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January 9, 2025 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force | Otter.ai

January 9, 2025 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force

Steve Peters58min

Jonathan Adelstein

00:00

And, you know, the and the personnel also are more volatile, so but from the top on down, there's more volatility, more uncertainty, more difficulty in predicting what's going to happen. Let's, you know, sort of telescope down into an area of interest for all bus, which is me, and I can give you my, my thoughts on that.

Mark Goldstein

00:22

Sorry. Michelle Simon, you need to mute,

Jonathan Adelstein

00:28

right? Agreed, the so let's look at, let's look at bead as an example of what you know, how we kind of predict what might happen. I believe, to get to the headline that it's not going to be rescinded, I think the program is going to continue. There's some I'm kind of surprised by the amount of leaders in Washington that are talking about it, such as John Thune that maybe the program should be scrapped, which makes people think it will be. Some people think I don't believe that. I don't I think the wisdom of the smartest people in Washington is that the program will continue with some modifications that will actually make it more sympathetic to ISPs, and we'll address some ISPs largest concerns about how the program is being run. So the reason for that is obviously the, you know, sometimes the obvious stuff is the case, which is that this is a constituency. It's very important to the President and his team in rural areas are not the area they kind of want to lead with their with their nose. But on the other hand, you see some very rural senators like Jody Ernst and John Thune talking about scrapping it. So you wonder if, if that's the case, but it in fact, what if you really look underneath it, what a lot of Republicans have been saying is the Democrats have Democrats haven't gotten any money at the door, and that's why the program is a failure. They didn't move fast enough they put all these red tape on it. So obviously the answer to that is to move faster and to remove the red tape, which is, I think, what exactly is going to happen, although it's always possible, as we said, that we could, we could be surprised, and it is possible to rescind, but what, what we think will happen is that they're in a position to deliver on that because basically, Democrats kind of handed them, you know, the ball. And finally, everything's cruising. I mean, states like Arizona and a number of other states are out, you know, looking for applications right now they can say that they did everything to speed it up, and they're going to be able to deliver on that promise, because things are moving fast anyway. I mean, it's finally getting going, and they're going to take credit for it. So, perfect job. Democratic NTIA to give a huge win to to the Trump administration coming in, having, you know, taking a long time doing it. And there's key, you know, there's key areas that they will quickly. I think change. I think there is a risk for the Digital Equity program of being rescinded, and that money being taken back or reprogrammed, and that would have to be done by Congress. But for the subsidy program, probably not. They'll probably remove some of the pro labor provisions. They'll remove the fiber preference in a way that I think Elon Musk will find very attractive. They won't just say they're trying the whole thing over to satellite. Is at one point the President said during the during the transition the president elect but it will make it much easier to do that. It might make it easier to do fixed wireless. You know, they'll remove some of the the affordability requirements, you know, a number of other provisions on, on the environment and and on, you know, climate change that they find offensive. And this can be done very quickly. I think that a lot of people believe they need a political appointee heading NTIA in order to do that, and they don't. My experience having run our us during the transition in 2009 is that it took me a while to get confirmed because I was waiting for Julie shankowski over the FCC to take my seat. So I didn't get in there until June. And by that time, without an R Us administrator, they had already established a NOFO called a NOFA, but they put that out the door and done a first round by by August, when I got there. And the way they do it is the office of the secretary can can operate with guidance from the White House. So what NTIA tends to do is put out programmatic guidance. Those of you in this might have seen and they can do that very quickly, so we'll see some programmatic guidance coming out of NTIA fairly early. Administration could be within the first couple months, most likely, basically granting a waiver to states so that they don't have to have an affordability requirement, they don't have to do some of the things that are you. Uh, required by the by the current NTIA and the current NOFO. So states will then have that flexibility. And states can kind of do, if they want to relax, if they can, they may be required to remove certain items, such as, particularly anything involving dei and labor. There might be more more affirmative guidance. In other areas, there'll be more flexibility, provided, which I think ISPs will actually welcome. So this, this should happen fairly early on. The reason I don't think it'll get rescinded is it would take Congress in order to do that technically under the law, not that administration necessarily follows current law. But let me expand on that for a minute. The law is, you know, the pound and Control Act 1974 requires the executives to actually spend money that Congress appropriates because Nixon used to impound money and not spend it. So Congress said, Well, you can't do that. If Congress says to spend it, you got to spend it. The president elect Trump has said that he believes that's unconstitutional. That's quite a stretch, because it's never been found in any way, shape or form, to be unconstitutional. I think that, given the clear role in the constitution for Congress controlling the purse strings, he will not win that, but he says he wants to challenge that, so you can say, well, he could not spend the money and take on a constitutional fight over it, which is possible, and I think he will do that in other areas, but I would be shocked if he would do that in an area of concern to his political constituency, and where Congress is divided and many Republicans support the program, not all Republicans do, but the parties fairly split. So if you're going to take on a constitutional battle, you don't do it over program that you your constituency supports and your party is divided over you take on something much more, sort of red meat oriented, some environmental program to save a salamander somewhere, something that you can say, I'm not going to spend money on that. And you can make a political point. This would be a very bad point to make if you're going to take on the empowerment Control Act so short of a rescission if Congress doesn't act, I think the biggest risk is that Congress does act and rescind the funds. And again, as I indicated earlier, I don't expect they'll rescind this, but I think there is an outside, outside chance that could happen. That's where that volatility and difficulty comes in to explain what's going to happen. I mean, we've never seen in Washington in many years, any deep concern since my days on the hill in the 1990s and early 2000s with the deficit, it's been a little shocking to me to see it began, particularly after this very careful effort where, you know George W Bucha father lost The election because he did the right thing by trying to balance the budget, but the whole read my lips, no new taxes. Remember, you could tell one lie back then, and that was it for your career, or one misstatement, and now you can do it every day, multiple times, and you get reelected or so. Times have changed on that front, but that was a tough one for for him and his son, learned the lesson and went ahead and cut taxes without regard to the deficit. Deficit began to balloon, and nobody's looked back on on either side and seen the political upside of balancing the budget so so now we're seeing kind of a divided view in Congress that some Republicans are very concerned about size and deficit. Would like to use that to basically shrink the size of the federal government. I think, you know, some obviously, the Elon Musk effort is, is part of that approach. There's a but, but how that plays out is really hard, hard to predict. You know, how serious are they? How much are they really going to cut? Obviously, they have major goals on the expense side, particularly tax cuts of a huge magnitude that some folks want offset. But then Republicans don't like to believe in many ways that tax cuts require offsets, because they claim that they pay for themselves, which has been proven wrong. But that doesn't stop folks from from saying it there is maybe some offset, but not nearly 100%

Jonathan Adelstein

09:28

so they might use as an opportunity in a reconciliation package in order to move through some major cuts. And one of the ways they will cut is what's called a rescission, or to rescind funds for existing programs that are not in favor. And that's where sort of a bead could be, could be vulnerable. I don't think it will be. I think we'll go after other things, you know, and it's again, very hard to predict how that's going to work, how serious of an effort that's going to be, how much the cuts are going to be forward looking, versus. Sending existing funds. I think we'll probably see both in an effort to offset the cost of the tax cuts. And I think all of you probably understand this is done through what's called reconciliation. It's a special procedure in Congress that allows for budgetary bills to go through on a majority basis in the Senate. So there's no filibuster in the Senate. There probably be no votes for it in the from the Democrats in the House or or the Senate probably for this bill. So it's going to be unilateral Republican effort. They've got to get that very narrow group in the House to pass it. They've got to get, you know, fairly narrow majority in the Senate to agree to it, but they can do that with just a 50 vote so they can afford to lose a cup, basically, a couple votes, both in the Senate and the and the house, pretty difficult to do, which makes controversial spending cuts, again, difficult. Doesn't take very many people to cause a problem. Now you think in something like bead, for example, save members don't like it, they don't like it. They don't want to take it out. Are they going to vote against the giant, beautiful bill, as the President Elect calls it, because they're mad about one little cut here there? I don't think so. But on the other hand, you don't want to add these things up and have too many little, little cuts that add up to somebody saying, I don't want to vote for this bill. So that gets kind of tricky, because it's hard to predict. I mean, you know, if you're really trying to do anything serious about the size of the deficit while you're doing massive tax cuts, you're going to piss people off right certain constituencies and the broader sort of Trump package, and the discipline he's been able to kind of enforce is going to make it interesting to see how that works again, I just don't think they're going to pick a fight on this one in Congress. I don't think he'll pick a fight on it unilaterally through impoundment, and therefore, I think the program will go through. I think it'll continue. I think they'll adjust it. That's just an example of kind of my thinking on that issue. I don't know if it's what else would be of most interest in the time we have left. Like to think about Steve. Are there other things?

Steve Peters

12:09

Yeah. So, so yeah, Jonathan, there's lots of issues, obviously, and I know we got a short period of time, but USF is certainly one of those issues. And right? Obviously, that's an important funding source for for E Rate and telemedicine a number of other issues. And there was a bipartisan committee that was studying that, I don't know where that is or what your thoughts are about that. And then, of course, we have a new FCC chair, and NTIA, administrator is going to be replaced, because we go on and on, and I know you only have about five more minutes, so I guess I would pick on USF at the moment, and maybe we'll bring you back for other discussions in the future. Yeah, I'd be happy to do this again

Jonathan Adelstein

12:59

and get into all that when we get a little bit more visibility after the first visibility after the first, you know, maybe month or two, and hear what people are saying. But on the USF, great question. I think, I think the biggest threat comes from the Supreme Court. You know, there's, there's a division in the circuits. The Fifth Circuit actually found the program unconstitutional on a very narrow eight to seven vote after the earlier panel had come up with a very intelligent decision that it was constitutional by a three Oh, unanimous decision. So it's a unusual decision coming out of an unusual court, relatively well reason for such a radical decision. But you know, normally you would think the Supreme Court would throw it out because there's two other circuits that found in the that found in the other direction, on top of the on top of the, you know, Original panel of the Fifth Circuit. I won't get into much legalities, but I think that when I talk to smart lawyers about this, there is a surprisingly strong view of the risk to the entire program in the Supreme Court, that this might be an opportunity for them to kick the legs out from under it and throw it back into Congress. It would be absolutely, you know, devastating, obviously, to the current order. I don't think that that's something that the administration probably want to see. I don't think it's something that that Brendan car would want to see. It would just be a mess for him, and it would cause vast instability. It would also damage the RUS program. That doesn't mean it's not going to happen. I don't want to sign probabilities to it, but I think it's a material possibility. I think there's also a very good possibility Supreme Court reverses or finds narrow grounds. And what we've heard from the court might be on on jurisdictional grounds. They kind of don't, they don't hear the case. If they, if they do throw it out, which is the big risk, then this working group suddenly becomes very important. There's been a bipartisan Working Group in Congress thinking about how to reform it. They haven't gotten very far, but the important thing is that they've kind of educated this group about the program, and then they'll be in the. Position to move more quickly. Should? Should it be thrown back in Congress's lap? Because if the Supreme Court throws it out, Congress has got to fix it, and I think that there'll be a lot of incentive to do that. But it gets very tricky. Obviously, the current mechanism is, is one that doesn't, doesn't, you know, is underfunded because it relies on long distance revenues. And there's been talk for many years since I, you know, started 2002 and before that, and the FCC about finding more stable revenue source even in 2002 and I started, there was long distance was not a reliable source. It was, you know, the numbers were going up. It's fairly irrational basis for a stable revenue source. And so the idea of Connections is a good one. But then lot of Republicans call that taxing the internet, and it gets very controversial. So how Congress is going to fix this? If they, if it's thrown in their lap, there's no certainty they're going to fix it. I think it'll be a large enough crisis. They may be forced to do it, and they may be forced to, you know, have a bipartisan solution. And I think that, you know, Majority Leader in the Senate, John Thune, is very committed to the program, and it would cause such devastation in his state, I think in a lot of Republican states, that there would be an urgent sense of needing to do it, but it would, it would be a lot of uncertainty and difficulty getting that fixed, because you have to pay for it somehow, and if you do it out of appropriations, as opposed to the regular mechanism. Now, it's also uncertain. It's difficult for long term investments in these infrastructure networks, if you don't have the reliability we've seen in universal service, one of the most successful programs to provide, you know, connectivity and broadband would be, I think, undercut. It's worked really well. On the other hand, I remember when I was at the FCC that I felt like I was a having worked in Congress, I felt like I was a mini Congress. You know, we could, basically, hate to say it, but we could kind of tax and spend, you know, we basically could say, well, we're going to change these revenue numbers coming in so that we can do some do little twist on a program, whether it's, you know, rural health care, all these great things, schools and libraries, rural, how we're going to do Alaska? I mean, we're sitting there. It really was, in the sense having a congressional power to raise money and decide how to spend it without any anybody elected involved. So I get where the constitutional concern comes from, and I certainly enjoyed having that when I was on the SEC and we certainly did great things with and it's been super successful. Does that mean it's constitutional? Not necessarily, but I think this Court, if they find it, if they don't throw it out, or might do, might make the decision on jurisdictional grounds that don't really ultimately address the the question so So Congress, you think would, they should fix it, but there's not a lot of ability to do that right now. I don't think this working group is going to be able to be able to take a lot of action unless there's a crisis. I don't think they've had enough progress where they can actually fix the program and come up with a new revenue source, given the political headwinds of solving that problem and sort of having to tax the internet to get the votes to fundamentally reform USF, so that group is useful, particularly as a sort of backup in case we have an emergency handed to us by the courts.

Steve Peters

18:30

Well, I'm sure we'd have lots of other questions, but I know you gotta drop off. You got a hard quit here about one minute, so I appreciate Jonathan you're being here, and we'll probably want to get you back in the far away, near future. There's a lot of other issues we didn't even get to today. Sure. Well, no, I'll join again

Jonathan Adelstein

18:53

as a participant. That'll be back anytime you want to get into other hot issues when we have a little bit more evidence about what direction things are taking. Well,

Steve Peters

19:02

the only thing is, Jonathan, you're you're difficult to trade to chase down.

Jonathan Adelstein

19:10

I'm right here in Arizona. Now you I can't

Steve Peters

19:14

Well anyway, thank you very much, Jonathan, I know you gotta run. Appreciate you being here, and we'll be bead back in touch. Thank

Jonathan Adelstein

19:22

you folks. Appreciate it good to catch up, yep,

Steve Peters

19:29

okay, go back to just a second here. I all.

Steve Peters

19:45

Okay, so let's getting back to our agenda now. First of all, do we have any new people who have joined us today?

Julie Henderson

19:53

Hi everyone. I'm new. My name is Julie Henderson. I'm with Copa

Julie Henderson

19:56

health, and happy to be here.

Steve Peters

19:59

Great, and we're. To get you guys on the agenda sometime in the near future. Wonderful. Okay, anybody else that's new today? Okay, so moving on on the agenda today. Again, obviously, we made some changes to accommodate Jonathan's agenda. So Mala, I'm going to, again, change the art a little bit and put Mala on. I think you all know Mala is the E Rate administrator for the State Library, but Mala is also pretty up to date on a lot of what's happening in Washington and so forth and so. Mala is good. Follow up to Jonathan. You want to take on some things. I just want to mention. And I should have probably done this when I introduce Jonathan, but I was just looking at, what are some of the issues that we that we're going to be looking at here. We've got a new FCC chair. We'll have a new NTIA administrator. We got the Universal Service Fund, including E Rate, alternative technologies, guidelines, possibility of claw back and bead funds, which Jonathan sort of addressed already. Net Neutrality Senator Cruz is the new chairman of the Commerce Committee, and there's the NTIA proposal for spectrum auction to fund the agencies rip and replace program net neutrality already mentioned that, and who knows what else. So there's a lot of issues that are going to be happening here that impact the work that we're all committed to. So we'll be talking about some more of those things, and some of those, maybe Mala you want to address some, some of those issues or not, so I'm going to turn it over to you.

Mala Muralidharan

21:48

Thank you. You actually listed almost all things that are on my agenda my plate as well, you know. So thank you. Yes, with the new FCC chair, their priorities are likely to to change. They will change, and we will monitor those changes, especially the cyber security and the hot spot lending and Wi Fi on school busses. You know, those have been pretty, I won't call it controversial, but they they've been debated a lot. You know, I found school busses, especially, you know, has has had a lot of conversation around it. What are they using it for the children on the school busses? Are they using it to play games or do their homework? Well, it's keeping them quiet, and the bus drivers are happy. I think that's that's a positive. But other than that, you know, we've got to look at that program, the cyber security pilot program was totally underfunded compared to the amount of requests that they had. It was $200 million and almost five times as many in applications, if not more. So I don't know what end it's going to serve, and it's a two year pilot program, so, and we were just through the stage one, when in the application process where applicants have had to show an expression of interest, And then from that, there will be a selection, and that would be a much detailed, much more detailed application. So let's wait and see what happens. Right now, there hasn't been much movement on that front yet. The other thing that we that you know today is, of course, there are some deadlines. As far as E Rate is concerned, which is my primary job, and E Rate today is the deadline where the administrative window closes. So any changes schools and libraries need to make, they have to do it today, changes like changes to their square footage, their student count and any contact information changes branch and main library or school and school district connections have to be you know, any changes have to be established now they will lock that, and the application window opens on january 15. So after that, it'll be difficult to make any changes. And the application window for 2025, 26 that is starting the year, starts July 120, 25 and goes through June 30 of 20. 26 the application deadline for that year starts on January 15 and closes on March 26 so those are some of the deadlines that we need to be aware of. The State Procurement Office is setting up state master contracts for Category One, which is the internet access, so that it is more affordable and more prevalent available, especially in the rural areas where sometimes you don't have more than one. You know, service provider Mojave educational consortium has done contracts for Category Two, which is internal connections, networking, wireless equipment, routers, those kind of things, switches, hubs. The contract is already in place for that. Having said that about category two, Category Two, this is the last year it's in a five year cycle. This is the fifth year of the current cycle. So in and category two budgets are based on square footage for libraries and student count on for schools. So schools and libraries that haven't utilized the the entire amount that they are eligible for, this is their final chance to do that for this year. We have no idea how this is going to pan out in the next cycle. Whether they're going to base it on the same square footage, whether they're going to base it on student count, whether they're going to make any changes to the category two budget, remains to be seen, especially if they are budget cutting. That is one area which they are likely to cut, because it has been underutilized. So I urge all the libraries and schools to that haven't applied for the full amount that they are eligible for to make use of it this year. So FCC has actually set up a new USAC board. FCC sets up the USAC board. USAC is universal services, administrative company that administers the E Rate program, as well as three other programs, the lifeline, rural health high cost program, are all administered by USAC, and the USAC board is selected by the FCC chair, Jessica Rosenworcel appointed eight members to the board of directors, and that was you can read more about it if you Google it, the names of all of the appointees. It is. It's a mix of service providers as well as industry consultants and library and school representatives on the board, and that this board is really important because it it works with FCC, on the one hand, to clarify all the rules and provides guidelines to schools and libraries on how these funds can be utilized. So the board is plays a very crucial role in in in, in the disbursement of the whole Universal Service Fund. Officially, the ECF fund has sunset as of December 9, 2024 all the reimbursements for the program has happened. And there are going to be no more reimbursements for the ECF program. ACF program, as you know, had $7.2 billion that was set aside emergency connectivity fund, and this was for schools and libraries to provide devices as well as hot spots for students as well as patrons to take home as a COVID Relief measure. So that's come to an end. And as we all know, ACP came to an end. So there's a lot of funding available for different things, but funding that have come to an end as well. You know that we have to deal with telehealth. I'm working on some programs with Douglas vachuca City and Sedona public libraries. They are the three new libraries that have come on board and working on programming for them. We have provided them with funding for the equipment, and all the equipment has been purchased, so they have it available in their libraries, as well as if they do need to lend it out, they can. I can hand it back to you, Steve, for any questions. If anyone has otherwise, I.

Steve Peters

29:59

Yeah, any questions for Mala, thank you, Mala, you always do great job. So Mala, you just want to make one other quick comment about Shelby and some changes that are happening there,

Mala Muralidharan

30:15

right? Shelby's president,

Steve Peters

30:19

excuse me, Mala, we want to tell people what Shelby is.

Mala Muralidharan

30:22

Shelby? Yes, Shelby is schools, health and libraries, broadband coalition. Shelby is in its 15th year of existence. No, maybe more 15 years of conferences they've had. So they they've been in existence from at least 16 or 17 years now, and they have been championing the the challenges that schools, libraries and broadband, schools, health and libraries face as far as broadband is concerned. And they've, they've become a major player in dealing with these issues. With FCC, they've even been called to Congress to highlight some of the issues that we were facing, including the Universal Service Fund and Shelby's President John went housing has resigned. He'll still continue to be on the Shelby board, and they are looking for someone to fill his position. So if anyone's interested, Shelby has a wonderful website. You can go to shelby.org and you can look up what they do and how you if you are in a position to serve, can serve the organization.

Steve Peters

31:54

Thank you, Mala and so Shelby has been an important organization up there lobbying on behalf of many of us who are interested in all these many issues. So we appreciate that, and Mala has been very actively engaged in and Shelby, so any questions or comments for Mala before we move on? Okay, if not, let's move to Arizona and get an update. Erin Lorandos and Kelly cruci Guys want to give us an update on what's the latest with the broadband office.

Unknown Speaker

32:34

We sure do. Kelly, you want to go first?

Kelly Krusee

32:38

Sure? Can Can you hear me,

Steve Peters

32:40

yes. So can I introduce yourself please? Sure.

Kelly Krusee

32:44

Hi everyone. My name is Kelly cruci I'm the Community Engagement Manager at the state broadband office here in Arizona with the Arizona Commerce Authority. And today I am going to share some updates. And Steve, did you also want me to do a quick overview of the new website,

Steve Peters

33:01

yeah, yeah. Just quickly, though, please, yeah, yeah, okay. I will share the link also,

Kelly Krusee

33:10

okay, and then if you can give me access to share my screen, that's okay. Okay, so I'll plug a link in the chat, and then I'll let Erin try and assist. If I mention any links, she's very good at plugging those in as well. Okay, so first updates and I will share my screen. I can't talk and do two things at once. If I was chewing gum, we'd be in for a wild ride, right?

Steve Peters

33:37

Walk to school or carry your lunch. Yes. Okay, so

Kelly Krusee

33:41

this is our new website. I'll get into that and put the link in the chat. This came out, I think maybe a month ago, and it's a new initiative from the governor's office. Very excited about this website, connect all Arizona. And I just want to highlight a few things about this website because it is new. It is different. The old URL for the website still works. Everything redirects to this new website. And a few things for you to note here is this right here with the state broadband office at the top in this navigation up here, this is always your home button, so if you are clicking Other links and you want to get back to this page, which is the landing page. Just click the state broadband office that will always take you back. But right now we are in the application window, so we are very limited in the things that we can discuss, because it is active procurement. But I do want to highlight a few things, and I can talk about, you know, timelines, things that are all on the website, for short. So pre registration remains open. That started on November 4, it remains open even as we're in the application window. This pre registration is a first mandatory step in order to submit an application for bead so on this first landing page, you can get to pre registration. From here, you can also get to the sub grantee application as well. So we're going to go there, and here's are the things first I want to highlight about this website. So I'm going to scroll back to the top. This is under initiatives. So all the broadband initiatives are listed here. We've got bead we also have Digital Equity. There's a, b, d, g, middle mile, the rural broadband grant. So Digital Equity and broadband initiatives are all here. We are on the bead page right now. As you scroll down, there are these tabs here, timeline, Action Plan. This kind of walks you through the phases of the bead program. So if you're looking for any information, you can find it in these tabs and everything that we've done in the past and the things that we're doing moving forward. So we're in the sub grantee application phase right now. This page has a lot of information. You can scroll down through it first and foremo First, foremost is the application. We've got the dates here, so you all know the dates we're in the window. Round One, we will close February 5. Round two will begin April 12 through May 2. You can click this button here to get started, and then you can also go back if you haven't pre registered. So any bead applicant has to do this pre registration, and then that gets approved, and then you can apply. We've got the application timeline. This is important information here our application resources. So there's a lot of guidance resources here. We've been hosting application guidance webinars. We've recorded those, added the deck, added the recordings. And you could also see past webinars, past recordings here as well. You can sign up for future ones. So if you click on the Webinars now, we have moved past our guidance webinars, and starting next week, we will have our technical assistance sessions. So again, this is all technical it's nothing regarding anyone's specific application, because we are in the window. This is all about the technical pieces. So questions about, hey, when I click on this in the portal, it doesn't work. Or this file, when I download it, is this how it's supposed to look? So we're answering questions specific to that portal in these technical assistance sessions. Or we have four of those. We might add more. We're going to see how they go, if they're well attended, and collect some feedback on those. But again, back on this application, everything you need to know is here. It's a lot of information. So again, jump into those technical assistance sessions. If you've got questions, we've got the final project areas that are here, our data sets for the approved challenge process, market sounding information. So again, we're trying to store all the information here so that if there is something you need, it is available on the website. And I would say at this point in time, in time, those are the main things I want to show you about the website. Again, you can find everything here. There is a great Broadband Map that has come out, and I think it's technically called the Arizona State Broadband Map, but you can zoom in here. And I think I did do a quick little video on this and how it works, but you can type in your own address, you can zoom in and find specific things and just kind of see like served, underserved, unserved, some great information on this map. And I think that's it that I want to highlight for the website and my updates. Okay, thank you, Erin, for your assist in the chat. No

Erin Lorandos

38:49

problem. I didn't actually do much. I just wanted to make it clear that the only thing that's open so far for application is the bead side of things. So because Steve's going to ask me, my name is Erin Lorandos, and I'm the Digital Equity program manager. I always gotta get that in there. I appreciate it. Excuse

Steve Peters

39:05

me, Erin Kelly, did you stop sharing please? No, no, don't

Erin Lorandos

39:10

show my stuff too. Similar to what Kelly just went over on the bead page, is the Digital Equity page, and you can access that by clicking on initiatives up at the top and then clicking into the Digital Equity program. And my website isn't quite as robust quite yet, because, as I just mentioned, the the sub grant process for the Digital Equity program is still forthcoming. We did get our approval for our capacity grant application. This is the funding that the that NTIA has allocated to each state to implement the Digital Equity plan. We got that approval on December 19, and I. Our period of performance started the first of this month, so that kind of kicks off the Digital Equity timeline that you can see on the screen right now. If we scroll down just a smidge, you'll see the anticipated next steps and how that'll be laid out as we set specific dates. Of course, this information will be updated, but I just want to share that, you know there, there is a a timeline. However, it is long enough that don't worry if this is the first time that you're seeing this stuff. We're, we're going to be picking back up with our community round tables later this month. The exact dates will be shared soon, and that will kick off what you see here as that sub grantee prep period, which we will have a two month runway to the window for application actually opening. We heard from many of our stakeholders that you know, that that's very important to get that that runway so that they can get approval to apply. And so we really wanted to acknowledge that. Then after that two months, we will open the the application window itself, we will share what will be required for that application during that runway, and we will host webinars to kind of talk about that process and everything similar to what the bead side of things is doing. Then again, just like with bead, once the window actually opens, we'll only be able to answer technical questions, and we'll move through that process. We do have nine months from the first of January to get back to NTIA with all of the specifics on the sub grantee recommend recommendations and how we're going to be spending the the remaining dollars, we received just over $16 million here in Arizona for this part of the puzzle, and because we were running a Sub grant process, a lot of those dollars weren't directly tied to a project in our application. So we have that nine month window to finalize all of that and get back to NTIA. At that point, when we submit it back to them, there will be another just final approval process before the funds will start flowing. So just to make that really clear. You know, we are probably looking at the end of this year before, before we actually have most of these dollars here in Arizona, that is. And so keep your eye on this page that you can see right now, as well as your inboxes. Everyone who has expressed interest in staying connected with the de program is on our list and will be alerted when we do set those, those community round tables for later this month. And what that next, those next steps, will look like if you're not on that list, if you scroll up to the top, Kelly, there is a link here to add yourself to our list. I think it's all the way at the top. Stay up to speed, or keep up to date, or something like that. Where is it? Kelly, it's up at the top, I thought, or at least it is on all the other pages. There it is. Stay up to speed. If you click on that, you can submit your your contact information to us and get added to the list serves for both programs. Um, let's see otherwise, other really big Digital Equity related news that I do want to share, not coming from our office directly, but at the federal level, there have been some of the recommendations for the competitive grant released, they have recommended, I believe it's 24 applications from across the country, and two of those actually have projects within Arizona. And so the two, the two projects that were going to that are going to affect work here in Arizona. One is the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. They are expanding the digital navigator program in conjunction with Gila River Indian Community and the digital connect initiative through Gila River telecom. And so that is fantastic news. The other application that includes work in Arizona was from Goodwill Industries and so expanding their workforce development and digital Digital Equity programming. Here, I'm still getting re connected with both of those programs, so I don't have additional details. However, the NTIA press release, which I can share here momentarily in the chat, does give the details of all 24 programs that have thus far been recommended for approval. I say recommended because this is similar to all of the other projects that we talk about, basically at this point. So the applications are have hit the the NTIA requirements, and they still need to be approved by NIST. So they wanted to announce, though, that those, those 24 had been recommended before, you know, change over on the 20th and all of that, I'm sure, just to show the the work that's happening. Another note on that is we do anticipate there to be more recommended projects coming across. Oh, thank you, Kelly, the the total amount for what you can see here so far is only about two 50 million, and there was over 800 million allocated for this first round of competitive grants. So we do anticipate seeing more applications. Of course, because it was competitive, we have no idea if there will be any more from Arizona or not, but there were quite a number of very strong applications from Arizona, we know. So fingers crossed on that piece. Anything else I'm missing, I don't think at this point, but happy to answer any questions that folks will have. So

Steve Peters

46:05

Erin, this is for you and Kelly, and you guys complete the fifth if you so choose. And maybe this is a question for Sandip or the governor's office about what kind of advocacy is happening from Arizona regarding some of the issues that we just talked about with Jonathan and all the other USF and all these other issues that are going on. Again, you guys complete the field trip you like, but it's kind of important to know that, because we're going to also be contacting the senators offices and so forth. So it's

Erin Lorandos

46:41

not really our part of the game. So I'm not sure if it's the fifth or just, you know, pleading ignorance, but the state broadband office, you know, we're not, we're not on any hills, we're not, we're not in that, that part of the game, directly. So thank you for that. We're very interested as well, and you know, obviously supportive of everything that, that you know, can be done, but it's not you know something that we can directly do.

Steve Peters

47:11

Any other questions for Kelly or Erin.

Speaker 1

47:18

I take it. I was going to ask Kelly, how many bead

Henry Goldberg

47:22

project areas are there? 67

Kelly Krusee

47:31

and we are also,

Unknown Speaker

47:33

were those, Oh, were those areas

Henry Goldberg

47:36

significantly impacted by the market sounding period that you had,

Kelly Krusee

47:41

there were some adjustments. I because I don't know, I can't speak to what the adjustments were, but there were some changes that were made before market sounding and after

Steve Peters

48:01

any other questions? Okay, so a couple of things, which I make this announcement every meeting. As you know, I do send out the chat after the meeting, but if you want, since there's a lot of good information in the chat, that you can download the chat after the meeting. If you go to chat and at the very top, you'll see three ellipses, and if you click on that, you can download the chat to your computer, because there's a lot of good stuff here with lots of links and all that kind of stuff. So just just a reminder about that. And then secondly, is that I also is most of you know that I do send out after the meeting. I send out the recording, the chat, and all that sort of stuff, as well as pretty much anything that's talked about in the meeting. If there's links, I will include those in my newsletter. So just wanted to, because it's hard to keep up with everything and all the links, stuff that people talk about. So I just wanted to mention that. So getting back on the agenda real quick, we're going to run out of time fairly quickly, but a couple of quick things. Tracy Morris, I don't think you're online. Are you? Amelia, you want to introduce yourself quickly and talk about the Workforce Partnership that you've got going on Absolutely. Steve.

Amelia De Jesus

49:30

Thank you so much. Hi all. Amelia de Jesus, so vice president of Workforce Solutions here at the wireless infrastructure Association, just a little background. As an association, we have been very focused on public advocacy, Public Affairs and Workforce Development in our goal to make sure that we're supporting widespread deployment of broadband infrastructure for all citizens to have broadband access so as part of our workforce. Solutions, we absolutely think about training and education. And within wie we have a telecommunications Education Center, and that center really thinks about all of the aspects of our industry, whether it's wireless, wireline, fiber, das, Wi Fi, you name it. So we think about the mix of technology when we think about educating students, people that need to be re skilled up. Skill today, we have, or we started off with about 35 courses across the industry, everything from fundamental courses to more technical and recently, I shared with Steve, and we'll also share this to this group, and perhaps in the newsletter that he sends out. But we joined forces, as we have been in the past, with the fiber broadband association. So now, in partnership with FBA, we are providing the 144 course fiber optic training. Within that course. I just want to give you guys a little synopsis. So they cover fiber theory. They cover everything around fiber cables, connections, the splicing, the installation, the testing, maintenance, and we also tag in fiber for wireless applications as well. So we're really excited about this partnership again. We've partnered with FBA for a long time, and it's exciting that both associations can really make sure that we're complimenting the offerings, because ideally, we want to make sure that we're offering good jobs to individuals, but also long lasting careers within our industry. So short and sweet, Steve, and I'll send it back to you. Thank you.

Steve Peters

51:43

Thank you, Amelia. And yes, I will put that information and and the information you sent me in my in the newsletter, so that will be there any questions for Amelia? Going once, going twice. Okay, so while we're just as a follow up to to Amelia, that I am going to be doing, and I've mentioned this before, but I've started to work on this now to do a series, probably a series, on workforce development. There's, I've been contacted by a number of different organizations who are engaged in workforce development, particularly as it relates to Digital Inclusion and so forth. And so I'm hoping to do a series about that. I do have a call into Carlos Contreras, who is the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, and among other things, that apparently they are doing a lot of technology related training, and so I'm hoping that he will come and talk about who they are, what they do, and how they relate to some of the work that we're doing. And I'm sure Erin that you guys have been in touch with them also. So anyway, that's going to be on the horizon, hopefully in the near future. Any other announcements I know there's a bunch of stuffs been put in the chat. Any other announcements that people would like to share today?

Kelly Mukherjee

53:16

Going once? Yes, it's Kelly muggerjee from ASU enterprise technology, we are looking to increase our following on LinkedIn, and so I'll put on our link in the chat. If you aren't already following us, we would love for you to follow us on LinkedIn. Thank you so much.

Steve Peters

53:37

And just a reminder that may 20 through 22 that NDIA, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, will be holding their net Inclusion Conference here in Arizona at the Gila River Indian Community. And it's, it's a very prestigious conference. Encourage you all to plan to attend, and then also they are looking for sponsors. So I do have a link in my newsletter. If you're interested in being a sponsor, I encourage you to do that. We would certainly like to see organizations engage with Arizona to be sponsors, and, of course, to participate. Any other announcements, anything that people put in the George Steve

Mark Goldstein

54:23

Mark Goldstein, I put two things about upcoming Smart City related events. Lev gonick and his ASU enterprise technology team are having, I think it's their eighth or ninth annual smart region summit on March 4. It is free to attend in downtown Phoenix, but that's a physical only event, no virtual components to that and the connective, which is the Phoenix area Smart City Consortium. That many of you may be familiar with from the past, and Pappas Dominic Pappas leadership early on from that, has a couple of workshops, but they also have their Connected Smart City event a bit later in March, again, that's free and no virtual component will require physical attendance, so I'm sure you'll roll those into the newsletter, but thought i'd give just a little color while they're fresh.

Steve Peters

55:30

Good. Thanks. Mark, anybody else,

Amelia De Jesus

55:32

Steve, I was also remiss in sharing on the 16th of January, if anyone's in the DC area. Plan to be there. Would like to attend this event. Wie is hosting an event in DC on preparing the broadband workforce for a connected future, and it's going to be a fireside chat conversation with industry and policy leaders, featuring FCC commissioner Brandon Carr and Jeffrey stocks. So again, that will be in DC on January 16, between 10am and 12pm

Steve Peters

56:11

Amelia. There will not be any virtual

Amelia De Jesus

56:15

No, unfortunately, this one's in person.

Steve Peters

56:18

Okay. Any other announcements? So a couple of quick things. First of all, has we've been doing this series on on what's happening in Washington? Is this helpful? Beneficial? Interesting? Do you want to see more of that? I mean, obviously the next few weeks in particular are going to be pretty interesting, but I'd like your thoughts about that.

Steve Peters

56:51

Okay, no comments. So secondly is, are there any issues or topics that you would like for us to be addressing in the near future,

Mark Goldstein

57:06

bead I mentioned before, and I know you're going to return to the community owned or broadband as a panel or topic that got postponed a bit last year. But I also think it might be useful to have some ag tech paneled, and I had have several suggestions for people that might be potential participants in agricultural technology. A lot happening in Yuma and just otherwise in that arena.

Steve Peters

57:42

Okay, thanks. Mark, anybody else? Well, I guess not so I believe that we are done for today. I think you all know that I'm going to stop recording. And I think you all know that we do do our chat afterwards, if anybody wants to do.

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