can't find now that the turn on the it's it's recording it but it's not showing my help. There we go hopefully that'll do it. Okay, so let's get started. Welcome everybody glad you could all make it this morning or this afternoon I always forget what day of the time what what time of the day it is. And for some of us, it's probably Craig is probably a little bit different. So, as always, I'd like to start with introducing any new people who were joining us today. So Anthony, you want to introduce yourself. For those of you don't know in Tucson here we have a group called lambda lambda lambda, which is actually coordinated by Volta. And it's just an informal gathering of IT people. And it's just a fun, great group of people. And Anthony was there the other day and was introducing himself and said, I want to see broadband for everybody here in Tucson. And so I thought, well, maybe we should invite him to this meeting. So Anthony, here Introduce yourself, please. Have to unmute.
You're still muted.
Cool. All right. Um, yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Anthony Matsuura. I go by Matsu, Matsuura, whichever works for you. A, I'm trying to make internet free, and with this nonprofit organization, celebration of lives, which is centrally focused on really addressing the various problems of diversity and access and you know, more so disenfranchised, you know, historically oppressed and marginalized communities, then I think, you know, this idea to make education, namely STEM education, and access to educational resources through technology and the various means which we can access these, these resources, networks would be quite, quite beneficial, actually. And in fact, privacy enabled networks are freely accessible, and as much as people can access, you know, he's educational resources, and technology through recycling, e waste, and so forth and so on is kind of my deal or what I'm trying to get up and off the ground. But more so about me, and my background is linguistics. I'm still a student, technically, eventually, I'll finish graduate school, but like study linguistics, and second musicology and computer stuff, but I should probably stop there otherwise. Yeah.
So Anthony, is I told you, we have a lot of people on this call and people who weren't here even today who share your interest in getting internet to people, so hopefully, you'll even make some more connections today. So moving on, with us, Steve. Yeah, Mark,
there is a gentleman John Le Grand on for the first time at my invitation. He and I go back about 20 years ago and my killing and I hope till a specter get on state contract. We reconnected recently. And he's joined us today as well.
Now, I was just going to ask John, do you want to introduce yourself and just kind of ask if there was anybody else that I've missed?
Excuse me. Thank you, Mark. My name is John Legrand and as Mark said, we we've known each other for about 20 years. I was at one time the Vice President of Operations and engineering over at TELUS spectra, I'm not sure what it's called now. We did. We did a, a broadband community grant over in Welton, Arizona, way back about 20 years ago, and I've gone on to do some other air, some other things related to access to unserved and underserved communities in the wireless space, had also been involved over a number of years with clean tech open, both in Colorado, and then here in Phoenix. And I've been away for a while. And so I'm just trying to get reintroduced to it. I have some of the same interests and objectives. I'm sure it's the whole group here does, as well as those articulated by the young man. Anthony, I believe, just a moment ago. And so I'm just looking to see how I can get involved and help to make sure that Arizona is one of those connected places where folks are connected with dignity, equity and access to broadband and all the benefits that it affords
me. So welcome, John, and I will add you to our announcement list so you'll get announcements of future meetings. Thank you. Okay, we have anybody else new today. And I missed
I will just mention Steve the Telus Spectre became first acquired by a national firm sparkplug and later day by airband. So the Otello spectrum assets still operate as airband and Airzone. Cool.
Okay, so moving on. So unfortunately, I have the I need to announce that our dear friend Ted Kraver, who many of you know and have been partners with him, for many years, died last week. He had a stroke several years ago. He's not been functional for several years now. And his wife called me on Sunday to let me know that he that he passed on, for those of you who know, Mark, I'll give you and I don't know who else is online, who knew Ted. But Ted was a great friend. He's one of my best friends, brilliant engineer, awesome person. You know, he was one of those people that he just wanted to do the right thing for people. There was no ego there. It was just let's do good things and make peace and make things happen for the state of Arizona for young people for education, and so forth. So he was a tireless advocate for economic development, technology, technology and education, and so much more in Arizona. He was one of he was the founder, if not one of the leaders in creating better the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council. And the greater zone educational was greater Arizona elearning Association at that time. And God knows how many other groups and organizations he helped to create and delete, and so forth. Mark, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.
You sure. Ted was already involved in the late 80s, in the Arizona strategic partnership for economic development, which Stanford Research as Institute helped the state establish, and that became the governor strategic partnership for economic development, under which there were industry exporting companies and the were infrastructure elements and at AIC grew out of the infrastructure side. Ted was my first introduction when I left the full time world in 92. I called Alan Howard who chaired GE speed and said what goes on here? How can I get involved? He brokered a lunch for me with Ted in 1992. And Ted was truly an it's a term I first heard and mostly heard from him, a civic entrepreneur. He had had businesses As he started and sold and failed, and and they were all in technology to a wonderful individual, generative mind, and he really did drive both elearning and broadband for about 20 of the 30 years that I've been involved. So, really sorry to hear that. Did Bobby give any indication of a memorial or
Yeah, actually they're planning to do something she's didn't have a date yet, right? Of when they're going to have have a celebration of life. That's, that's our plan. So don't know yet when that's kind of take place.
And he was chair of a wasn't our first chair. I think that was our Crawford. But he was an early chair in the in the mid to late 90s of this group for a couple of years ago at AIC and helped. There was a foundational governor's study in 94. John Kelly was a state telecom Policy Officer under Governor Simonton and both our Crawford and Tate Craver were seminal in that early first in Arizona telecom we didn't even talk about the word broadband. I don't believe much of any back then.
Yes, thank you, Mark. Anybody else? Mala. Here on the line. I know you've known Ted and Holly, and I don't know who else is online that may have known it known Ted.
Yes, I remember Ted very well, especially for his humor and for his cheerful attitude. Somewhat mean, I remember him in our meeting rooms at in the second floor, state, the state library in the courtroom. And he was an admirer of art as well. So he really enjoyed having our meetings in that room. The Miranda room as we call it. I remember Bobby to
get he did get a Lifetime Achievement Award at the governor's celebration of innovation that I wrote his you know, Application for I can't quite remember the year. But it was the first time I ever remember and governor and Apollo Tonto presented it. First time I ever remembered a recipient bringing their spouse up to the stage for an award like that sometimes people will bring a company, team member or two up for the word, but he brought his wife Bobby, I'll see if I can find a picture of that. You're probably took it.
Anyway, let's let's move on. Again, we greatly Miss Ted, and I'll let people know when we find out when the celebration will be. Okay, so moving on. So, Nicole, I saw that you were online, you want to give us an update on what's happening both the federal and the state office, please.
Sure thing. Okay, so this is a pretty busy month for NTIA. So we've got a couple of updates to share with you there. So most of the people in this group know that the infrastructure law created three different broadband and broadband adoption programs through the federal government, the middle mile program, the tribal broadband connectivity program, and the bead and digital equity programs, which can work together on middle mile. I know there's some of us in this group that are involved with applications. The only thing we can say is that a word memos are imminent. And today's committed to late spring and according to late spring in Washington, DC, that's that's the end of June. So stay tuned for those middle mile award announcements. The tribal broadband connectivity program has nearly administered $2 billion in funding for building tribal tribal broadband to different project areas throughout the nation. And they are expecting their second NOFO for an additional $1 billion in funding to be issued in late June or early July. So just a couple of weeks on when that window will open and it will be available for tribal applicants for six months. So this is funding that is supporting broadband infrastructure projects, as well as projects that are that are supporting the adoption and use of broadband including telehealth distance learning digital inclusion efforts and affordability projects. With bead as you know, the state is in their bid planning phase where they have until the end of August to submit their five year broadband plan. That's just one of multiple pieces involved in this federal grants that the state has to produce for NTIA. And they're making pretty good progress with that broadband plan utilizing their contractor. We know that NTIA is on track to be able to make their notice of funding amounts for states and territories on or before June 30. So June 30, is the committed date. And it's possible that we could see those announcements of how much funding is coming to the state of Arizona, even before that third year, which is exciting. The states all over have been involved in what's called the location challenge process or sometimes the fabric challenge process with the FCCs broadband data collection efforts. Arizona between volume one and Volume Two of that map, Arizona gained 31,536 broadband serviceable locations between those two maps. So that was a change of both net gain of 34 34,000 locations. They've also added 31,536 unserved or sorry, I'm sorry 34,000 unserved 31,000, broadband service Scible locations to the map. So different locations can be adjudicated in different ways. Sometimes things get taken off, and sometimes things get added on. But that's that's where Arizona's numbers stand to date. Of course, there are a number of third party blogs and speculations about what this means for that the allocation that Arizona will actually get. NTIA doesn't endorse any of these and of course not nobody really knows the secret sauce or also seems to be calculating things like administrative costs and the high the high cost allocations to so that is just to say any, any speculation about the total amount that Arizona will be receiving is to be taken with a grain of salt until we hear from NTIA. Those are the major updates at the NTIA level. Do we have any questions about those programs before I move on to what the states do?
Nicole, I was going to insert somewhere here in the federal side that the USDA announced reconnect for wave of grants today. Were you going to touch on that?
No, I was singularly focused on NTIA updates.
And you are the representative. So let me just insert that USDA issued a first wave of reconnect for grants today. There was 1.1 billion available. They announced about 750 million in grants and loans, about two thirds of the total. And two of those were in Arizona. So there was a small $3.5 million dollar grant to the south central Utah telephone Association. That doesn't sound like Arizona, but it is in federal district, Arizona oh two, and that will bring fiber the home to 24 people in one farm in Coconino. County. And then there's a second reconnect grant in Arizona $25 million to the Colorado River Indian tribes. And that will deploy fiber the home to 1946 people 41 businesses, three farms in four educational facilities in La Paz County. So good news, about 28 and a half million dollars in Arizona awards today. Okay,
anything else? So Nicole, do you want to so go ahead and now talk about the about the state broadband office and what's happening with the with the beat planning. I'm sorry with digital inclusion.
Yep. So these are two kind of co- occurring projects the one year planning period for the broadband, the five year broadband action plan and as well as the state's digital equity plan under the digital equity standing grant to the states, they have employed two different contractors who are kind of working together to make sure that the state's deployment plan is matching with their digital equity objectives. So making sure that people have the skills to get online after that infrastructure is built and laid out. To do so the state broadband office is engaging in a few different public outreach events. And they've been surveying internet service providers and coordinating with other state agencies and all sorts of stakeholders. This includes a really a 20 session listening tour. It's one session per county for each of Arizona's 15 counties. They just held one in in Safford and Graham County. Today, there'll be headed to Clifton and then too Eiger throughout the week. And then they also intend to have five virtual listening sessions that are focused around some of the covered populations in the Bead program. You can find that information about the listening tours on the state Broadband offices website.
And I also have included both of those. In my email announcement of this meeting. It's also on this web page is where the
webpage? Yep. And then I see Elena posted the flyer. There is yeah, thanks for the reminder, there is a survey that they're trying to send out to as many world just citizens and community organizations and stakeholders at large. So if we could help the contractor with that effort, that would be great. The flyers to me, it's a little confusing, but they are supposed to these in person ones are one per county. So if you see, see that popping up on the on the site, that's what you're looking at is these in person sessions. They also have opportunities. The I don't believe that the virtual listening sessions have been scheduled yet. But the digital equity tables, which is another monthly virtual call, those have been scheduled, and I can't see on Steve screen here. Oh, yeah. Right here, this big paragraph, June 20 is the next the upcoming community table conversation for digital equity. So that one is led by the broadband office, and they kind of intended that space to be their update for stakeholders. And to get some really great feedback about what we mean when we talk about affordability and sustainability for this plant. They've also conducted one of two industry calls. So that's inviting any industry partner to interface with with the broadband office that's coordinated by their other contractor KPMG with support of connected nation. I think some of you were on that call. And the second one should be, should be pretty interesting. I think that's all I'm allowed to say about where the broadband office is for now. But you know, always happy to bring things back to the office or take questions on my weather app.
Any other questions for Nicole?
Yeah, just real quick, Nicole, cuz I know it was confusing. So the county sessions, there's actually two in person sessions. The one in the morning is the one in the morning is for community groups, or community organizations. The one that is in the afternoon is for community, individual community members. So if you sign up, keep that in mind as to which one you should be a part of.
Thanks for clarifying that Elena's correct. That's correct. Okay, any other questions for for Nicole? Before we move on, I saw we just had another person join. Chris. Do you want to introduce yourself real quickly?
I'm just Chris Mazzarella. I'm the Chief Information Officer for the City of Tucson. Started that roll back in October. So relatively new to the organization. So thanks for the opportunity to join.
Glad glad you can make it Chris. I know you. I know you're quite busy. So always glad to see you. Okay, so moving on. I don't see Aaron on today. They're in LA rondos. Aaron, are you here? I don't think so. And I don't. So anyway, let's move on to We'll see. So let's go ahead and introduce our speaker for today, I want to actually make sure we give him plenty of time. So I'm going to stop sharing. And I'm going to introduce Craig settles. And I'm not gonna say anything about him, I'm gonna let him introduce himself. He is, other than to say, he has been long involved, we were discussing that just before we started the meeting today, that he has been long involved in this battle for broadband, one of the early adopters, and one of the first people to write a, I think you were to be wrote the first book that I that I see that Craig on, that is true, but that is going to be fun. So So he, I'm sure, he's got lots to say, and I want to make sure, he's also been involved with a lot of federal activities, and so forth. So I want to make sure we give him plenty of time to talk about this today. So with that, Craig, I'm gonna turn it over to you, if you have some stuff to share. You're welcome to do that.
Okay, thank you very much. I am gonna.
Craig before we move on, Msuricio is there anything that you want to talk about in terms of relationships with the DES, and what's happening with all that stuff?
Not at this point. Thanks for the opportunity, Steve. As you know, the access redetermination is ongoing. So we're moving forward with those events. That's why it's sometimes it's hard for me to join at the new time. But everything is ongoing. Everything's going well. So thank you.
Good. And we're glad to see you, we miss you. When you're not here. I'm already co you've been a regular attendee. And then I just saw a note that Elena had posted a file in the chat. So just a couple of things, any files that get posted in the chat, when we save the chat, those files are not there. If you want to download the file, you need to do that, before we end the meeting. I do however, download those files, and try to include them with the summary of our meetings. But if you want any of those files, please make sure that you download them from the chat before the end of the meeting.
Okay,
with that, I'm sorry, Craig, give me an interrupt. You're
not alone that door and
back to you.
Okay, thank you. Wow, I sometimes I forget how long I actually have been involved with Internet, and, and all those digital technologies. I'm a broadband industry analyst and consultant. So I work with cities that want to build broadband networks and close the digital divide as much as possible. And I also, by default, to become a, an analyst in the sense of I write a lot of stuff about these different technologies and different issues that are breaking up, bringing in, you know, as we move along here, and so in that, I guess, in that role, I have learned a lot. And I've tried to help people understand, you know, what is basically complex and often boring technology and trying to make it understandable. So I started actually, in 1995, when I wrote a book called A cyber essentials for marketing. And the the irony of this whole thing is that I was working on a project with 18 T. And at the time, the rock, the web browser was released. I was working with them. And they said, Well, what do you what do you think can be done with this web thing? Right? They'd have an alarming lot of people that had no idea really what to do with this, right? It was before cat videos and so the best thing we had going on was lots of scam artists trying to give us the 1001 ways to break make a million dollars or some stop. But with the project without a TN T. I you know, spent a lot of time understanding how the various online services and bulletin boards and all these other acts and things going on within you know, this new Well, this thing called the internet or I should say the web and as a result That. That project, at&t said here, well, you know, if you want to write a book, go ahead and do that. And I said, Fine, let's do that thing. And so the first things that I noticed, like that I wrote about was, people needed a way to think and talk about this thing called the internet and the web. And there was a lot of disinformation and so forth. And so what I tried to do was create structure for not exactly, you know, not saying if you did this five different ways, this would lead to success. It was more one of the questions that you need to ask yourself and your organization to make better use of the Internet. Right. And I pretty much hold to that. That is that it's not the matter of, you know, giving to structure the thing, as much as it is important to have questions answered and asked about their communities, right. And so in that, that first book, you know, there was a lot of emphasis on the fact that you could communicate in a different way. And I don't think we've lost that. But sometimes it's good to remember that that's what this is a medium that is all about getting information from point to point to point. And by getting that kind of that communication out in the electronic way. This is how change happens in terms of what the unit what the internet can do. So I talked about, you know, the building the broadband, brand awareness and doing promotions, and education, market, education, so forth. And that's, that's kind of how I got started. In the subsequent books that I've written, I often come back to the basic thing of what do you want to talk about as telehealth, I'm sorry, as as the internet as a, as a Strat as a strategy? So what kinds of strategies can you put together using the internet? And then tactfully, how do you actually get things done with the Internet? And that communication tool? Right? And so? So yeah, it's been a long time. So anyway. And that's how we went forward. Right. And as, as more people got involved, that became, you know, this became a big operational tool that you can help communities and governments, businesses and so forth. And so yeah, and then that was fairly straightforward. Several years after that, I was working with a company. And they had what basically became the first community broadband, right, they hung up radios on telephone poles, and gave people access from that point, right. And the thing was, the, their customers, they were, you know, they were trying to sell the this idea of using wireless as a way of getting to the internet if you don't have DSL, right. And even though that was what the company had as a mission, right, when you talk to the customers, the customer said the benefit of ricochet, that's the name of the company. You know, the value is that they give untethered access when they're around when they're when they're in in the courtroom and in the lawyer they have been in business meetings and and so forth. People were able to make pictures and that deliver those like if you're a newspaper reporter, you can file your story. You can reply you can file your pay your or pictures and so forth. And in that discussion with the customers, what became apparent was the value of the untethered wireless internet was phenomenal. And people were ecstatic about being able to have that access, right. And so that became another book. Yes. And it also became, you know, a shift in how people did business and how they communicated how unfortunately, Ricochet and their company, Metacom went out of business. Alright, and this would have been 99. So before we really started talking about the, the internet, these guys came and went, but there was this idea that, well, maybe we can use the internet away from the office kind of thing. So we went from there to companies, I'm sorry, cities, were starting to figure out that they could use or they can build an internet network for their constituents. Right. And it was usually at the time, like from 2000 to 2003 or four, it was mostly the smaller cities, or towns that were coming out with this, this great way to deal with the, the internet and making it distributed, so that people who couldn't afford that, you know, luxury, became more, it became more equitable, the whole the internet. And so we go along for another couple of years, and Philadelphia says, Hey, we can do this, again, we can, we can build a border to border
internet access, and have two purposes. One is to save the wireless cost, or the cell phone cost of the, the employees or the city, right, and there were a bunch of those. But they also thought, you know, we can actually take people and put them online, we are the mayor has his kindness on this, the this motto, you know, make things more in line online than waiting in line. And so they were having the biggest city at that time to want to use the internet, and you know, access as a equity building process, how to deal with the economics of, you know, the, whether it's urban or rural, and so forth. And so some of the life's lessons that came out of that exercise was one, you make sure that your son, your son solution is up to the task that you're basically placing on that technology. So in 2005, there was a huge, you know, outcry of, yes, let's do this. Let's get, you know, border border, wireless everywhere. Unfortunately, the wireless at the time, was not up for the task that the cities, mayors and so forth. Were trying to, to establish. And I think that that's like a lesson for the ages, which is basically we have lots of technology, we have more technology coming out the door than we can even keep track of like, but if you want to have success, if you want to bridge this digital divide, you have to understand the limitations of both the wireless and the wired. And how are we going to address that, right, because I've seen in these last few years, lots of qualities that have been given to the internet to wireless to fibre and so forth. And sometimes it isn't what that technology is capable of. So now we're talking about artificial intelligence and smart technology and so forth. Right. And it's great on paper. But when you look at the, you know, the realities of your world, you start out. And so so that's, that's a big next lesson from the mid part of the century, the first decade, right? The other Oh, yeah, for a second. Um, there was also another how to come back to that one. As we went from everybody's gonna have an internet network in every city town. Hi, boy. And by way, right, it went to a bit Ibis moment. And then when Obama came in, we got really, you know, the dream of telehealth, I'm sorry, of broadband, and so forth, came back when they had the broadband stimulus program. And so when we had that opportunity, right, at that time, it was like $7 billion. And no one ever had, you know, that much money put into broadband before. And so we went forward, and things were good or bad, and somewhere in between. And there are a lot of lessons to be learned from that, hopefully. And as we go into this speed world, and the A and middle mile and so forth, within Tia, we still need to come back to what are we trying to do? Is the technology up to the task? is, you know, are we going to do aggressive needs analysis, right. And then when when I when I wrote the book about Philadelphia's project, right, the biggest thing about that project was the extensiveness, of how the mayor and the city's CIO did a 90 day plan, which included all kinds of focus groups and meetings and pilot programs and all of this, within that time of that time frame. And, and that was actually the reason for doing the book, we had a customer, the product itself had problems, and eventually, it just felt petered out. Right. But the lesson to be learned from that episode was how aggressively you do your needs analysis will determine how effective and how successful you will be. Right. One of the things I noticed with the, the entire program now, is they put a lot of emphasis on the needs, you know, understand the needs of the constituencies, and you get dinged for your plan. If it hasn't, if it isn't clear that you have tapped into the needs of the community and the support of community, right, the days of just having a letter from the mayor as a sign of support that you haven't told us that's gone away, right? You got a net, you have to show your, your depth and breadth of support. And I think that's a great thing. That's the great thing because there's a lot of, you know, skeletons. We're just bad business plan. Doing the project. All right. So we've got to stick with that. Because that is that is is a big issue. I think the other thing, you know from the the 2005 to 2009 timeframe It was somehow we went from broadband is something that we're going into is a problem that we're going to solve, together, whether we're talking about rural or suburban or urban, it doesn't really matter, everybody was all on board. And then policies and in practice, we've lost some of that. And I think we have a situation where that's almost like, the urban area where we give, we give them a decent decent size, subsidy, and so forth, that's solves the problem. And that really doesn't solve the problem. The problem is solved by better technology that is available to everyone. And so we can talk about, yeah, we have the DHCP, you know, which is a good program by itself. But at the same time, we're also spending in, you know, in rural areas, maybe two $3,000 per person to get broadband. I don't, you know, I don't criticize the, you know, the rural folks for having that, because they need that, but what I get really is, you know, agitated about is the whole issue of, you know, what about the urban area, and what they need, and and is the stuff that we're giving them going to be sustainable, two or three years down the road, right. It's one thing to say, yes, we this is a great pro program. Right. But is it sustainable? I mean, we have, you know, by example, right, like, so we're talking about artificial intelligence, we're talking about telehealth, right, a number of these technologies, AI, are requiring much bandwidth, you know, both collectively as a community and individually. Right. And so, if we
are sort of short changing the futures of our urban folk, then, you know, what have we learned from all of this, you know, these last few years? And I think that we have to reassess how we deal with the, the urban areas, right, and at night, and sometimes I think, Well, maybe it's because of the, you know, the federal government has, you know, it's hard to move the federal government. So, you know, can this slack be made up with the State governments and their programs? If we don't have this, this, the the Bible to the blinders on? That? It's just the urban area? I'm sorry, the or the rural areas, right? It is both, it is both. And then I'll leave, go into the like the last part of my. So the last book I wrote, was in seven years ago, and one of the trouble the challenges I had was, as we started talking about more and more, you know, the gigabit this, the gigabit that, and so forth, it became somewhat incomprehensible to the average average person on the street, why do we care? Why do we need to have all this broadband and so forth? And at that time, I've started to have a stroke because I have nothing else to do with my day. And so I had a stroke, went to the hospital. And I was introduced, not necessarily willingly but I was there. I was introduced to telehealth and telehealth, enabled my neurologist who was at home on a Saturday night she was able to log in and take over the the whole treatments now there's a whole exercise after go with him and try to save the person. And so we were you know, they they did that she did that. And and what I came from that experience with the understanding that if I have been in a rural area, I'd have been in trouble if I had been in a, you know, a urban area that was just had a bad, you know, there's more communication, that will have sucked. Right. And so the thing so the reverse of all that is, well, if you want to have these new technologies, you need to understand, and when you're talking to people about what's the value, because a lot of people don't understand they don't have the same way. They don't have the same value or interest that we in this group have, right. So you have to make sure that you have done that you can tell a story that compels people to then want to use the internet. And I thought I think that, you know, when I started writing the book again, you know, after the after the stroke, you know, I basically started talking about broadband as magic that enables you to do stuff that wasn't able that you weren't able to do before. And that's pretty much it. I mean, it's simple. I, but it is, it's good to then have that as though this is why we're here, right? Because now, you know, the last four or five years, I have been adamant about telehealth. Not that it's the only good new technology because there's there are other things, but it is the universality of the technology, everybody needs to deal with health care and their health, or if they're not that themselves directly, their parents, their kids, their, you know, other folks. And so that is why, in my mind, you know, all the stuff that I have seen for the last 30 years, which is insane, actually, when you kind of step back and look at it, right. But in that, in that period in those three decades, right, we have gone from, you know, 28 as super fast internet. Right? Now, we're talking about gigabits and whatever the next level is, and, and to try to get people to keep up with this. You can't talk about speeds and feeds and all of that you got to talk about the real personal issue. Right. And nothing is more important than my health, my ability to eat my ability to flip pride for the people who are, you know, that are dependent on myself? Right. That's the mission. I think that's where we are need to be when we're looking at this technology, right? It's nice, it's great. It's new and Fast, fast and all of those kinds of things. But is it making the difference? Do people understand what the, the businesses have, you know, broadband and, and telehealth and whole economic year, the economic development, workforce development and so forth. Right? Don't ever get so hung up on the awesomeness of the technology that we forget the benefit that is hitch should deliver. And if you don't deliver it, you know, people like you know, like the whole Philadelphia exercise, right? There was a lot of work, there was a lot of ink a lot of effort into that making that project work. And it wasn't the right time and it wasn't there for the best time for that technology and so forth. Right? And people got this collusion and unhappy and they can still pull into, you know, a Pio of wires Philadelphia exercise and say, Oh, wow, what was all out about? So here we are now. You know, can't say enough about you know, where we are, what the potential is, you know, what, just what can we get from here? You're too there. Hey, now, it's awesome questions, I can answer some of those. Cuz I can talk about this forever. There you have it.
These questions or comments for Craig? Thank you, Craig. Any questions or comments for Craig?
John, look great.
Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Craig, for that. And I've been in that in this business for over 20 years. And I just learned something today that I haven't been living for most of that time. And then it really is to service and how that the service affects people's lives. And soon as you were talking, I was thinking about some, because I provide a service in the Midwest and Mountain West, here in the desert. And the one thing that that that kind of holds customers together like unifies them, is if the technology that they're using doesn't allow them to get done the things that they need to get done. Right. So whether it is we had a fire here in Arizona, some number of years ago that burned across Graham County, in areas I don't remember the name of the fire, but that fire burned out one of our sights on one of the mountains in eastern Arizona. And I couldn't believe all the people I was hearing from Graham County, Northern Arizona University, the day trader, people that tried to pay their bills, right. Things of that nature. And the same up in in the Midwest, you know, I ran a wireless service. And were a particular customer. He just stayed at home and he played video games. That was his day. But that was his day. And I had to go out to his house and make sure that his service was working, because he was agitated. And he was telling all of his neighbors how the service wasn't there. Yeah, we got this newfangled 4g, but it doesn't work. And so when you were speaking, when you were speaking, it reminded me of all of that. And that was really kind of kind of the thing that I think even even today, large carriers, largest small service providers, technology provided largest small, they kind of forget that. So thank you for bringing that forward.
You're welcome. I'm glad I can help.
Say other questions or comments far for credit before we move on? So Craig, are you trying to
quantify how much
nationally telehealth is being used and how much it could increase if the services were offered properly? Are you trying to do that? Are you focusing on specific communities and how you develop the use of telehealth?
I would say that, you know, from a, from a writing perspective, I am writing to the country and trying to get as many people as possible to understand where the value is, you know, as a consultant, yes. If a you know, city calls and said yes, we want to do some tests out some telehealth and stop then yes, I will do that as well. So I'm kind of dual purpose. Okay. Okay,
let's, let's move on. It's getting late. And I do want to Can I jump in rich? I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Yeah, sorry. I've just been trying to be diligent and compiling things that might be sensible here. In any case, bear with me while I get to my question. I think the internet's Of course, increasingly becoming a basic need here, at least in Tucson, I'm sure. Everywhere else around the US and I'm sure the world so to a computer and not just a computer, but a computer that can kind of, you know, do what it needs insofar as people can access internet resources. Poverty, of course, inhibits often inhibits access to technology, which has network connectivity. I worry if folks don't have a technology, they'll be unable to use internet based services to provide both seems to kind of solve most issues while inviting many more unfortunately. While the internet or at least my efforts so far and trying to get this to go is getting some traction. It's been becoming really clear that there's a, like, there's a lot going on here, between governors, corporate interests, private citizens, and so forth and so on, it's becoming pretty daunting, immediately, yet still, everyone benefits from some kind of network connectivity and access to networks enabled through technology. Private and secured, honestly. But, you know, there's the issue with poverty and like the actual like reality of it, and people living it, and literally everyone abating them, and not hearing them, or even paying attention to their needs, or the conditions from which their needs arise. And so my organization is like, hold all come learn with us, practice your hobbies, skills, and develop these things and become, you know, craftspersons, or whatever. But, you know, having technology to use and to connect to the internet, with these things. Now, of course, there's a lot of trade offs. And I guess my question would be like, would it really make sense to, to try to peer with other, I guess, networks that are, are literally set up to get people connected? Insofar as, you know, those on that network and kind of be exposed to, you know, other, I guess, peers, for example, a small group, no one really knows, kind of informal. Lots of them, though. But they just can't afford to be represented, essentially, let alone like how just essentially, and kind of electric electronic facility where we can access their web resources and so fruit, especially if they have no money, like, would it make sense to try to network, these people with clearly these institutions that really thrive on the bottom line and all their conditions? I hope that made some kind of sense. Thank you.
It seems that you're asking do we do about the pop a series of populations that don't have the basics? And someone has somewhat someone's has to step up? And and somehow go to aggress? To address that? So I mean, it's it's an obvious pipes, obvious question, or the obvious answer, right. But at a certain point, just more people have to engage. Number one, and I think we have to engage smartly. Because just giving people money, or giving them a voucher doesn't solve the problem. Right? And so I think smart, he smart money, is, I think the key, we got forgotten it, we only got like $1,000, right? Do we just give it away? Or do we give it away in such a way that more people get benefit from the technology? And I think that's that's sometimes gets lost, right? Because they're well intentioned people doing good things, trying to make a difference, right. But we may not be using that, that resource, that person, those organizations and so forth, as effectively as we could. And so I think the, the hat, the, the, the, the end product, needs to be smarter decisions.
Like that. And hopefully that answers
the, I'm gonna need to move on here pretty quickly. Just one last thing, in regard to your question, if I understood it correctly, that there are networks of people who are working on this issue, but you probably heard just from the discussion today, and so for example, the state is having all these listening. So because they have this money, they gotta develop a plan. So they're having these listening sessions, both online and in, in local communities. And so certainly for and the way they've structured those and particularly the on the on ground sessions is to have the morning session. There are groups and organizations, whether it's you, or cities or anybody else who are actually working on this stuff, have an opportunity to hear and talk and so forth. And then the afternoon is designed specifically for users, people who have had no experience, have experience and are struggling, or people who have no experience with technology, and what it is they need, and how can we help as we go about planning and spending our money. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on. I can't get into more of it, because I do want to get to the State Library. Before we we end the meeting for today. But I'd be glad to talk to you offline about more of those kinds of things. So with that, I'm going to jump to the State Library crates again. Thank you, Mama, are you still there? You know, what's, what's the latest? And Holly? I see. You're still here. Have anything that you want to share?
Thank you, Steve Mala said that she had to jump off to another meeting. And I've been out of the office for the last week at a at a Western council meeting. So I I don't really have latest updates. I know that we are in a where we're just continuing to work with Janet major trying to move forward with our next telemedicine project. But I think we're unfortunately, it takes so much planning before we can actually watch. So I think we're still in planning there. Okay.
All righty. So Janet, could not be here today. But she did ask me she's actually has a conflicting meeting. Looks like a number of people do today. But she did ask that I make an announcement. That on Thursday, November 2, at Fort Defiance, there's tribal diabete diabetes, and health equity Summit. That will include all 22 tribes. And apparently you're all welcome to attend. And again, I will include that when I send out my notice of the summary of the meeting, that I will include that in the calendar. So let's see any other announcements updates? I don't think Philip you're here or Karina? I don't see either of you. online today.
I'm sorry. Karina. Actually, I did see you my apology. Do you have anything that you want to talk about from the Department of Ed?
Yeah, so to first of all to share that. Phillip has been joining for The Department of Education representing the focus of Digital Teaching and Learning. Phillip has moved on to a different position within ID is now a manager. So it's a nice promotion for Phillip, unfortunately, we are losing him on this on this space. So I just wanted to share that with with you that he will no longer be joining these meetings and he's now managing a group of people that support that support. So he's having fun there. But other than that, Steve, I'm going to be more actively joining these meetings on Mondays to represent them Arizona Department of Education and Office of Digital Teaching and Learning. And today I just want to share that we are coming from I'm actually driving by now driving from Buckeye High School. As we had our high monthly town hall meeting. We visit school districts understand their needs and gather different technology experts or technology directors from different school districts to come together to have conversations about their pressing needs. And right now the conversations are around cybersecurity, that is a solid waste that topic right now and we are also talking about disaster recovery planning and policies and procedures around around security. Something also that is happening is how the Department of Homeland Security and the Arizona joint task force from the from the Department of Emergency affairs are coming together to support K 12. And now EMA Department of Emergency monetary affairs, providing vulnerability assessment at no cost to well, to local education agencies. So it's beautiful to see the community coming together to 14k 12. Supporting education. In in the more pressing, now be security. Anything related to preparing for emergencies?
So Karina, one thing that I did get notification from you guys, is that you're starting a penetration testing and vulnerability assessment for K 12. You want to talk about that at all?
Yes, so like I said, security is one segment. Then we also the state also has another segment, the Department of Emergency and military affairs. And within FEMA, they have the result of that joint task force. And what they do is they become experts in security, with a high level of expertise on the military side of things. So we are using military resources, and even those resources to local education agencies, that is through a department of education we signed up with with the Arizona Joint Task Force, and that they can provide these services at no cost to to k 12. So the services include number one for durability assessment, and number two penetration testing once a year, at no cost, for all. That appears to be no. It's an optional service. But it's a very cool service, again, run by our military unit with a high level of expertise in this security topics. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's really nice.
Yeah, so it's pretty cool that you got both from Homeland Security and also from from military to getting the kind of support that you guys really need.
Exactly. And, and again, that's at no cost to to k 12. So it's, it's nice to see the community coming together. Like I said, it's a high level of support from the state now to to our school district.
So are you finding that districts are starting to take advantage of these opportunities?
Yeah, so districts are ready, utilizing the cyber readiness, resources that are offered by Homeland Security, I believe last numbers I had was 120 something or approaching the 150 school districts already signed up for for those programs. So that that has been going on for a while. Now, the brand new program is vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. And so far, we have four school districts already signed up. But this is a matter of a couple of weeks only that we launched the program so so yes, they everybody use it.
Right. So Karina, I'd like to talk with you about how do we get some of these districts to participate in these meetings also.
Talk about it, that would be nice. Okay.
So let's see we have any any other announcements? Derek's not here, Rory mil myelin. So a couple of quick things. I came across an article from the Hill that AT and T Verizon and T Mobile Maps show which cell provider gives you give your area the best coverage of the FCC create an interactive map comparing coverage from cell phone providers. So just and I'll share the information in the link about that. So any other information announcements, things coming up? People want to talk about
just for us if you give a quick
Lupe Yes, I'm glad you stepped up
Oh yeah, so for our FCC, we have gotten the No way. And right now we actually have posted our positions and we'll be hiring very soon.
But I just want to remind people quickly, Lupe, what you're talking about.
Yeah, so we, um, Chicanos Por La casa, we got a grant from the FCC, for ACP to help families enroll into the ACP program. And so we are actually going to be going into 20 counties in four states to help families enroll in ACP rural areas, and we are looking at California, we're doing Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. And so our NOAA came in for notice of award. And we are super excited, because our positions we've been doing at the same time, due diligence and our HR aspects of the moment it came in, we could post this position. So the positions have been posted, and they're on our website, and we hope to hire very soon. And we really have two events planned in July.
So okay, which counties and in Arizona will you be working with.
So we'll be we'll be going into Yuma Tucson. is a big though, we'll be going into like the Flagstaff area, pretty much Tucson that hopefully my area. And pretty much everywhere around Arizona, Phoenix will be here in Phoenix for some items. But it wasn't a big focus, we wanted to go into the rural areas, the way we did is we actually have different offices in Arizona. And so we wanted to target in the areas that we had offices, because we knew that the program leads in that area and knew the community the best. And so we could work with them to make sure that the families were really helping that we know our annual income that we could provide them this opportunity. And so we're excited about that. Because all the areas that we're targeting, we have an office
in Phoenix already also got a grant. So they're gonna be working on things. And Elena, I think is is driving that here in the Phoenix area. Okay, any other announcements? So So one last thing, at a couple of meetings ago, we discussed, whether we want to continue with this time, or whether we want to do something different. And originally it talked about doing a survey, and then seemed to be a consensus of staying where we are. But we're finding that there's a lot of conflicting meetings and stuff. Of course, that happens no matter what time we pick. So I will send out a survey and try and get a feel from for people about where are they what they think is the best time morning, maybe 12 o'clock at night. Whatever seems to work. So I'll get that out in the next few days. Anything else? Any other announcements that anybody has? So, so all of you know, that after our meetings, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop recording. And as you know, we do our kibitzing with colleagues. And so if any of you want to stay online and chat for a while, and if not, then we'll, we'll end and everybody can go do their own thing. So thank you all and hopefully no meeting next week. Next week is the 19th which is Juneteenth. And so that is a state a state holiday, so there will be no meeting next week. Okay, thank you all.
