October 17, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

11:35PM Oct 17, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Mark Goldstein

Henry Goldberg

Michelle Simon

Brian Daly

Milan Eaton

Manny Villa

Amelia De Jesus

Marco Rivas

Paul Wagner

Gordon Fuller

Moosh Ansari

Jason Tamura

Garridyn Henderson

Keywords:

introductions

digital inclusion

broadband office

workforce development

career pathway

spatial computing

accessibility

tribal liaison

Starlink service

non-deployment funds

digital navigators

volunteer opportunities

technology mix

rural communities

digital equity

Okay, good morning, everybody. Welcome. Glad to see you. We're going to have to work on getting everybody here a little bit earlier so we can get started more on time. But But anyway, let's start with some introductions of some people that are either new or haven't seen for a while. Manny, not going to get you off early, easy this morning. Amelia, you want to introduce yourself? I know you've been here before, but probably most of the folks don't know who you are. Amelia, are you there?

Yes, is it for me?

Well, yeah, well, I was talking Amelia, but she has come on. So Manny, why don't you reintroduce yourself?

Of course, it's great to be back. I'm Manny, Mia. I'm the Chief Information Officer for saburita Unified School District. Be here for for a long, long time, and took off a little bit, and I'm back. So it's great to see Mylan, Henry, Mark, Ilana, everyone. So it's great to see you guys continue with this great initiative. So thank you, Stephen,

thanks. And so Manny, that's a new position for you. Is that what you said

that that's correct, starting from July 1, I started as the new CIO for Sauer 2025, school district, and that's the reason why I haven't been able to attend the meetings. But from now on, I'll be here as an early as always. Sounds

great. Thanks. Manny. Manny used to be one of the first people on our meetings.

Congratulations, Manny, that's awesome. Yeah, thank you. Thank

you. Myla, appreciate it. Hey,

Steve, I was able to get off my mute now I apologize for that. Okay,

so Amelia, you want to introduce yourself, and then later, we'll have you kind of give us an update.

Sounds good? Yes. So Amelia days, some vice president of Workforce Solutions here at the wireless infrastructure Association, for those of you who may not heard of here, of the wireless Association, so we represent the companies that really make up the ecosystem of broadband infrastructure. Everybody from a wireless perspective, carriers AT and T Verizon to some of the smaller ISPs. Our membership also includes some of the service providers, and as I mentioned, infrastructure providers like the crown castles, American Tower and so forth. So as an association, we are very focused on internet.

Um, yeah, like to have a bacon egg and cheese.

Sorry. Excuse me. Who is that? That's

somebody's ordering breakfast.

Yep, somebody's ordering breakfast. Please mute I know who that is. I wouldn't mute them.

Then we're very focused, as I mentioned, on making sure that everyone has internet access, and so we do that through advocacy, Public Affairs and Workforce Development initiatives. So we're happy to be able to support Arizona in those initiatives.

Great. And of course, Bill the Agostino has been a regular participant with us. And actually, I'll be talking a little bit later Amelia about doing a program on workforce development in the next few weeks.

Excellent. Well, we have to support that great.

So give me a second here. I

Okay, so jumping in real quickly. I want to again. Thank our sponsors. Most of you know, CareFirst, Arizona, Karen Ziegler, consulting services, Valley telecom group, Kajeet and triad wireless. So we appreciate their support. Let me see who's joining us here. So anyway, let me, let me just go ahead. So a couple of things, I'm sorry. So a couple of things, probably not going to get an update from the broadband office today, the Arizona and probably this the libraries, the Arizona Library Association is having their conference today, so we probably won't see Mala and and Anthony and silver, and I think Aaron's going to be there. So anyway, we're not going to get that update today, but moving on. Excuse me again. I want to remind everybody that, as you know, I send my newsletter out try to recap the meetings with the video and so forth, and also try to include. Include everything that I'm aware of that's happening, even federal and state and so forth. And so a lot of times we talk about things in this meeting, and the links and contact information is in my newsletter. So I just want to remind you that you should probably like me. You don't get through and read everything, but try to remind you that you can find a lot of that information in my newsletter. Okay, moving on. Is Kelly on today? Kelly Mukherjee, Kelly, are you here? Elena, do you want to just talk briefly about the T shirts.

Sure I mentioned it last week. We have Aiden, which is the Arizona Digital Inclusion network, a coalition of practitioners. We decided we wanted to do something fun for digital inclusion week last year so or last week, I'm sorry, so we Kelly was instrumental. I'm sorry she's not on the call, but she was instrumental in working with state 48 which most of you probably know who they are, but they worked with us to design and create a digital inclusion awareness promotion of of, you know, everything, digital inclusion, and so the T shirts are really cool. I can find the link and drop it in. And we're hoping that the money that there's these first orders that we're doing the T shirts are only $25 so Aiden is not really making any money off of the shirts, but the goal is to be able to sell the shirts they're not Date Specific, so they can be used for anyone, anywhere, anytime. And we're hoping to sell those at net inclusion at a little bit of a higher price come May net inclusion is N DNA NDIA conference that'll be held in on the Gila River Indian Community may believe it's 25th 21st I'd have to check on that. But anyway, so if you're interested in the T shirts, I can drop a link in the chat. It would be great to have Arizona represented as a state that supports and promotes digital inclusion, digital equity.

Thanks, Elena. And again, just a reminder, the link for that T shirt is in my newsletter, and the information and the link about the conference, it's it's very exciting that Arizona is going to host that conference next year. So encourage you all to take a look at that and plan to attend that conference. So moving on quickly. Hey, Mark, do you want to just talk briefly about the broadband office 45 day calendar, market sounding exercise.

Um, sure, and I give me a second, I'll put something in the chat that I did last week. But for those that don't have that, yes, we're in,

excuse me, Mark. So again, that's also in my newsletter. So anyway, go ahead.

Mark Goldstein, International Research Center and Chair of ATIC, the telecom Council and I find the chat button and put the link and so now until November 7, the ACA, the broadband office, has a online map where you can review the clustering of Arizona communities in in that in preparation for the bead RFP or NOFO. I'm not sure what they're going to call it here. NOFO means notice of funds, funding opportunity in federal speak, often used by the states as well. So that's a place where you can review how I think there's correct me if I'm wrong. We saw me know that I the number 66 sticks in my mind that there are defined community clusters, in any case, somewhere in the under 100 name that will be biddable by ISPs and communities later this year, when the RFP or NOFO comes out, they are accepting, you know, any feedback on how they clustered Those communities, whether you know, people think that they're extend past practical areas to be consolidated in into one, for example. So this is the all the foundational work on deriving what broadband serviceable locations are declared as a. Unserved and underserved is done. This is not a challenge to that. We've completed that challenge process. This is about the community clustering. Glad to take any questions or additional information people may have to contribute on that.

Thanks, Mark. Okay. Any questions for Mark. Again, the link and the information about that is in my newsletter. Okay, so Nicole is not here today, so a couple of quick things the state broadband office is looking for as an open position for tribal liaison manager, and more information can be found in my newsletter, there'll be a link to the job description. So if you, if you're interested, or you know anybody who might be interested, you might want to check that out. If I'm not mistaken that, oh, that position has been open for a while. Okay, if not, let's move on so quickly. Yesterday, I attended the Arizona Technology Council. Excuse me one second, please. I don't normally do that. Hello. Yes, okay, I'm sorry. I can't talk to you right now. I'm in a meeting. Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't one of our folks call me. So anyway, I was at the Arizona Technology Council Business and Technology Expo, and had a chance to talk with Carlos Contreras, who's the executive director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, and also, I don't know if she made it this morning, Krystal McGarvey, who's a southern Arizona region stakeholder Engagement Manager, also with OEO and wanted and spoke with them about getting having them participate in a panel on workforce development. If anybody's got a vision of what's happening in workforce development here in Arizona, it would be them. So I'm working on having them do a presentation to be a part of a panel discussion on workforce development. So stay tuned for that. And then also, I had sent information that the governor has created a talent ready initiative for the governor's workforce cabinet to advance Arizona's workforce and so trying to get information about that. And did talk with Carlos about that, and maybe he can give us an update if I don't find out who else is coordinating that effort, and I do believe that the Arizona broadband office is represented on that cabinet. So those are some things that are coming up, and then also coming up next week, Anthony Constantini, who you most, most of you know, who's been attending our meetings regularly, is the State Library Digital Inclusion library consultant, and he's going to provide us an update he's been attending, but we haven't really had a good update from him, and so He's going to give us an update, an overview, and many of you who are new to us, he's going to give us an update and overview of the Connect Arizona effort at the State Library, including the website, digital navigators and so forth. So that's going to be at least part of our program for next week. Moving on. So Mala is not here today, which I wouldn't expect her to be here. And so Amelia, do you want to give us a little bit of an update? Anything else you want to say at this point? Yeah, Steve, actually,

I would like to share with this committee and group that w i A introduced a new career pathway, tool for broadband careers. It is a free tool to be used by job seekers, government, different schools. You know, as we think about laborers or the workforce, what we're finding is a lot of folks are not aware of telecom and broadband jobs and careers. And I say careers because these are not just good paying jobs, these are careers. So we really spent a lot of resources to develop this career pathway to that exposes folks to essentially all the components of our industry. You think about what goes into design, what career opportunities are available in design, what are available in build, what are available and maintain, and what are available in supporting the network. And so I'm going to link here in the chat so folks have. Have access to some details the pathway so you can actually access this tool. What the tool allows you to do is you can look at it nationally. You can look at it by the state of Arizona and see the current job openings within the different occupations. You can see what kind of training and education you need to be able to get that job, what the salary might look like, and really gives you some insight as to what the current state of job opening looks like. What I will tell you is where you have over 800 job boards linking to this website. It is a current state of job opening, so it's not a futuristic look, but if folks on the line, you know, have links to other job boards that they would like us to include and build into this, we can absolutely

include those.

Thank you, Amelia, and you know, you send that to me, and I'll make sure it goes out in my newsletter. Sounds great. Thank you, Steve, you bet. And so Jason, I see that you've joined us, so I want to introduce Jason. Tamura. Met Jason last night, and we're going to hear from him in the future. But Jason, you want to introduce yourself real quickly. Absolutely,

thank you for the opportunity. My name is Jason Tamura, the market development and planning director for Wyyred fiber, a company originally known as a separate communications outside of Whitman, Arizona. We've We've grown up a little bit here over the past five years, and are expanding our network to help bridge the digital divide, right? We're overbuilding not hundreds, but hundreds of 1000s of homes that are already existing in footprint on the west side of the valley there, here in Phoenix, and my job is to to build relationships with with people on the ground floor, to understand what's happening in the in the environment, and then also to let them know, right, whether it's it's you all local way to ways municipalities that we are a local company that is engaged at the at the community level, and we love to hear and receive feedback from from people like you who who know and understand our state better than anyone else.

Great, Jason, I'm glad we ran into you. Any questions for Jason? Okay, so Paul Wagner, can I put you on the spot for a minute? And you want to just give people a quickie who you are, but also the about the grant that you submitted, the competitive grant that you submitted? Paul Wagner, I'm

a professor at the University of Arizona, the director of the cybersecurity Academy, which works on partnering with case money education, either developing programs, developing teachers to be able to teach cybersecurity. We also run the cybersecurity clinic, which is there to provide cybersecurity assessments and awareness training for nonprofits basically underserved or under resourced organizations that don't have their own ID or cybersecurity workforce, and we partnered with the Center for the future of Arizona and AZ cyber initiative to put in a digital equity and cybersecurity awareness grant. So that's it was roughly 10 million over the four year period, but it's designed to kind of bridge the gap, not so much from the technology and the access point of view, but making sure that citizens are secure as they go through that. So it was tied to the statewide digital equity plan and trying to build those gaps of the education and awareness piece, not so much the technology and access piece, which a lot of other groups are already

Okay. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate that. So moving on any other announcements before I before we get to Gordon in a presentation this morning. Michelle, I think you're looking for some volunteers. You want to talk about that real quickly.

Correct. Good morning, everybody. Michelle Simon, Pima, County's office digital inclusion. We do have a link on volunteer match, and I'll make sure that you have it, Steve, so you can include it in the newsletter. But we are looking for people who want to volunteer with our office, be it that they're supporting in our Learn to earn classes, or that they're supporting the digital navigators. So anybody that's interested, we'll make sure that that link is in the newsletter, or you're more than welcome to we. Email me at your convenience. Thanks so much. Great.

Thanks, Michelle. Any other announcements before we move on? Okay, so I'm pleased to again welcome Gordon Fuller, who many of you know. He's actually been here Well, he's been attending pretty regularly, but he also has presented a couple of times. You know, every once in a while, you meet somebody who's just extraordinary. And I've tried not to embarrass you, Gordon. But Gordon was one of the weeks, yeah, yeah,

we could do that. Get some more coffee.

Please. Please. Mute. So anyway, Gordon, so anyway, Gordon, I hope I didn't embarrass you, but Gordon is many of you know, is blind, but he is a disability advocate, a creative technologist, and also represents an organization for plan systems, technology organization. And so he's going to talk about he was he sent me a note, and I couldn't resist having him come and present for us. So he's going to talk about communities of tomorrow, a vision of a connected, immersive city through spatial computing. So with that, Gordon, I'm going to shut up and turn it over to you and see if you see if you're ready to rock and roll. We

most certainly are. And thank you so much, Steve. Well, it's a joy and an honor to be here with such a distinguished and I guess, group of peers and people looking ahead, that's where I tend to dwell at Fuller vision. We're always about 10 months. We hope was 10 years ahead. And in this area of broadband, it's kind of interesting. My signal may come and go a little bit because I'm in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at this time, we've been here visiting with the Santa Fe Institute and other organizations and the tent has gotten bigger, but back when I started into this line of things, after living in Tucson and advocating for public access cable television, as 200 channels were coming into our town, and they were going to do what they were going to kind of swamp our Community Based arts and culture workers, which I was representing as a commissioner of arts and culture at that time. And when I ended up over in Silicon Valley because of my work with computer graphics and virtual reality technologies, I was elected to the board of the community owned cable television cooperative, and we launched the first cable television broadband network in the United States. Shortly thereafter, I got the Japanese phone company to pitch in, and I created a virtual reality digital twin of Palo Alto Stanford the Baylands. We had animals and butterflies all shooting about as well as video conferencing avatars, and we could do that because we had broadband in our community and an intranet shared between the members of the community, private and secure. But for me, that was kind of the vision of what the future might hold for us as we look ahead, and how people might use technology, rather than little squares, genies in a bottle, soaps on a rope, to get our information knowledge connect to each other in the world. I thought it could be much nicer if we could recognize the institutions, the streets, the community, the amenities that are part of our community, and gather together with people in those places. So that world of today is indeed the interactive game world. When I came to Santa Fe here in 1999 of having launched that virtual city in Palo Alto in 97 I thought I would come here and I would create virtual art galleries, and we'd have streaming video gallery openings and artist studios and things like that. I visited all the top art galleries with a friend who's a famous artist. And then at the end, I visited the gentleman running the plaza cam, who was the IT guy for this part of the state, and then I found out they had one t1 line serving Northern New Mexico. So there you go. You can get a little bit ahead of yourself when you wander too far from the west coast with sort of my conclusion. But here I am back. We've been meeting with the Santa Fe Institute, an organization called redfish. We'll, we'll share that in the link there, and with also people that have been we were, we spent yesterday with medicine men and at the Hamish pueblo. And Roger help me out there, Kelo through fragua. Fragua, yes. Roger represents, among other things, 21 tribal entities in Arizona. And we're embracing the concept of how rural as well as urban, cities of tomorrow might use these technologies through a marriage of several technologies. And that's the 10 minutes, I hope, in the future, part where we you. Use AI agents, technologies that assist us in accessing, finding and locating things that we're hoping to discover for various reasons in our lives, as today, we've used these miserable things like gargoyle and farcebook and forgive my whimsy, you know, to access knowledge, to connect with each other. The great promise of the internet, which was going to bring everybody together and connect the world, sort of ended up in kind of a place where, you know, predators up in the clouds definitely take full advantage. And the idea of how this might serve our rural communities and tribal communities is is laudable to think how so many have used and benefited from the internet, but the part that's been missing is the mycelial type, connections down on the ground level, where we live in those relationships that we count on every day, the people we work with, where our kids go to school, where we shop, the streets, the landmarks, the parts of the world where we live, and that part is indeed where the world of tomorrow comes augmented reality, the idea of appending to the world around us and the physical objects, the connection to The knowledge about those things, the links that bring us together as a community, as we see what's happened in the south and Florida and in our own recent experience with fires and and all of the calamities that are now befalling our world with the changing climate, the things that have extinguished so Many civilizations right here in our in our state, as we see the ruins of a ancient people that 1000 years have been abandoned, that should have been a little bit of a warning that things change sometimes, and when they change, we need to be ready to work with it. And so I'm hopeful that the kinds of technologies that we see coming with environmental sensing, and all of these things can be overlaid with these AI technologies, as well as the future for D spatial computing, Spatial Mapping, the new kinds of job skills I see there are very different than the ones that will build this infrastructure. In fact, that's the thing that I wanted to imbue with you all today, the idea that beyond the spend down of these monies, which are finite and may come to an end, possibly sooner than later, what comes next? And the answer is, if we have our communities and our rural areas connected by broadband, why not spread a network that basically fulfills the day to day needs of every citizen, and puts in place the knowledge and experience and joy of knowing these places, so that we can all engage with those things and make that a part of our life and a new social fabric around us that that binds us together in better Ways. Today, it's very difficult to get information about what's around you in your neighborhood, or to get gardening tips from your neighbors. I mean, my goodness, why is that a struggle? You know? Why is it that next door neighborhood, which is just absolutely pernicious to any kind of real civility or usefulness or emergency response, you know? Why is it these things are what we're plagued with, and why haven't we evolved from the ground up, the kinds of community based infrastructure that supports our customs, our traditions, reflects our diversity, our uniqueness, and so that belief that I've held now for 40 years is now being manifest in these new tools and technologies, and I didn't want to spend too long on this today, other than just open it up to questions about technologies and how this might evolve. But indeed, what comes after this broadband initiative, and I just wanted to put that out there for you all to have a vision that it could go from where we are today and what we'll end up with with these new tools and technologies, this new boost to the infrastructure, which was, may I point out, horribly badly built by the telecom monopolies, we allowed to do this sort of work. Now we're kind of getting to fill it in and kind of complete their work. And so from that side of the desk, you know, not a very good recommendation for how well america i Please

do a decaf

latte with honey.

A little weird, please. Uh,

please, medium.

Okay, uh, regular. Sorry,

I'm charmed. So anyway, kids, ladies and gentlemen, friends, please. I'd like to do

a large vanilla latte. Hot. Whoever

is artery, please mute them. Yeah, if

you're paying. Attention. Could just hang up to sorry, they're good, but in any event, thank you all so much for giving me this time to share. And we have some items we would share with you in the links that could kind of help fill in some of the mics, but be delighted to answer any questions. Share anything I can. Been studying this world for a long time. Got involved in AI in 1983 with Lisp programming on a symbolics computer right there in Tucson. I'm working with people that established the Santa Santa Fe Institute, who are now the Harvard Center for visualization. We're working with quite a few organizations, Flower Hill Institute, the Flower Hill Institute, we'll share that with you as well, working with tribal communities. And so the day after tomorrow, what do we do with this wonderful capability, and where's it going to go? I submit there's a new world waiting for us. It'll change things. It'll give us more resilience. It'll be sustainable. And that's the other part of this. You know, how do you make things sustainable? Well, I do want to submit that when it comes to digital inclusion, you start with accessibility. Now that's an interesting concept, because I can tell you, in Silicon Valley, my constant plea there was, remember, the human spec is from cradle to grave. It's not just testosterone filled 20 year old males in a cubicle. You know, it is the rest of us all that use these tools over the course of a lifetime with varying degrees of ability, sometimes disability. And wouldn't it be great if we designed with that in mind? And that is not a constancy, so putting accessibility up in front and understanding that you don't get inclusion unless you have accessibility. And so accessibility can be the killer app. And I say that because there's federal funds available in the form of tax credits to every small business, $15,000 per Small Business per year that comes out of your taxes. And they send you a check for $5,000 to make it $15,000 and with that, you can do Spatial Mapping, you can get spatial retail specialists in there. There will be jobs for lots of people, and I have provided some of those details in the things that I like to share with you today down there in the chat and digital inclusion is what we're looking for, and an idea of how to make it sustainable, and what it might mean to communities, and how it might better adapt us and make us more flexible and useful, but then just merely giving people access to the internet. So that's where that $16 million out of the billion we've received for infrastructure are going to go will be towards how people might flesh this out a bit, and how that might help those 10 groups of unserved underserved communities, including the folks with disabilities, including our Native American tribes, including our people that have other languages and other challenges, this could be the better world ahead, and so I'm glad to share that, and thank you. Let's just share a few questions, if you will,

questions or comments, discussion with Gordon. Gordon, can you? Can you quickly? And you use this term a lot, and I know you've explained it before about spatial computing and what that is, yes,

yes, spatial computing is essence what Apple has talked about with their vision pro head mounted display. It is also what meta has been focused upon, how to make digital twins. That is also spreading very rapidly, as always in the enterprise and industrial our cities are all using mapping software, all of the infrastructure for Tucson, every street, every Tucson, electric power, everybody uses spatial computing to map and to annotate the built environment. The built environment is the thing that I focus on from the standpoint of accessibility. Today, our United States has led the world in making barriers go away for people with disabilities and for making the world more inclusive. The ADA title two, Title Three, also 504508 also the telecommunications 21st century Telecommunications Act, they all stipulate and that there should be accessibility, but accessibility doesn't really provide any cues to where do you find it? If I'm coming down to the county complex, where are the ramps? Where's the elevators? Where's the disabled parking? How far will it be? And unlike our cell phones, which run out in a few hours, and we all are kind of mindful about what a nuisance it is to charge those, imagine if you're you're moving about, your mobility is dependent upon an electric charged vehicle. Well, you know, in that sense that that range anxiety really applies to Cherry. Users. And so wouldn't it be great if you could actually plan your trip before you go there, which is what we all do when we travel as travelers or tourists. And this kind of capability, of course, is very, very significant. And for me, when I'm out in the built environment, I see none of the signs. I have no landmarks. I have none of the street names. Those are all what I call the commons, those Commons, which are part of our every bit of our society, our parks, all of these things are a concept that has goes way back in history and certainly among our indigenous communities, the way we lived. You know, how we see the world, our indigenous worldview. And why not expand that comments to include all of that information down in city hall in the county, giving us all that Spatial Mapping data and then use it to extract and create an easy way for us to use highly accurate, precision kind of Spatial Mapping. And so spatial computing is where then, by virtue of the fact I'm standing at the front door for a meeting at county, but the doors are locked, and this is the only door I know I can come in to get to the elevators. And so who do I contact? Bang, here's the link. And it's like that when I'm standing in my front door and I see someone in the neighborhood I don't recognize, perhaps that person is part of our community. And there's a little flag that says, That's Freddie. You know, his sister would like to talk to him. If you see him, Please let him know that they have a they can make the call for him at the center. And by the way, he uses, where's the size 12? Do you have some shoes? He's looking for some shoes. So, I mean, we could just kind of get more engaged, more sharing, more caring, more ability to work together by just simply creating a map of our community and then linking to that map all of the things about that community, the plays that the Borderlands theater company has done in the barrios, those could be, instead of evaporating into our memory, it could Be and they are recorded, but then they could be placed so tourists coming around could hear the story of the barrio, see the plays that have been done, watch the Fiesta, listen to the music. And so having the world kind of better at our fingertips, obviously facilitated, as we are all starting to do today, by the AI type agents, by associating all of these things, these patterns that are so normal for us humans together in ways that are under the control of predators up in the clouds, but are based on a community, shared corpus, and those being completely private, secure and encrypted and a peer to Peer distributed network, rather than again, up in the clouds under the control of one centralized authority. Not a appealing thing to do if you're trying to get the most efficient design, if you're trying to get the highest the lowest level of latency, that is the slowness with which things come to you. All of that can be improved, and you can avoid a lot of cost, a lot of expense, and it can be something you you do yourself with an old laptop. Your organization's content could be delivered when people come to your neighborhood and they're looking for your nonprofit, then boom, all your schedules, everything, same stuff could be available on the web. But again, most people looking for that kind of information may be at your front door as they're arriving at the theater. So there you go, spatial computer.

Thank you. Thank you, Gordon. So what's unique about Gordon is, not only is he an advocate for people with disabilities, and he's reminded me that's probably the best terminology to use, but he also has a very unique background in technology, technology development community and so forth. And so I have had numerous conversations with with Gordon, and it's been very enlightening. He actually, as I've been talking with Gordon, he reminded me, when I was in high school, my one of my best friends was deaf, and that was quite an experience at that time. And of course, that was few years ago, but it's been great having that conversation with Gordon. So I want to just open it up and see if people have questions, comments, thoughts about about Gordon. We do want to do another session on needs of people with disabilities, because, and I've said this before, is that we've had a lot of discussion about seniors and students and so forth, but we really have not spent a lot of time, not just us, but I think generally, in talking about feed and digital equity and digital inclusion, about the needs of people with disabilities, even though it's one of the areas that should be included in our. In the funding. So with that, I'm going to shut up. Anybody have any other thoughts, comments that they want to share?

Yeah. Gordon, this is Henry Goldberg. I was just wondering, do you have a pilot project envisioned to show how this would all work in a community and and then estimate what the costs are of implementing it, that type of thing.

Certainly, I would be delighted to share that with you. If you wouldn't mind, Steve, if you could hook us up, we'll be glad to put some information out there with examples. None of it is gathered together in one place at this point. The I may be incorrect about that. I'll have to think about that a little. But all of these things are trend lines that point ahead, and the real differences when you do it in a distributed community modality, and some quite a lot of this is done in industry. The industrial Metaverse is about evolving very rapidly, and that facilitates people who are building solar microgrids and community based infrastructure. It's a technology that is gaining traction all over the world, and a lot of it is used in the interactive games. Our young people are much more we all grew up going, I'm 70 years old. We all grew up going outside. The generation after us, they spent a lot of time indoors as latchkey kids. Then this current generation, they're extraordinarily comfortable being in 3d worlds and hanging out together. It's safe places that they can exchange privately and securely with each other. And so the interactive game community paint points more to the kinds of capabilities we have, and our idea is simply to extend that interactive game experience to the physical world around us and make it more of a normal part of our our use, and that's coming just very, very rapidly, as I said, right now, the enterprise people are picking it up, and there are examples that I'll I'll definitely put those together and we'll share them. So thanks for asking that. All right,

any other questions or comments for Gordon? Yes, good

morning. Uh, thank you so much for sharing. Gordon, you know a little bit about your story, a little bit about the need of our community, as our state, to support all our community members. My question is, is there preferred kind of mode of communication you prefer, like, whether it's an email or a phone number? You know, well

today, today, it's built into all of our smartphones and mobile devices. There are screen readers, and so that means any textual, graphical information that is in a communication, whether it's a website or an email or text, can be readily accessed at present, they're kind of crude about describing the the the imagery, for instance, the Zoom call it would say the number of people around the screen, something like this, you know. But that's okay. I understand we're just kind of getting rolling on these things, but very you know, just think 10 minutes into the future how this will be right now, I heard of a young man from Romania, of all things, who's put together an AI vision device like Jordi from LaForge. Was a dream of mine since the 70s, that this might exist, and it uses AI and cameras and dead reckoning to find help for wayfinding and object recognition for blind people. I can't wait to see how well that's implemented. I know immediately that it would be a lot better if the community in which that device is being used had a very high resolution spatial map available, the kinds of things ESRI is doing and and many people are doing our space satellite imagery now has that kind of resolution, as you probably noticed from news coverage of things. So the world around us is ever more becoming revealed. And that is, in fact, what I think of as the age that's coming to us will be the age of awareness. It's where we no longer are isolated and lost and and stigmatized by the world around us. We we begin to engage with it, learn about it by virtue of just being present and open to the possibilities that the creek might be rising better to check things like that, you know, giving us awareness and the connection to each other and to the world around us. That's my goal. So so the

Miles was, I think Miles was also asking, how does he communicate directly to you?

I think it was a, it was kind of like a two pronged question. It was,

I took it that way. It. And indeed, any of it works for me. No worries.

Any other questions or comments for Gordon. So let's move on a moose. You want to introduce yourself again? I know you've been here before, but I saw your note and reminded me that we definitely want to perhaps next week, and we can talk about that offline, but you want to just introduce yourself, and then we'll you, and I will talk about that in you scheduled. Thank

you for giving me the opportunity to to present. First of all, my name is Moosh Ansari. Sorry. I go by mooch. I grew up in a small town in Iowa, and nobody could really say my my whole first name, and so just kind of stuck. But also I have one of my project managers, Gared in Henderson, who's going to be doing the presentation. Garrett, if you could introduce yourself before I say that, I work for the Navajo tribal utility authority, and we are the Navajo tribes utility company, and we do broadband, gas, water, electric, solar, you name it. But one of the reasons that we wanted to present to you guys is we have a wonderful opportunity to build a business incubator as well as develop Navajo cloud and Garrett, sorry, go ahead.

Yes, good morning, Steve. We've talked in the past. We had zoom call, but good morning everybody on the call. It's it's been a good the meetings that I've been on have been on have been very informative, and it's really nice to see how everybody's collaborating, and also, you know what's going on and how we're planning for the future. My name is Garrett Henderson. I am the Navajo tribal utility authorities, Communication Systems Division project manager, so I work closely with Moose, my boss, and we go after grants. We seek new opportunities and how we could build infrastructure and provide, you know, services to our Navajo people here in Arizona, New Mexico and also parts of Utah. So

So first talk with Gerard, and when I was working on and want to get back to actually talking about public networks. And so it was recommended that we should talk to the Navajo people. And so that's how I got to Gordon. And then, of course, that led me cut us to motion. So there you have it. So I apologize, Darren, that we really haven't gotten back with you, but really appreciate that you've been attending our meetings pretty regularly. And so moosh, glad to meet you guys, and I'll talk to you after this meeting about getting you guys scheduled if next week or That sounds wonderful works for you.

Thank you so much.

You bet. Okay. Are there any other announcements anybody has? Oh, there are a couple of other things. Let me just check my notes here real quickly.

Um, let me see here.

So just a reminder that November the 13th, the Arizona Technology Council will have their annual Governor celebration of innovation in Arizona coming up, and then on the 20th, they are having a technology council, Tech Inclusion forum on breaking barriers, disability inclusion and technology. And just FYI, I am been communicating with him that that event does not provide for remote participation. So that event is in Phoenix. I sent the I included the notice of the meeting in my newsletter, but I will be following up with them. And I said, Hey, we're talking about digital inclusion. Maybe we should have that that event online, so I'll be working on that. So any other announcements, anything else that people want to share, going once, going twice, yes,

yeah, I'm looking for ideas from folks who are in the community, working with people who are interested or need digital inclusion resources. We're trying to put together a suite of specific resources, and we're want. To know what people are asking for. So I know Michelle's not on the call anymore, but you know, folks that are not in Maricopa County, specifically, we're trying to reach some rural communities through anchor organizations. And so we're looking to find out what is it people need beyond, or what are they asking for beyond, you know, how do I turn on my computer? How do I set up an email, you know, like, kind of like the 200 level online safety, security, cyber, AI, all of those kinds of things. So if anybody has any thoughts around that, I'll put my email in the chat, and I would love to hear from you. So,

so Elena, how will that interface with Connect Arizona and Kelly's a one, AZ, one.

It won't. It's for, I mean, it will. It's for common sense. I mean, we're, we're trying to collect stories too. So we do a lot of advocacy work in Washington, and so it seems to be the only way to get through to some congressional leaders is by giving them the stories of real people in their districts, on the ground, etc, who are who are flailing, you know, who are trying to figure all of this out. So that's one use for it. In terms of the need, we already have a lot of digital inclusion and resources, but we're finding that we have too much. And so I'm trying to narrow down the field a little bit to see what are people asking for, and can I put a suite of resources together to share out.

Okay, thank you. Any questions for Elena, so Amelia, was there something else you wanted to share this morning?

You know, I thought, sorry, I thought about it after the fact, there is going to be a broadband event in South Carolina in the next two weeks that really focuses on non deployment dollars. And I know when we think about workforce, we think about it in terms of deployment dollars and non deployment dollars. So since that event is coming up, I just put it in the chat. So if anybody wants to take a look at it, a lot, a lot of the state broadband leaders, including Evan Fineman from NTIA will be attending that event. That's october 29 through the 30th in South Carolina.

Thank you. Can I ask Amelia questions? So it's opened up, that is that opened up to anybody who wants to go. Because I know for Arizona, I've been told by various people on various levels with the broadband office, etc, that Arizona will have no non deployment funds at all. There will be none left. Yeah,

I think what's happening is a lot of the States, based on their analysis, have determined they may have non deployment dollars. Some of them have determined that they have to wait until the sub grantee process to see what's left over. So in light of a number of states anticipating that they will have non deployment dollars, this event is being hosted to talk through what the best use of those non deployment dollars would be great. Thanks. Welcome.

Okay. Steve, Mark, go ahead. Mark, um, so we had a conversation a week or so, maybe two weeks ago about Starlink and the hurricanes in the southeast, and I did look into that a little more. And so two things happened there, you and I weren't clear on what was happening when we had that discussion before. One is that Starlink has now offered free service to residents of selective southeast states, including existing customers for the rest of the year. However, if you don't have Starlink service, you would have to first acquire their hardware available at Best Buy or some retail locations. But you know, in the infrastructure damage moments, maybe you can't get there and two to three week delivery times if you order it online. So on broadband, that's the story. Free service the rest of the year for existing and new customers. But you obviously have to have a star a Starlink receiver dish. Then the other thing that has

been worked before you move on, yeah, so that receiver, that equipment, that's required is like a $400

Yeah, it's for $400 correct? And that is not subsidized. You need that to get the free account. Whether you have it already, you can get free service. Rest. The year. Or if you're initiating service, you got to lay out that 403 85, or whatever your price ends up being for it. And then the other thing, which was the thing I was aware of, or in our last conversation, is the some of the generation two Starlink satellites, only, some of them have extended capabilities to what's called direct to device or cellular phone access. Their deal is only with T Mobile, but they were given provisional authority by the FCC to activate that service in areas of the Southeast, and that would let t mobile customers do some limited, certainly texting and emergency services and maybe some limited voice telephony, definitely not broadband over Starlink satellite. So I just thought I'd clarify that conversation we had a week or two ago.

Great. Amelia, I don't know if you have anything that you want to add about what's happening with Starlink or not.

From my perspective, I think as we look at deploying and trying to reach every home, every community, we know that we need a mix of technology and so all communities will not be able to deploy fiber. All will not be able to deploy fixed wireless, and as much as Starlink may be expensive or some of the Leo satellite services might be expensive, if that's what it takes to get to each household, hopefully states are looking at building that into their plan.

Yeah, and to confirm I'm working Amelia on four to five broadband grants, bead grants in Alaska. And there's a lot of scattershot Alaska, of course, is two and a half times the size of Texas. It's enormous. And when we look at the clustering in Alaska, you not only have the broadband serviceable locations within defined community boundaries, you have a scattershot of hunting camps and remote cabins. And so our strategy, this is a company, quintillion, that actually is president and is from Scottsdale, Mike McHale Mac that some may know, is a three tiered strategy, fiber, wherever fiber is practical, with a certain cost, you know, threshold of delivery, which means where there are residents in some proximity to service and each other, Fixed wireless, where there are clusters reachable, clusters or individuals outside of the core communities and satellite services as the third tier, all in a single proposal. So I'm not sure every state will allow that kind of technology mix. Hopefully they will. In Alaska, that's certainly what we anticipate is a three tiered response to the four or 5b proposals.

Yeah, I think, I think what's happening is NTIA because of number of comments request and maybe some pushback on the fiber only solution has now, you know, asked for feedback from the states on a mix of technology approach, and based on some of the comments we've seen from a number of players that that this mix of technology makes the most sense if we are going To spend these dollars wisely. Right?

Any other questions, comments, announcements for this morning?

Yeah, Mark, I was just going to ask that that's free saddle Starlink service is that for residents of communities that are affected by the by the hurricane,

the

the activation of the satellite service was very specifically to North Carolina, in fact, perhaps only a fraction of it, but the offer of free satellite service was to an entire five or so states in the southeast. Statewide, to my understanding, Henry, it wasn't selective to the specific communities that have been hit by the hurricane. It was statewide for about five states, is my recollection, in the southeast. Now, obviously, as a customer acquisition strategy, you know, you give people a few months free. They bought their hardware, you know. So it's a loss leader for them in that regard.

Okay, so they're actually trying to attract new customers that way, rather than just serving people affected by the hurricanes, sure,

but, but even people with existing service are getting their service if they ask for it. It free for the rest of the year. I

see. Okay, interesting.

Hey, anything else?

Thanks, Steve. It's Marco, Marco. Hey, it's Marco from T Mobile. I'm on the road, so apologies I'm not on video. Hey, just to piggyback on what was mentioned regarding our exclusive deal with starting so we are the exclusive partner in the US, the fact that you can text message basically anywhere, as long as there's free line of clear line of sight to the sky that's coming, and it's going to be live by the end of the year for everybody in the whole nation. So we're working towards that. The FCC obviously stepped in and said, Hey, let's get this done sooner than later, so that the people that are affected by the hurricane can at least communicate via text message, voice and data is coming in, 2025 2026 so we are going to have coverage everywhere, as long as There's clear line of sight to this guy,

yeah, thank you for that coming straight from the source, T Mobile. Frankly, other mobile providers have different satellite deals to bring that kind of global service, but the Starlink satellite, Leo constellation is by far the most mature, with about 7000 satellites or so in the sky right now, and so T Mobile will really be first to the game with a global capabilities of that sort. Other other mobile providers will follow on with their partnerships with Project Kuiper, which is Amazon's Leo constellation that hasn't yet launched, just a few protos and so on. But thank you for adding on to that. Yeah,

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.

I was just gonna say the other one is AST, which recently launched, you know, their their satellites as well. And, you know, we, we've all already demonstrated direct to cell site, you know, direct to sell for that as well. And they'll be building out their constellation over the next couple of years as well.

Right? Brian, Brian's with AT and T so AST is at and T's partnership for similar global capability, as

well as also add Verizon in there. They're, they're partners with AST as well.

Oh, are they okay? Yes, I thought someone was partnered with Kuiper, but I could be wrong, maybe not.

And Bill, did the Augustino or you gonna? You popped in here. Did you want to add anything? I did not. Oh, okay. I thought you were getting ready to to share something. So Okay, anybody else have anything else, any questions or any comments, if not? Victoria, good to meet you last night in person, and I believe that we are done. Manny again, good to see you, and hopefully we'll see you regularly. Okay, thank you all. Bye.