March 20, 2025 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

7:29PM Mar 20, 2025

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Mark Goldstein

Erin Lorandos

Mala Muralidharan

Lucy Howell

John Kelly

Henry Goldberg

Rory Conaway

Kelly Krusee

Kelly Mukherjee

Randy Luening

Frank Martinez

Michael Kendall

Larissa Organist

Michelle Higgins

Sarah Jane

Keywords:

Broadband Office

Digital Equity

BEAD project

mapping

sub grants

tribal liaison

AZ1 portal

fiber deployment

satellite technology

E-Rate deadline

Cyber Security pilot

Universal Service Fund

NDIA Net Inclusion

Digital Inclusion Network

policy frameworks.

Okay, we're ready to ready to go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody. So just FYI, for some reason, about two weeks ago, all the videos that I have been saving all disappeared, and this morning, I found them in a different location. Have no idea why, but it was very it was a very strange experience. But anyway, they're back. I'll be able to post our videos back on that on YouTube again. So anyway, that's my tale of woe. I'm sticking to it. So, as always, when we get started. We always like to introduce some new people who are joining us this morning. So sound good. So Michelle Higgins, you want to introduce yourself? Please? Sure.

Hi everybody. I'm happy to be here today. I am the Associate Director for the Office of societal impact at the U of A and predominantly what I do is help faculty who are applying for federal funding articulate plan for and measure the impact of their research On the community or in society. So I really enjoy doing that. Part of what I'm what I do too, is, well, a lot of the plans involve workforce development training and also providing making sure that people do have access to reliable internet, making sure that they have the technology that they need. So that's kind of why I'm I'm here today. But thank you. Great.

Thanks, Michelle. It's always good to it's good to see you again. Those of you who were maybe here a little earlier, Michelle and I go back some 20 years or so. So anyway, it's good. It's good to see you Michelle. So let's see who else we got, who else we had, a couple of other people this morning that Who else do we have here today?

I can go. My name is Sarah Jane, business development and Engagement Manager at PCC. I've been in that role for about four days I was at PCC. I've been there three years, but just recently got this position. So my goal is to connect business and industry with contract training and upskilling training and improved student engagement and such. So thank you, and it's nice to be here.

Welcome, great and Larissa, even though you've been here before, but it was interesting to have that conversation with you before we started. So you want to just tell people quickly who you are, and then I have been talking with your folks about having you guys actually do a more detailed presentation for us. Okay,

my name is Larissa organist. I'm the Digital navigator at Copa health, and what I do is I help our members be able to access the technology that they need, be able to access phones or tablets, be able to have access to as good, good internet in their own homes, and then I work with them, and so that they become more comfortable with the technologies that they have, so that they're able to have have better lives and be able to do more.

Can you just tell people, just quickly again about what what your organization has generally,

okay, purple health, we are an organization that we're that is health care for people, and we do a great deal with mental health, but we do also have primary care physicians. The majority, I think, pretty much, all of our people come either from Mercy care or from access. So, you know, we work with people who have some, you know, real serious needs, and we try and help them be able to bring their lives up to where they want it to be, and be able to be very involved in society and have good lives.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Larissa and Lucy, how haven't seen you in a long time.

I know it's good to see you. Everybody.

Wanna just tell people you are again, please.

We are a Tucson based startup that is based in Pennsylvania and Arizona. We are called the force. My healthy globe incorporated does business as the forest for health network. So we're trying to gamify the concept of healthy citizenship by offering a free virtual Health Academy, wellness tools, apps and this whole gamification concept called the reality health games. So I'm here to represent Tucson team, so anybody that's interested in getting involved, and I'm also representing. Healthy Arizona team, so we've been working with Steve for many years.

Great. Thank you. And so I thank you. Do we that? I miss anybody who's new this morning doesn't sound like it. Let's go ahead and get started. Then I kept adding people to our agenda this morning, so we do have a lot of things as always to cover today. So our agenda this morning is going to be, of course, our updates from the broadband Office, Department of Ed and the State Library, and then we're going to hear from Kelly Kersey on what's happening now with bead and the status of the bead project project. And then we're going to hear from Kelly mccurgey about the AZ one and the mapping that they're doing. And then Randy, Randy, how do you pronounce your last name, Lumie,

like the Leaning Tower of Pisa leaning

Okay, and he's going to talk about the broadband toolkit that he works with. So that's kind of our agenda today. And so with that, let's just go ahead and get started. Erin, you want to kick it off with a brief update with the broadband office, and then we'll get to Kelly in just a couple minutes,

definitely. Thank you so much. Steve, good morning, everyone. My name is Erin Lorandos. I'm the Digital Equity program manager. I get to work with Kelly and the other folks in the state broadband office, but specifically on the Digital Equity side of things. Not a ton to update today, just reminders, especially since we've got a few new people joining us, we have posted the requirements for our sub grants within the Digital Equity program. This is our major way of implementing our plan, because we do have so many amazing organizations across the state that are already doing this work, and we hope that they see their work and the goals that we established. And so here is a link to the Digital Equity page within the broadband offices website, which is going to be your one stop shop for all of that information. Did

you want to share?

No, I just dropped the link. That's fine. Unless you'd like me to I can. It's up to you.

You want to. I'll stop sharing. That's

okay. It's fine. I just give links. It's all good. On that page, you can click through tabs to get to the current approved version of the Digital Equity plan, this is approved by NTIA back in April of last year. So we're coming up on its first birthday, almost, and that really guides the the sub grants. Because again, the goals and objectives that we've laid out in the plan are what we hope to get applications to help us reach. We did host a roundtable discussion earlier this month that went through the requirements for the sub grant application and that process and questions that were answered during that session were tracked and answered verbally during the presentation, but also in a frequently asked questions that's added now to the page for the March Community Roundtable conversation. Here's a direct link to that so you can see a recording of that whole presentation, and then also a link to those frequently asked questions. We're going to do that again on April 8, you can register for that on the Community Conversations tab on the first link that I dropped the slides, and the content will be the same between the two. But of course, we'll continue to answer any questions that folks have. Since we have posted that information, we're now kind of in this zone where everything has to be, you know, an open meeting and all publicly available. And so if you do have any questions that you can't answer through the information that's on the website, I encourage you to come to that April 8 meeting so that we can go through it together. And if there's any questions or anything like that, feel free to reach out to me. Of course, I'm always available. I'll put my email in the chat here momentarily, unless there's any questions, that's all I've got. I'm gonna save the rest of the fun for Kelly. Okay,

so, so I don't know Erin or maybe Kelly. You want to talk. Just talk. Remind people that we will have a new broadband manager coming on board the end of the month, but you want to talk about that before you give us more of an update.

Sure we could definitely do that. So that news, in case you haven't seen it, is the previous broadband director, Sandip bhomick, has moved on to other exciting adventures, and so. So on the 31st of this month, just a couple of weeks now, we will have a new broadband director. It's Nick Capozzi. He's coming to us from the governor's office and is well versed in all of the programs, because we've worked really closely with the governor's office throughout this whole process. So it's almost like he, you know, won't even have to have an orientation. He'll know everything already. Yeah, so that's, that's, there's a press release shared about a week ago now on that which I can, I can share that in the chat here momentarily as well.

Sounds good, and I did include the announcement in my newsletter, speaking my newsletter again, just to remind you that I try to capture most of the things I do, share our chat with everybody, and the videos of the meeting and all that sort of stuff. So just a reminder that all that information is generally in the email that I send out our with our newsletter, but some occasionally I miss stuff, but just encourage you to remember that that's where a lot of the links are. A lot of announcements are, and so forth. So anyway, moving on. So actually, Kelly, are you in a hurry to leave? Are you going to be here for a while?

I need to jump off by about 845,

okay, well, then what I was going to wait until a little later, but let's go ahead and just start with you and kind of give us an update. You know what's happening with with bead these things?

Sure. Well, thank you for that. Can I share my screen? Is that okay? You sure

can? Alright?

I just sent a request to be able to share so good morning everyone. My name is Kelly cruci I am the Community Engagement Manager for the state broadband office, and today I get to share details about round one application. And you can tell I am talking and trying to share my screen at the same time. Please bear with me. Okay, could you somebody give me a thumbs up or just let me know if they see my screen? You see the connect all Arizona newsletter? You see that? Okay? Yes. Thank you. Appreciate the validation. All right, so on Tuesday of this week, we sent out an email, and then also Wednesday, it was the same email, but I just want to make sure that everybody received it. We have a few different contact pools, and we want to make sure everybody's getting our information. So the initial one out on Tuesday morning, and it was our newsletter with the updates, and then I resent that on Wednesday morning as well. If you did not receive this, and you would like to please put your email into the chat so that I can capture your information, your name, where you work in your email. That'd be very helpful, and I can add that to our contact lists. So this email went out and again, highlighting our new state broadband director, Nick Capozzi, as Erin spoke about, and then our updates on the application. So the round one of applications closed on March 7, so that was, geez, almost two weeks ago now. And so what is happening? Here's here's kind of a recap, and what we're able to share from this. So we'll go over some of the numbers and then some of the next steps. So it went really well. It opened on January 6, that round one closed on March 7. We received 147 applications from 21 different ISPs, internet service providers, and we have 67 project areas in the state. And of those project areas, we received applications that covered 65% of the 67 project areas. So again, we do have two rounds of this. So what happens now is we go through evaluations, so we are pulling all of those applications, putting it together, mapping it out. And when I say we I am not a part of that process. Let me just be clear. So we are an active procurement and we are following, you know, active procurement guidelines. So I am the public face, for better or for worse, of the office at this point, and I am not a part of the evaluation and assessment process. So we are trying to keep very clear borders as far as people who are part of that evaluation team are not speaking directly with the public or applicants, so that team is now starting to look at this information, go through it with a fine tooth comb, and it there is the evaluation process. So going through evaluating, assessing those applications, and then after that, they'll go into negotiations. So this is a long process, and so looking again through everything that we received through round one. And the goal here is look at what we received in round one, then we will also have to go back to the maps and prepare those for round two of the application process. Process, so that in round two, applicants are then applying for anything that was missed in round one. So that round two application process will start June 3, and in between, then is when all the work is going on with the evaluation committee and also doing that negotiation with the applicants. So applicants who are submitted, an application that the committee is interested in will be contacted by the committee to go through and start negotiating on that application for those areas that they proposed. I can see some things coming in the chat, so I'll go through this, and we'll go through questions at that point. So again, round two will be June 3 through July 3. It's a 30 day window for round two. And Round two is then also mixed technology. So round one was really focusing on fiber. Round two will open it up for alternative technology as well. And again, the goal here is we are still focused on fiber. We know there's a lot of conversation happening with the administration about being tech neutral, and we have received no guidance. So everything is business as usual. We are going forward with the plan as it is, until we hear otherwise. So everything is business as usual, and then as far as the public notice, and when everyone will find out what the outcomes are, that's a detailed process. So we all know the NOFO is very explicit and detailed in what we can and cannot do throughout all of this, the awardee outcomes will officially be announced with our final proposal, and that will be, we are hoping, in October, so the NTIA has to approve. They get a two week time to approve the selections that were made from the application process. They have two weeks to review that, and we're thinking that that's going to be in October, and after that has been reviewed and approved, then we can go public with what those selections are. And our timeline at this point is all pending, because initially our final proposal was due August 1, and we are going to submit an extension, and we can't apply for that extension until June 1. So we have been working with NTIA on our timeline as it is right now. And I just need everyone to know that that is pending official approval, and we can't even apply for that approval until June, so everything is pending, but we are working closely with NTIA on these deadlines and on our timeline and what we have planned here, trying to make sure that we are crossing all the i's, dotting all the T's. So those are the updates there. I can see that there are some emails in here, but let me go through and see if there are any questions.

Yeah. Rory had a had a question and comment. Rory, you want to share your question and comment?

Yeah. So if you guys were had said that there was a an average cost, or a cap cost per home in an area, has that been defined

not publicly? No, and yeah, as far as what I know, it is certainly not public. And I'm not sure, I'm sure that is something that for applicants and in the negotiation process would come out. But I don't have many details on that, but I do know that it is not public at this point. Okay,

so if an area is, if you can't get an area negotiated down to that level, what happens to that bid?

Good question. So I think again, through all the negotiations, the goal is to to find, you know, a resolution to get to a number, and that's where you know, if I I am not on the evaluation committee, so I am. I shouldn't even speculate here, but my understanding is that if the you know, fiber isn't going to work, the cost is too high, then they're moving on to other alternative technologies. And the goal here is to provide, again, most reliable service at a cost that works for everyone, and that is permissible by NTIA.

Okay, so in in the with the new administration, one of the things that was mentioned is that satellite was going to be prioritized. It was going to be the second tier priority over fiber. Is that a state decision, or is that going to be an NTIA decision? Because you know that that move fixed wireless from second down the list down to third

right, and at this point, we are not making any changes in our operations until we are given specific guidance. So there has no guidance has come out yet to say, you know, right now that is being talked about, but nothing has come out officially, to say that this is what is happening, we need to make changes to initial proposal. You know, volumes one, Volume Two, changing our guidelines. Okay, at this point, we are staying the course. Okay,

I'm sorry if somebody else has a question interrupt me, but I my next question would be, the state has a budget of 900 something billion dollars, or not million dollars. Excuse me, if the areas that are covered by fiber, the ones that you negotiate down, will they use up all of that funding so that there isn't a second round? Or do you have or is there a mandate to set aside some of that funding for alternative for the rest of the 35% areas that are not covered? I

don't know that there's a mandate to set aside funding, but the goal is all project areas, every home. So we can't leave, you know, use all the money in round one, we've got to serve every home within the state, so areas that are not covered in round one will be moved to round two. And the priority and the goal here is serving all homes.

So how are you going to know how much money to set aside for round two that instead of using round Yeah, Rory, I think

we're getting into things that I'm not able to speak on. Okay, yeah, so too deep in the weeds here, and I'm unfortunately not able to provide answers on that. I can, I can stay up higher and say that. You know, the goal here is our focus all homes in the States through round one and round two. Okay,

so somebody will make the attempt to make an estimate of what it will cost to complete 100% of the areas, and then balance that out against with money being spent in round one that are allocated. Would that be a correct statement?

I think so. Yes. Okay,

good enough. All right. Thank you, yeah.

Okay. Other questions for Kelly, going once, going twice.

Mark Kelly, I think I saw in the newsletter that ACA has hired a new native liaison. I'm not sure the title. Do you want to mention that?

Yes, yes, thank you. That is okasana Beatty. She comes to us from the Arizona Department of Education. She's our new tribal liaison, and she is doing great work. You know, our goal continues to be working with all tribes and counties throughout the state and through this process, if tribes are applying and want to receive funding or be a part of the bead process. In the end, with our final proposal, we have to have consent from every tribe. We need official written consent from the tribal council, the tribal government. So she is working right now to reach out to all 22 tribes to let them know that we're going to need this in October, to submit to the federal government that is an NTIA requirement, and that's to ensure that tribes are aware this is happening, and that they approve of this implementation on their land. So that is okasana. And I don't know if okasana has attended one of these, but we could certainly invite her. And then I can also see in the chat, Mala put in Evan fine man's email. So he left NTIA, and did send out an email to colleagues with his thoughts so, and I think that was in the broadband breakfast, you know, I know Steve gets that.

Okay, yeah, I just had a question for Kelly. It says that you covered you got applications for 162,000 unserved and underserved locations. So does that mean that there's about 17, 18,000 that were not covered, that you did not receive applications for correct

so there's a number of BSL that are not included in this first round. So again, as we're going through and looking at round two, round two is now focusing on everything that was not picked up in round one, right, whether it was fiber or alternative technology. So that Round two is going to be all about whatever was not applied for in round one.

But there were about 17 or 18,000 that were not Yeah, because I think we're at about 180,000

bsls, give or take, yeah.

When will that list be posted? Kelly,

uh, which list, like, what BS or the areas that

we're not, we're not bid on,

I think, oh, so that will be a part of the round two application. So I don't think that that will be public, but that will be available to applicants,

right? But when will it be available? That will

be, I think, available in in everything, after it's all said and done, in the the final proposal and public comment period, which I think is coming in October.

Okay, maybe, I'm not sure I get that's, I'm asking you've got all these areas bid. When is the list of the. Areas bid going to be listed or and the unserved areas be listed. So we can start looking at those.

Well, for that's what I'm saying. There's two ways for the public that would be in October with the the final proposal. So before we submit that final proposal, it goes out for public comments. And so this is what the public can see and what specific areas are bid on and who the awardees are is listed in that as far as what

he's asking about round two. When, right, yeah,

so round two that will be available to applicants. So anybody who is applying, and they can see that information in the portal. So if you are an Internet service provider or an eligible applicant, you would see that in the portal through round two.

Okay, so it won't be posted until Round two is actually posted. Correct? It would be advantageous for those areas to be available earlier so that engineering can start in those areas instead of making it a last minute rush. So is there a way that that can be evaluated as a better decision? I mean, you know, to try to get it open, try to get that information out earlier.

I see what you're saying, and

because you're saying route two is a 30 day window that's, you know, in terms of engineering, anything is that's pushing right, you know,

right? Yeah, so let me take that back and ask, and then I can follow up with Steve and with you, Rory on that, but definitely with Steve, so he has details that he'll be shared out. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Good question. Thanks.

Other questions for Kelly, going once, going twice. Thank you, Kelly, appreciate you being here. Couple of quick things before we move on with our next presenters. First of all, I apologize to all of you. You probably got inundated with emails from me. The past few days, I've been having some I've had to make some major changes to my email and ran into some technical issues, and so hopefully that's all taken care of, and I won't bombard you with with emails again. And so the next thing is in a change to the agenda. John Kelly, I see you're online, and I don't know if you can hang around or not. So do you want to give us a quickie update on what's happening here in Arizona?

Yeah, I'm just totally Thank you. Steve John Kelly, with tri advocates, lobbyist, old guy, just trying to keep track of what's going on with the Arizona legislature. And I can't say that there's a huge amount of focus or attention on broadband. It's more on energy supply and baseball stadiums and things like that. But I'm happy to answer any questions, if anybody has anything, but I'm just commuting to work, trying to trying to listen in. Thanks to Kelly and Erin for their updates on ACA.

John, John, a question about the bill to move the broadband office to a Doa from commerce. Is that that, I think, asked the Senate. Is that going anywhere?

I haven't seen it on an agenda. We're going to see all the rest of the agendas for next week, probably by the end of today, and I talked to a couple of the different legislative liaisons for agencies. I don't sense that there's any huge momentum behind that, as I told, as I've said previously, the testimony for that came from a very well regarded, very well educated, sophisticated person and Payson, and he had a pretty interesting approach that thinking that broadband was really more about emergency services than economic development, and since emergency networking is all handled by Doa through the 911, system, that was an interesting Take. But I can't say that there's a compelling there's been a compelling argument made that the disruption to move broadband from ACA to ADA is worth whatever benefit there would be, and I know that ACA and Doa collaborate very closely on things that cross over, so I don't sense a lot of momentum, but I'll report out when I get a sense of the agenda for the week. So thank you to come.

Okay, thanks, John. Always good. I have to call John every once in a while and give him grief for not being here. So I just a guilt got to you. I'm John.

I'm guilt, guilt ridden here in their respect. Steve, thank you.

Okay, so So moving on. So, so the other so, let me turn it over to Kelly. Murgy, um. And let her talk to you quickly about AZ one, and in particular the mapping segment of what they're the work she's doing. So Kelly, take it away.

Good morning, everyone. Kelly, muggy from Asus enterprise technology, I support the Asus Chief Information Officer Lev gone in our work around broadband and Digital Inclusion as one is a web portal that was first spawned out of a partnership with Maricopa County. So in 2022 Arizona State University won an award. These are federal dollars to help Maricopa County with six different statements of work, one of which includes mapping, broadband mapping, which I have the pleasure of working on. So we created this web portal called as one. It is a portal of resources. So if you're not familiar with it, if you if you'd like your to if you have your resources that you'd like to share out of here, this portal is meant to be comprehensive of all the wonderful resources in Arizona. So please feel free to contact me. I'll put my contact information again after I present and share this with you. One of the main features on as one is our Broadband Map. We first started out with a Maricopa County Broadband Map, and it was positively received, and so Maricopa County generously allowed us to open it up for all of Arizona so everybody could see this similar information. So what I wanted to just quickly present today, I won't go into much detail. I'm actually presenting next week at the Arizona Digital Inclusion network meeting on Thursday afternoon. Perhaps I can share some information of how to get to that meeting if you'd like a deeper dive, but really quickly, if you come over here to broadband maps and click on Arizona Broadband Map, you'll be able to come here to an interactive, oops, sorry, interactive map where you'll see multiple layers of information. Most of these layers are publicly available, although we also have some purchase data sets in here. Once again, this is a free resource for all of you on this call. Everyone in Arizona to come and take a look. We have demographic information covered, populations, community anchor institutions by approved bead eligibility. So really, all you have to do is click on that layer. I encourage you to open up the carrots and maybe take a look. And you know this is how you'll be able to turn on and off different layers of information that pertain to you. And let's see what I'm showing right now happens to be the beat broadband, serviceable locations that we were talking about earlier with Kelly cruci she was explaining the beat program. Well, some of these data sets pertain exactly to that. So here we allow you to see the total bsls that are bead eligible, and then the percent. Once again, you can click on and off depending on which view you'd like to see. And then we also have bead project areas that you can also turn on if you'd like. So really, we have multiple ways for you to slice and dice different pieces of information. If it gets overwhelming and you need some help, please feel free to reach out to us. We're happy to meet with you and maybe talk through what you're trying to do, but a lot of people have been coming to use our maps to help justify the need for more funding and the need to help in different areas. So depending on what you're trying to do, the maps may be helpful for you. So please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I think that's where I'll end it today. Steve,

okay, thanks. Thanks, Kelly. Any questions for Kelly before we move on? Hey, Steve, yes. Frank,

this. Frank Martinez, Hey Kelly and Erin, I'm curious. So you've got the FCC National Broadband Map, you've got the as one map, and then on the ACA website, there's that map. Can you help me kind of compare contrast, which one to go to for I'm trying to find what the authority is, and then I know that you're pulling data, probably from the Census website, and embedding that into those layers that you're showing. Can you give me some perspective on that?

Excuse me a second before, Kelly, before you go on, Frank, you want to just tell people you are

I'm still trying to figure that out. Steve, okay. Frank Martinez, I work with connected. Nation. And we are, we cover, we work in multiple areas upstream. We don't do downstream deployments, but we do a lot of things with respect to, you know, grants, administration, broadband planning, policy, you know, policy related work, and we also do some things with middle mile IXPs, and also a lot with broadband mapping. That's why I asked the question from Kelly,

okay, Frank, great question. Luckily, we work very close with the ACA state broadband office. We have started a mapping coalition with other broadband mapping partners across the state, so we are aware, and if, if any of you are actually working on broadband mapping, please let me know. We'd love to include you. But for now, I know of the state broadband office having their maps, Pima County having their broadband maps, and then we have our maps as well. So Frank, we were worried that people would get confused over maps, so we have been working closely together to understand the differences and not to step on each other's toes and try not to create confusion for the public. So ACA maps are very much focused on bead and so bead, you know, for all things bead related, we do advise that you go use the ACA maps for that purpose. The as one maps include Digital Inclusion and and we've included some portions of bead, but grabbing the data from the same sources as the ACA, so it could help just tell a different story, because we're showing you demographic information that you can overlay with the bead data as well. So it really depends on what you're looking for and what kind of story you're trying to tell, the data might be able to help you with that. And so does that help answer your question? Please go to the

bead Yes. So So for bead, I get that, but there's more than bead, right? There are other programs, and when you start dealing with different funding sources from federal or state, and then, you know, with bead, there's this thing where they have to, you know, ensure that there's no duplication of funding. And so if you're trying to assess that, that's where things get kind of fuzzy. And so I think that, you know, trying to find where the authority is that has the the most recent current data, so that we're not referencing old data or looking at different maps. I'm trying to get a better understanding of that, and I know that you had mentioned earlier, at the beginning, when you were speaking, that it started in Maricopa County, and you started to connect with other counties. But since I come from up northeast, near four corners, you know, I'm looking at Apache County, Navajo County, you know, those areas, and trying to understand, are they involved? Are they engaged? Which maps in that sense? So, you know, with all the different counties in the state,

I am, I'm open to meeting everyone across the state. So I also need help connecting with people. So if you know of anybody that I should be working with, please make a warm introduction. Happy to talk to more people in Navajo and Apache areas, to talk about mapping and to even check through the data. And if there are more data sources that we're not aware of, we're happy to check them out and see if they belong on the as one maps. This is an iterative process, and we're constantly trying to find the best data sources. We update them as soon as they change. We try to keep everything up to date. So happy to dive deeper into it. Frank with you, if you'd like to take this offline.

Yeah, let's do that for sure. And just one last question, tribal lands. Are you mapping tribal lands? And which one is the most current for tribal lands?

So like you said, we take information that's publicly sourced. So FCC, the census data we we have purchased a data I've been trying to find out, actually, it's a good question. I've been wanting to work with tribal nations more around data sovereignty, as I know that that's very important. It's an area that I'm not that familiar with but I really want to work on creating respect around that data and what we show so frank. If you have any contacts for me to work with, I would love to our whole mapping coalition actually is very interested around data sovereignty and helping to be. Respectful of tribal, tribal data. So happy to work with someone on on continuing to move in that direction. So right

now, it's publicly available information, if it's related to bead ACA website, and then the effort you're doing is an evolving, growing space that, over time, will become more enhanced with your partnerships across the state. Okay, got it. Thank you. Thank you

so FYI Frank, to you and Kelly, and Kelly in particular, next week. Tracy Morris, who is the Executive Director of, I'm not sure if they changed their name. I know they've expanded some, Executive Director of the American industry American Indian policy institute. I believe that's the current name based out of it, based at ASU, is going to be presented. So just FYI. Those of you who are interested in what's happening in the American industry, American Indian community, particularly here in Arizona, next week would be a good time to attend that which, which, which event is that, Steve, it's our meeting next week. Oh, here. Okay, got it? Okay? Yeah, we'll be here next week. So, Erin, did you have something you wanted to share or talk about? Yeah,

thank you, Steve. I was actually going to echo that for Kelly. Obviously, Tracy at ASU is probably your best. You know, also, of course, there's, as you learned, you know, we have our tribal liaison, and then ASU also has our old tribal liaison. You know, more more around the you know, student engagement piece, but yeah, those resources. I just wanted to also add Frank for you know, the question that you asked around the the de pieces on the maps. You know, at the time of writing our plan, we were encouraged, you know, to use the the population viewer, the it's basically like an aggregate version of the census information that focused on covered populations and device access and internet access and all that kind of thing. So if you look back through our plan, you'll see links to that over the last couple of months, that platform hasn't always been available, so I just wanted to bring that into the conversation as well as we look at these publicly available data sets, and especially ones that have various levels of government oversight and control. Just be aware of that, and that's all I'll say. There,

okay, any other questions or comments about all of that stuff? If not, let's move on before we get to Randy's presentation this morning. Shereka, you want to share again your event and that you're looking for folks to come meet with young people.

Shereeka, are you still there? I take that to be a no, okay, so moving on. So I want to introduce Randy. Leaning is that? Did I get it correct? Correct? So you should you help me understand that? So Randy is going to head heads up a project called broadband planning tool kits, and he's going to kind of give us an overview of what they're doing and, oh, talking about mapping. So anyway, go on. Randy.

Good. No. Thank you. Thank you, Steve, yeah, and this, I think, dovetails with that as one discussion as well. So I'm, you know, usually I spend a big chunk of time going through toolkit, since I'm going to compress this into into things that are very succinct. I guess one, one way to describe what we do is, is maybe in contrasting it to a lot of other things that are done in the geospatial arena. And you have, you know, GIS stuff this done, you know, by almost every city engineering firms do it. You know, states have a lot of content on their website. And you know, as bead goes on, it gets richer and deeper. And of course, you've got sites like as one that you know have just a lot of resource. What we have done is taken a a slightly different approach in what we in developing what we call tool kits, which are sort of shrink wrapped software products, and typically, and they're focused on, on, you know, on broadband planning, but they're very specific, like some are our general others are, you know, if you're doing a fiber. Deployment, you know, it'll, you'll, you'll dive in sort of, sort of ad nauseam. And what makes them maybe a little bit different as it approaches there are, you know, 100, oftentimes, hundreds of layers of visualized data within a toolkit. They're national in scope. So, you know, if you are interested in an island territory, you've got all the data on that. If you're interested in, you know, any state in the US, you've got that when you when you purchase it, it's got comes with gigabytes of curated data. So it'll, it'll maybe expand to 10 or 20 gigabytes on your drive, but it's got all this stuff resides locally. You can also select areas and export the data. The toolkit is extensible, where if you have proprietary data sets, you can add those. And it's also modular, where we've got different tool sets that you can you can use in combination. And so just, you know, think about who uses it. They're designed so that you can have a first time user who, if you scroll and zoom and click and read, you know, detailed PDFs, you know, you're good to go. You can also someone who's a more either spends a lot of time or has brings either, typically a finance or engineering background, you know, will be exporting data to spreadsheets, you know, running geospatial filters. You're doing math between levels and doing really a comprehensive planning process. So these are all possible with with with with the tool kits, and just, just to say a little bit about about some of the things that are there, there, and these have all been developed over a period of years, but, but, by the way, so this is the the national hex toolkit has multiple technologies, basically everything relevant to, you know, fixed broadband planning And bead. It's got, you know, lots of demographics it, it has, you know, basically a lot of the dimensionality of the regulatory frameworks laid out the fiber strategy toolkit and fiber strategy Pro are laser focused on, on, on fiber and and they and for instance, they allow they do things like road length calculation. So if you're trying to come up with a fiber build plan for a city, you can do that. They're exhausted in their competitive information. And then we launched something in December called the Digital Equity Toolkit. And if you're doing anything in the world of Digital Equity, it has hundreds of data sets of hyper local data. And I'll say a little bit about more about that momentarily. And this is, and these are just some super quick screenshots like here. This shows, you know, sort of, you know, 100 120 you know, kind of, kind of bead compliant coverage. These are unserved and underserved locations that look like dust particles, but as you zoom in, there's tons of detail. This is a an overlay of different technologies, where you've got bead cable DSL and fixed wireless. This. This graphic down in the lower left is something that shows the depth of fiber coverage. So this is a statistical characterization. This little graphic shows you can drill down in the fiber strategy tool kit and see every individual location, what's happening there. And then. This is a piece from the Digital Equity Toolkit. And just to give you an example of sort of the user experience like here you you start with a put almost a satellite view, and then you zoom in. And then here are the unserved and underserved, and you can toggle on, you know, lots of different, you know, permutations of of this, you know, and different types of math. You can also do things like, there's the 80% rule under, under the NOFO, and states are, are, you know, using this or not in different ways. But that's, that's part of the formula. And this is, this is an example here of something this, you know, it's actually a good example of the one of the more sophisticated usage. If someone is a private equity investor, oftentimes they'll come and they'll say, I have, you know, 100 million dollars. I'm trying to deploy it in sort of high value geographic areas. And so what they would tend to do is say, let's look for areas that don't have existing fiber. Let's look at the economics of deployment. So in this, in this model here, it's done a road length calculation of every road in the United States, and it's and it also knows the demographic densities based on locations and units. Yes, and so it's basically calculating a cost per passing but it's doing it very accurately because it's measured and calculated all of this data. So you can zoom in from a national level and kind of find where really compelling deployment opportunities exist. And this is an example of such a screen. This is another example where we're showing sort of the quality of a fiber deployment. Like here we're looking at at gigabit symmetrical residential, which is a set of definitions and the color code, and the numbers show the percentage of locations that are deployed to meet that performance criteria. And so this is an area that with one type of map, you might think, Oh, you have fiber everywhere. But actually, in the purple area, it's very minimally deployed. They've barely gotten started. So this is, this is an example as you dig in, in the in the Digital Equity Toolkit, you know, there are all sorts of stuff related to the Digital Equity grant program. You know, extensive demographics, extensive you know, income data, things like information on housing structures, like a lot of people are interested in, in meeting the needs of high density housing. You know, sort of ad nauseam data on race and ethnicity and and then this is just an example, if you're looking for specific people groups, like, let's supposing you wanted to put together a digital navigator program for Latvian immigrants, you know, for English learners, you could find out exactly where they live, because that's, you know, that's, part of the data set. And also this tool is, is, you know, we call it the Digital Equity tool kit. And it kind of came out when the, you know, when that program, when the Digital Equity Act, launched. It's also phenomenal for a Chief Revenue Officer of an ISP, you know, looking at adoption and stuff like that.

And then just a few other things. Like, we've got a soil tool kit we're working with the USDA on on that, and we have, and it's got, you know, if you're looking at buried fiber within a state, you know, we can characterize the whole, whole state. And then also, we have a tool kit with wireless. And this is an this is an interesting example where we've got t mobile coverage of 5g and 4g and they're the layers are color coded, and we've juxtaposed their their fixed broadband offerings on top of it, you can actually see that one relates to the other, because they're leveraging the same physical network. So that's so that's a lot on on tools, and just one, one thing that I mentioned to Steve too, is where, you know, some people think, Oh, this is amazing, but, you know, I can't, I don't want to use a piece of software. So part of what we're also doing is, it is we're working with a non a not for profit that does a lot of work with communities on in just a lot of areas, not just broadband, but other areas. And so we've picked a little a little town in in the middle of Mississippi that with a few 100 people, and done about 100 page piece of analytics on on all of the things related to broadband, you know, and and what strategies they should employ. And, you know, if they do a fiber build, what it'll cost, and so forth. And so we put that together as a publicly presentable piece. So this is something if, if you know, tools and this kind of analytics is interesting to people. We could do a program and do that, that would probably be about a 90 minute presentation, because there's a just a lot of depth there. So anyway, I'm going to pause there, because that's an earful, but just to see if there's any questions. And then I Steve asked for just some thoughts on policy things, so I've got a few slides on on that as well.

Any any questions for Randy before we move on?

So I did a, I did a, just a quick jump over to the website really quickly. And so these are little packets of data sets that you guys sell. These aren't right,

not data sets. They're complete. They're top to bottom tools. You download it, it's a user interface, and it also has gigabytes of data as well. Yeah. So

I look at the Digital Equity tool kit, the Digital Equity tool kit, and that was like 1700s like $2,000 right, right? So you're saying that you purchase that it's a full platform to do whatever with regards to the data that's aggregated and to manage through it. That's

right, yeah. So you could, you could run a good, you know, do Digital Equity Analytics in your city or your state or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, thanks. And we, and we heavily support. Cut, you know, customers as well, and and also, even, like, if you're not sure if you want to, you know, buy anything. You know that, like these come with huge depth of documentation. Like, they're 3040, page things that go through use cases. So that's a very worthwhile read if you're interested in the space. And you can just download that and it's there on the website.

Thank you. Good So Randy, if we had an organization that you're in Arizona that wanted to purchase your tool kit and make it available to everybody in the state, can they do that? That

could be done. Yeah. In fact, we're encouraging states to to do, to do that. And so the like in an ideal world, the FCC would say, you know, here's a little bit of funding, and we'd make it available for free to everyone in the country. But we can, we can definitely do that on a on a state by state basis, and we've been, we're have been trying to encourage broadband offices to do something like that. We can, we can. And what we would probably do is just customize it to so that it's just for the state, but, but, but we can definitely do that.

Okay, so, Randy, you want to go on a little bit and just talk about some of the policy issues. You

bet, you bet. So this is so this I'm going to have keep pretty, pretty brief, and I have maybe a couple pages on just, just, you know, sort of policy frameworks, and then things that I've seen in the news that I think are noteworthy. So one of the really interesting things, I think, is, is just the states that have actually, you know, completed their, you know, sub grantee selection. And you know, which is, you know, and have released it, you know, Nevada, Delaware and Louisiana. And I think that they are, are all have done a really nice job, but they're very, very different. And so they are reflective of, you know, sort of the diversity that you get when you empower states and say, you know, here's, here's, here's what you can work with. And so Nevada, and Nevada, I think, is particularly interesting if there, if someone is, is, you know, fiber forward, you know that they're actually do a phenomenal job there, like they're in there, they have awarded grants up to 77,000 per location for fiber. So they've, they've, you know, invested very deeply there at the same time. And they have, I think, around somewhere like 80% or so of of of locations that are fiber covered. But they also, interestingly, have done a lot with satellite. So they have done a contract, they've done an award to Kuiper, but they have awarded 78.4 of their their geographic areas, which they called RPAS, to satellite. So so they're a tiny percentage of the locations, but it's a lot of the geographic area. So if someone is an alternative technology fan, you know, they're a great example there, too. So they've and so they've actually done a lot to optimize, and they have, and I think, I think Arizona, someone mentioned, has 67 project areas. They they have approximately 800 I got. Don't have the number right in front of me, but it's, it's a small and very granular. Delaware had basically two big incumbents, and gave 100% of their award to those incumbents of Verizon and Comcast and and what's interesting is they got those incumbents to pay three quarters of the cost. So, so that was a phenomenal outcome, but with a very different objective. And then Louisiana, somewhere in between, there about 95% fiber, I believe. And you know, there. And what's interesting is the demographics of of the of the West, like Nevada or Arizona, is very different than the demographics of Louisiana, and sort of the decisions are are reflective of that. The other thing I thought was interesting to note is just I pulled a page out of the alternative technology roadmap that the NTIA you know, published a month or two ago. And of course, this is probably likely to change under the new administration. But this is an interesting framework, and it goes from priority broadband service, ACA fiber to reliable broadband, which is therefore categories of technology to unlicensed fixed wireless, and then to alternative technologies, which is where satellite is allowed. So it's a very, very prescriptive things that has a very kind of small role for satellite, and it's and so people who worry about satellite capacity won't, won't, you know, is not a an issue under the. Framework, although this framework is probably not likely to last either. But some of the, some of the things that jumped out there is, you know, there's just some big complications in terms of how you attribute costs to satellite. And so there are a lot of concepts like reserving capacity, and so things that, you know, I think, and things that are buried in the footnotes of the guidance that just raise Hornets nests of questions. So anyway, that's a that can be a point. And then this is something that, that I just wanted to show is one slide. There are several organizations, and we're one of them. And this is something I put together that have done since this is a sensitivity analysis of of the extremely high cost pro location threshold. So and this is a study, if you just run it across, this is the lower 48 states. It comes out with a cost of 15 to 20k where you basically use up all your bead budget, but don't exceed it. And a lot of states have, you know, not sort of articulated a number for that threshold. The Louisiana gave a number of 100,000 which is super high, you know, and you need to double bead if that were applied elsewhere. But anyway, this is an important framework. And then this is just a few things that I've that sort of hit me in the last in the recent weeks, in terms of events and things that are are, you know, sort of worth discussing. And some of the topics that keep that emerging emerge are technology preferences and environmental rules, and, you know, sort of how bead gets, gets changed or altered in the new administration is, I think, the, you know, The big question

that's it,

any questions for Randy, going once, going twice? Okay, let's move on. Then so quickly. Mala, do you have any updates that you want to share?

I'll be very, very brief. E Rate deadline is next week. It's March 26 at nine o'clock our time. Category Two, category one and Category Two. Category Two is internal connections. And this is the fifth and final year that this is being offered in this cycle. We really don't know with the new administration how category two would be addressed in the next five year cycle. So we if anyone wants to apply, please do so this year to upgrade your internal connections, Wi Fi access points and those kind of things, hubs, routers, which is those kind of things. It's based based on square footage for libraries, and it is based on student counts for schools. More information on my website, my web page, AZ library.gov, forward, slash, E, rate, you will see all the contracts summarized there. There are state master contracts and the Mojave educational contracts, which can be taken advantage of so you don't have to do your own RFP. You really can't do your own RFP now, because the deadline to do your own RFP passed on February 26 the funding cap. However, that's good news that has increased due to inflation to 5.0 6 billion. This is a 2.4% inflation adjustment. And welcome, because if you need to apply for higher bandwidth, this is a good opportunity to do so. One of the things that I really wanted us to note is that FCC Chairman Brendan car has is there? Can you hear some disturbance in the background? Is someone?

Sorry? That was me meeting now.

Thank you. Thank you. Just wanted to mention that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last week launched a fast track massive deregulation initiative. It's called delete delete delete initiative. And this initiative is to re examine every single FCC rule regarding barband regulations, guide guidance documents, etc, and identify rules to be. Be modified or deleted, and he there, there's a public notice to that effect, asking for cost and benefit. You know, relevance to these rules. They're also looking at marketplace technology changes that are likely that can be identified to make these changes. So the fact that it's named, delete, delete, delete, really, you know, shows what this initiative is all about. I didn't note down the deadline for providing comments, but I think you should be able to Google, FCC, delete, delete, delete, and find it okay. The Cyber Security pilot program application window is open. There have been 707 applicants selected for round for the first round, I mean, round one is actually those who have been selected out of all the applicants to go on to the next phase of a more detailed application. We do have some from Arizona, two libraries, particularly two counties, Yuma and Yavapai, and a few schools as well that school districts that have been selected among selected among the 707 applicants nationwide. So let me see if there's anything else I talked about. I mentioned about the NTIA change of card. Shelby, that is, schools, health, libraries, broadband, also had a change of card very recently. Joseph vendor is the new executive director, effective from March 10. He takes the place of John went housing. I will, after I finish talking, put some really interesting recordings, links to the recordings that Shelby had has done webinars on, and one of them is a supreme court and Supreme Court new USF, the Universal Service Fund. What's at stake? They did have a webinar recently, and the recordings can be viewed for free without being a member of Shelby for 30 days after that. Unless you're a Shelby member, you will not be able to see it, so I'll put it, put the links in the chat, and also send it to you, Steve, so you can post it. Other pending legislation that we are keeping an eye on. Again is eyes on board act. It hasn't gone to the Senate floor yet. This is part of the kids of social media act led by Senator shots. And the worrying thing about it is that they have linked it to the E Rate funding for schools. They said. They've said that if the schools or school districts do not block social media for on devices that are loaned to the students, whether they are Chromebooks or hot spots or whatever, they should be blocked. If they're not blocked, then they are likely to forego E Rate funding. So that's a little worrisome, and the hotspot lending is still a hot topic for discussion. It hasn't come up. It's a CRA that they are planning to bring up Congressional resolution, act, Review Act. That is that if it comes to the floor and if it gets voted on, then it cannot be overturned in the future. So that's another thing that that we really worrying, worrying that's worrisome. I don't think I have anything else, Steve, unless there are questions for me.

Okay, any questions from Mala? Okay, if not, I'm going to take just a minute here. Sharon, we're about done it. We're about out of out of time here. But just want to touch on a couple of things real quickly. Again. March 26 the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Universal Service Fund and whether or not it's constitutional. Missed it yesterday, but I think it will be available that Shelby hosted a webinar yesterday, and that way. Should be available, and I'll be sharing that out. And they did a webinar on the Supreme Court universal service, what's at stake. So it's a really important issue, and we'll, of course, continue to provide updates

as that happens. Steve, it's in the chat. Sorry, Steve, it's in the chat now.

Okay. Thank you, Mala. And then next is just a reminder that may 20 through 22 NDIA net Inclusion Conference will be here in Arizona. Encourage you all to try to attend that event at the it'll be at the Gila River Indian Community. And so we encourage you to participate in that. And then Kelly, you want to Kelly mercurj, you want to just talk briefly about the Super meeting that the Digital Inclusion network is going to be hosting.

Sure I wasn't prepared for it. So sorry. I might not have great details right now, but yes, we are inviting everyone in Arizona to come together to our super meeting. Steve, I don't know if you have the flyer, maybe I can do Okay, so everyone, I will share that in your newsletter, then you'll have the latest details. But yes, we invite you to the super meeting right before net inclusion. And Steve has the information right here I see on the screen on the 19th from two to five. So please come. I think we plan on having some discussions so that we can start working together and just really practice working as one. Okay.

Thank you. Kelly. Michael Kendall, are you still online? Yes, I'm here. There you are. So Michael, I'm sorry we're almost out of time. But do you have any quick updates from the Department of Education?

No, sir. Just in general, I would say, business as usual. We do have seen a recent uptick in funding requests. You know, as people are hustling to get to make your headlines. But in other than that, really nothing significant to

update. Thank you. Michael, so are there any other announcements or anything that people want to share?

Okay, I'm going to stop the recording, and I'm.