All right.

Well, thank you for having me, Steven, appreciate I appreciate the opportunity to talk. I'm basically I work at Cisco covering our Broadband and smart city area in our public sector division. So I often talk with, you know, communities, municipalities, educators, whatnot, around the topic of Digital Equity and, and Broadband, but more importantly, outcomes that the city is trying to derive through the use of technology. And so we'll go kind of go into a little bit. And by the way, I promise I won't say no, this is a presentation. But promise, no acronyms. I know, we threw out a few already. And I'll I know, it's early in the morning. And we don't want to get into our ABCs of acronyms. So if if something doesn't make sense, please stop me, I want to make it as easy to digest as possible. You know, part of what, you know, what Cisco does is, you know, and MPJ mentioned, a number of technologies are obviously manufacturer of anything that has to do with the Internet. And so Broadband is obviously at the forefront of it. But you know, we we like to look at things a few steps ahead. And it's not just about putting a putting a an internet connection into a home. But it's also looking at, you know, what are we trying to solve? Or what are we trying to do? Right, we obviously want to enable a community to have access, but how do we educate? How do we transform our communities into looking at healthcare differently? How do we improve transportation and make it simpler to to get from point A to point B in a safe and insecure way? How do we look at critical infrastructure? And can we you know, and can we obviously create redundancies? Can we make it more efficient to operate so that in the hottest days of the summer, which I'm sure happens very often in Arizona, that you know, that electricity and utilities are properly running? And so we're often looking at how do we solve these problems through digitization? And, and so that's a really a forefront and I look at often look at a lot of these diverse areas of focus. And they often have you know, and you're gonna have we obviously have some brand people on our call today, that will go into it, but there's often so many different grant offerings through the federal government today and through stay that focus on how to digitize transportation, how to digitize healthcare, obviously, we know BEAD and the various other funding programs around Broadband and we know Oh, there's erase. For from an education perspective, there are so many grants that ultimately put fiber in the ground. And but, you know, could create, you know, the first stages of digitization ability for a community to really take advantage to solve unique problems leveraging, I hate to say it AI, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to really try to automate and make more efficient use. Like, for instance, in Illinois, I know, we work very closely with various companies to leverage not only E Rate, the E Rate program to connect schools, and libraries, but also to leverage investors to come in leverage that project so that they can put more fiber on the ground that can be leveraged as transport services to last mile services for residents and businesses. And so oftentimes, these projects, you know, working together, can be leveraged much more efficiently as as been just one program alone. And so, you know, specifically what Cisco does, is we we, you know, from a Broadband perspective, we're highly focused around what we call our converged transport, we certainly have optical equipment, and we have networking equipment that obviously forms the the electronics behind what, what powers the internet, and what powers communications, but we also are very hyper focused around sustainability. And, and, and making these networks operate in a very cost effective, and very responsible way. And so we've done a lot to push the industry into what we call converged IP to, you know, all these different boxes that go into these data centers to connect, you know, everyone together, but converging them, you know, bringing optical and transport and IP in one box to reduce the amount of cooling to reduce the amount of electricity is, is where the industry is starting to move towards. How do we ultimately, you know, drive connectivity, that, that that really solves problems. So we're very much focused around connectivity for government uses. Today, we're seeing a lot of movement go from, you know, the people connecting networks to really the non human connecting networks and starting to look at, you know, operational technology and how to how to solve problems. For instance, were involved with the city of Chicago, in a in a multi dimensional task force at the mayor created to really try to figure out how they can leverage technology to solve their resident problems that we can use technology that's going to directly affect their residents. And so we looked at 311 systems, and it wasn't just Cisco, it was a number of companies like Amazon and Microsoft, and others that are involved in this, to try to solve problems, like their biggest problems where, you know, that we're coming into the 311 is, you know, potholes and, and, and water backup, and, you know, potential, you know, a base base, their basement being flooded, things of that nature, that, you know, there are systems that, that we can ultimately use technology to help at least, maybe not completely eliminate these problems, but at least make it more efficient for the city to operate, and to be able to try to solve and create early warning systems that could benefit the residents down the road. And so, you know, those are important areas of focus. I feel like government networks as they start to really extend out to the streets and to light poles and whatnot, is really a you know, as I look at Broadband and how these projects can start to come together. I think there's a lot of areas of efficiency that that can be created to ultimately, you know, benefit everyone. Some of the interesting technologies across the board, 5g and LTE, the transition, we are a manufacturer of 5g net 5g radios, we're agnostic to the radios, but we we certainly have systems in place to really provide 5g and LTE services and as well as private 5g We have a cloud based solution that makes it easier. This is a very interesting technology where we've seen many communities leverage 5g Private 5g services to provide Broadband connectivity for instance, I worked with one one community in particular that that leverage CBRs you know, during COVID to basically you know, provide connectivity where there wasn't we also provide fixed wireless backhaul. So oftentimes where fiber is not available, we can leverage wireless services to actually act very similar to, to fiber, with with with extensive bandwidth, we can also leverage it for low latency applications, like, you know, vehicles move very fast pace, we can maintain connectivity and handoffs, very similar to the way cellular networks do it. And then obviously, we were big manufacturer of Wi Fi, access both externally and internally, we are involved in a lot of free Wi Fi projects across across the country, one of the most common things we see especially in libraries and schools, but but really transitioning to outdoor spaces where, you know, common areas and, and different areas can be leveraged to, to be able to provide free Wi Fi to make you know, their commerce areas more attractive to patrons, but to also potentially, you know, provide a bridge between those that are not connected and, and, you know, resources that can provide that connectivity. And then obviously, you know, security, and, and management of these systems are a top priority, we don't want to make it more harder, we want to make it easier for ultimately, people to, to leverage these, these technologies to

in a very scalable way. Um, couple things, you know, we obviously are manufacturer, but, you know, we, we, you know, I like to say we put our money where our mouth is, and we, we really help from the ground up, we definitely involve ourselves in areas that we probably don't touch on. And obviously, we're not a manufacturer of fiber. And, and, and we don't, we don't actually install fiber in the ground. But obviously, you know, when you deal with projects, there's a lot that goes into it. And, and so we, we we like to enable and make it easier for ultimately, organizations to be able to leverage technology to solve problems. And so one particular investment strategy that we do is what we call our country to do digitization acceleration. This is where we help governments and educators and healthcare organizations, right with seed investments to be able to test out technology to try to solve problems. One particular use of that money that we did was with a an HBCU school in, in North Carroll in sorry, South Carolina, Claflin University, where we were we invested in JMA, radio, and a, an our private 5g service, so that they could ultimately connect the unconnected that surrounding their university as a way to help the community and give back and be able to provide connectivity through the university's resources. That was one example that we use, but we have a lot of different. And I encourage any of you to go to our website, you know, search through CDA, and there's so many examples there where we leverage CDA funds to, to help seed and to help test out technology to solve problems. The other area where we make investments is through our global infrastructure fund. We are minority owners of a organization called Digital Alpha, which is an investment firm that helps, and it's roughly 2 billion. I think, this is a little bit of an old slide, but I think they're up to like 3 billion in in, in round funding that they received. And they and they leverage this to ultimately drive more riskier based investments that that that you know, typical leasing, you know, a leasing arrangement that you would normally do for capital costs, wouldn't be so we sometimes obviously do like a revenue share to, to potentially, you know, fund projects, an interesting project that we do, I can't say the name but because it just hasn't really been released, but one that's kind of ongoing right now, which is a large community in southern part of the US that have wanted to upgrade their incandescent lights to LED lights, but they ultimately wanted to put infrastructure on these light poles to ultimately, you know, put physical security cameras to be able to do environmental sensors to be able to, you know, leverage fiber to advance their Broadband efforts. And so we We've worked together with that investor to and built an eco partners to help build out that project. And ultimately, part of the funding, and the revenue share was the cost savings that they were ultimately going to derive from moving to LED lighting. And so, you know, it was a short term investment that ultimately we will, you know, hand over their network. And, and those assets will will be fully owned by that community after the revenue share is completed. But that's one example. Another example is where, you know, we funded an ISP that's providing fixed wireless access to communities to tribe, nations, tribal nations, and we invested over 200 million to expand that that was publicly one organization called element aid. Since that, since that funding, they've acquired a few different companies to round out their, their portfolio, and they are working with communities directly and tribal nations to ultimately provide fixed wireless access, access, access to subscribers, but also working with the government to share and infrastructure investments. And please stop me if you have any questions. I know, I'm saying a lot here. Another area of focus for us is, you know, really our mantra, a mantra, which is, you know, powering an inclusive future for all, you know, we have probably a 25 year plus Networking Academy. And I mentioned that earlier on the call, we do a lot with not only K through 12 schools to provide curriculum that they can leverage as an accredited course as part of a K, a high school offering, or a college offering as well. But we also work with libraries and nonprofits to leverage that curriculum and delivery mechanism to, to be able to provide, you know, whether it be a accredited course, or a non accredited course, we also have what we call skills for all, which is a website that anybody can go in, and, you know, get knowledge on programming, and, you know, cyber and networking, you name it, it's there. So we try to, you know, instill the next generation of techies to, to, to help them in their in their career and workforce aspirations. The other area of focus we're going to get back is our social justice program in our foundation, which we in which we donate a number of things, but our social justice program is actually very interesting. We have probably, you know, think 12 different action, where we try to give back in different ways and also to, to, to make changes in our in our own policies that are more inclusive, and, and responsible way. And so one of the particular ones that is interesting, is our Action Aid Committee, which focuses on giving back to HBCU schools and making investments there to help those schools, you know, in their technology endeavors. And so, you know, we we invested probably over $66 million in investing, and helping secure those HBCU schools across the nation, to better protect themselves against cyber attacks, and create, you know, bring, bring visibility into their posture assessment, and help them make recommend it make recommendations for how to alleviate those concerns. And so, we've done a lot of work over the last probably three or four years in that area. As one example, the other thing we have is our Broadband Innovation Center, where we bring providers as well as you know, state Broadband offices, as well as anybody like who really wants to understand where technology is going, you know, what, what, what are the innovations that are happening not only from a Cisco perspective, but at the industry level. And so we have a very extensive area in our North Carolina office or campus, but also we also have that this in San Jose as well, that we could, that we can do for those that are in Arizona prefer to see shorter flight. But you could, you could actually, you know, test out equipment, you can also deploy it. This is also a are part of our proof of concept lab, where you could, you know, basically providers can to go in and test out their configurations and how to deploy these networks in, you know, and test them out before they actually deployed in the field. And so we offer that as a service, very easy to book it, if you ever would like to attend that we encourage you to attend. PJ could can schedule that for any of you. We also have a Broadband Tech Talk series that we do. I put a QR code just to make it easier for everybody to grab our registration. But we do one every month, focus on areas of some are some are more tackier than others, for instance, like, obviously, the November one is basically on Cisco silicon one. So it's very Cisco centric, and understanding, you know, what we're doing from a chipset perspective, and what's unique about it, and how it's going to ultimately, you know, drive down costs and be more sustainable. But but we also have, like our Broadband advisory session, which oftentimes we have our government affairs team that's on the hill, working with the NTIA and other departments to further advance not only Broadband, but other areas of concern in Congress. And so oftentimes that it can be tacky, but it can also be more business and focus. And that is it. Any questions?

There's got to be a lot of questions.

Hey, Albert, this is Bill the Augustino. I just have a question on your earlier slide where you talked about the wireless or the WANs. You talked about wireless backhaul. And

I think 5g was was one of those

are you doing that across licensed spectrum and unlicensed spectrum or strictly licensed spectrum?

Good question. So we do a lot of different spectrum. So from a 5g perspective, obviously, we could, you know, we have what we call our macro system, which is, you know, T Mobile, for instance, you leverages our what we call our packet core, which is really the subscriber management and radio management system that ultimately operates a cellular network. But we also have a private 5g That could leverage any spectrum. That's that they may be licensed or by the, by the FCC, but also they could leverage CDRs which is technically it's a licensed spectrum, but it anybody can use right you don't need to register for that. So we do have a lot of different projects. A few Broadband, but you know, mostly what we see in private 5g is really those non human type of devices that you know, IoT type of devices where we see CVRs network LTE, even LTE networks really playing an important role to be able to provide that that rich connectivity, certainly Broadband and you can, you can get 200 300 Meg's of service through CVRs. But oftentimes when I work with communities, and schools that are interested in providing those connectivities are typically a short run type of offering until obviously fiber or some deeper connectivity is provided, but certainly we do we can provide those type of services as well. I feel like millimeter wave millimeter wave on next gen fixed wireless access is really a much more mature and much richer offering than than your typical LTE or 5g network is today maybe 5g Six G as it becomes more as as as as the licensed spectrum becomes a little bit more flexible and you'll start to see the chipsets in terms of the CPE start to increase you might see bigger bandwidth to get to 567 100 Meg's but right now you're seeing typically at max out around to 300. Meg's roughly and so and then that's not a good day, right? I mean, you know, usually you're probably closer to 100 Meg, so certainly you can do a lot with that on on a Broadband from a Broadband perspective, but, you know, most people, especially if they're going to pay for 30 $50 They want to, they want to get to the gigabit space right which which obviously, you know, millimeter wave is, is much more conducive to that. So we work with you know, one of our one of our pico partners Toronto wireless, we work very closely with and worked with a number of projects with but we also work from an IoT perspective industrial wireless, we work with Laura WAN technologies to connect sensor networks and, and we can and we also provide from our fixed wireless backhaul, which is, you know, works in that 5g Six G space, not cellular but you know, traditional wireless, and it is it, you know, it, it can, it can certainly go gigabit speeds. So, oftentimes, you know, we're seeing our picks are basically perfect wireless mesh, products being leveraged on, you know, trains and moving vehicles and things of that nature. We're seeing it go on light poles to not only, you know, provide that mesh connectivity between light poles, so that they can ultimately hang their cameras and sensor networks off those light poles, but also to connect vehicles like buses to provide maybe Wi Fi services on buses and, and to really extend the network into fleet management things. Hopefully that answers your question. Yeah,

I appreciate that. We

promised people, we

wouldn't talk about acronyms, but we threw a couple out there.

Thank you. Be honest.

So I'm gonna wrap things up quickly. But but a couple of quick things. And I know, Mitch and Albert know, that we did talk when, when you and I, when we chatted previously, that a lot of the people on this call are very interested in the Digital Equity space. And what what interests the Cisco has, and I think a whole nother discussion for us is how can we partner, the other we're gonna get was it 16 or $18 million in Digital Equity money, which is not a lot of money, you know, and so and it's going to be a one time shot. And so a lot of people are going to be interested, but aren't going to get any of that money. And so the question becomes, how do we create a strategy? After all that money? Well, even before all that money is distributed, that even afterwards? Of what kind of strategy do we have to be able to continue to address the Digital Equity space? And so it would certainly make sense for us to have that conversation with you guys. About the about that, also. Absolutely.

And, and, you know, we know that, you know, especially some of these Digital Equity needs, and disparities across from an education and from, especially from an education perspective, it, it's going to take a lot, and it's really, as a coalition of the willing, it's not gonna this money isn't gonna, isn't going to solve everything, but certainly could create incubation for sustainable projects that live on right. And so we're always interested in figuring that out. There's no silver bullet here. We're trying to work more with nonprofits, and others in this area to see how we could whether it be through our social justice programs or foundation, or, you know, potentially through other other means and other partners that we could potentially leveraged in the space. So yeah, we're open, and we're open the figuring things out together, like, like I mentioned before, it's all about outcomes, and how do we create a sustainable way of doing it? And, and so, you know, I think from from our from a provider perspective, we're trying to instill our networking academies and other you know, offerings that we do as part of their offerings that they're doing so that they're obviously a responsible partner to the community that could, you know, leverage workforce development efforts and other educational efforts to really get the word out and how people can get connected and how people can be can ultimately serve the network in a responsible and secure way.

Right. So unfortunately, she just dropped off the mala put a note in the chat, thanking you guys for the work you did with the libraries and helping to get services out in our time of need. So so so thank you for that. So I'm gonna move on quickly. And of course, Molly just left. But just quickly, Megan and Penny,

I actually, Steve, I'm sorry. I should have handed it off because I think we have just another Five minutes if you don't mind to cover a public funding office, in terms of people that are gonna help you get the money.

Hi, I'll make this quick. I want to introduce some key dates coming up for Digital Equity grants. On August 28, will be the first capacity award to go out the door from NTIA and more on a rolling basis. Net in September, begins the Digital Equity capacity window for Native American tra entities. And their last, the applications are due February 7 from Nabal native entities. Steve, you mentioned in the very beginning the USDA Technical Assistance Grant webinar. But the key date is August 2009, for the deadline for that grant program. And then moving on to the Digital Equity competitive grant not capacity but competitive. We are awaiting the Notice of Funding. We only know that. Well. And one key point is that the competitive grant is an opportunity for entities to apply directly to the NTA and not through a state. So the NCAA will be making the award decision. Thank you. And I want to introduce Mike tursun. Mike is my counterpart for all things Arizona. And Mike, if you'll take it from here.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mitch, just wanted to kind of do a quick, quick introduction to public funding office and what we do. Let me share my desktop.

I apologize, Mitch we should have?

Oh, it's all good. Okay. Just wanna make sure I have this. Okay, so So our public funding offices, what we do is we've worked with our customers to provide direct support. You know, as far as you're finding funding, you know, whether that is dealing with state programs, federal programs, or foundations, we work in E Ray, we work with the different e Ray programs that are coming out the ones that come out and are coming out as far as like with the ECF. And what's taking place today. We also do like funding research, trend analysis, consulting services, we offer feedback to applications and eligible eligible for eligibility, as well as proposal competitiveness. So also working with us, we can offer you like letters of support letters of commitment, you know, and also monitoring the funding landscape. You know, as we moved through this Broadband funding, there's also other programs that have connectivity that are instituted within the grant programs. So it's pretty conducive to work with not only the Broadband program, but also with transportation with utilities, with with the other various programs from the Iita. So, again, this is something that's that's at a no cost or free to our customers to kind of jump into and, you know, I'll provide my contact information. So I worked with PJ I worked with all of the the AMS have worked with in the state of Arizona, and also with with Mitch Corson. out, so we like to, you know, come in and be you know, we'd like to partner with you. We're not particularly you know, want to make sure that you're taking care of from a funding standpoint, as well as technology standpoint.

So, Mike, we do need to wrap up here pretty quickly. One of the things that again, I would like to have a conversation, and which I anticipate will be a part of a future discussion for us. When we wrote our strategic plan back in 20, we were very clear that we needed to have an entity here in Arizona, that can do research of funding opportunities, provide grant assistance, all of those kinds of things. And we do have here in Arizona, Arizona first has their economic recovery center, and they do a lot of that kind of stuff. But we need to be looking at out or we either expand with and support what they're doing and expanded to look at Broadband Digital Equity, create a new entity or whatever, so that we can really make sure that because as you're indicating, there's lots of other resources out there. As foundations, there's corporate, there's all kinds of stuff. But a lot of folks don't have the capacity to do the research, right, the grants, and all of that sort of stuff. And so it'd be really great for us to have a conversation with you about how do we create a model, perhaps here in Arizona, on how we can do something like that? Yeah,

we totally be open for that. We can set that up, you know, at your earliest convenience. Sounds

good. Sounds good. Okay, any questions for Mike before we move on? We've got just a couple more minutes. But I don't know if she's still here. Mechana usto here. Megan Hammond. Think she had plenty of going. Any other announcements that people have that they want to share this morning? Okay, Gardner who were who are you?

Hello, this is Kay. Oh, you turn the mic on.

I'm with plan systems, spatial media. Okay. I want to know about more about that in the future. So with that, I'm going to stop the video I want to stop the recording. Excuse me, and if anybody has