March 21, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

12:56AM Mar 25, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Nicole Umayam

Mark Goldstein

Erin Lorandos

Mala Muralidharan

John Kelly

Henry Goldberg

Megan Hammond

 Krystal Saverse

Tamara Rosenberg

Michael Holcomb

Kelly Krusee

Judy Sulltrop

Brian Fickett

Anthony Constantini

Keywords:

broadband

bead

acp

arizona

program

challenge

reservation

office

funding

process

report

areas

aca

state

fiber

utility

steve

network

services

questions

All righty. Good morning, everybody. Glad to see you all. Lots of things to talk about and several introductions to do today. So let's just jump into it and get started. As always, and I did. Okay. All righty. So sorry about that. So, first of all, I was always like to thank our sponsors CareFirst healthplan, Karen Ziegler, consulting services, Valley Telecom, Kajeet and Triad, Wireless. Thank you guys for your support. I want to remind you all, I'll probably do this several times during the day. Oops, just a second here. Caption

okay, why is captions not show me?

Sorry, Steve, once you started, I turned them on for my screen. But do I need to stop them? I

don't know Mark.

hiding them, maybe you can turn them on? Okay. I thought you would turn them on when you like you usually do?

Well, they should be turned on. I don't know why they're not showing up here. Anyway, we'll come back to it. But anyway, just jumping in, we got a lot of things to talk about today. So what I started to tell you, it's just a reminder that most of the things that are announced today are in the email announcement that I sent out. I know it's lengthy lots of stuff. But if you want to find where what people talked about, about events and things coming up and links, the most of those are in my email today, previous to this meeting, and then the others will be there. When I send out the next announcement, so it's a good way to keep up with all the things that are going on, because there are a lot of things. And so with that. Know, give me a second here want to find out why the.

Caption captions are not showing.

Okay, well, I'll keep working on that. In the meantime, want to just jump into it? We have a number of things to talk about. First of all, mayhem, you want to introduce Anthony?

Sure. Thanks, Steve. I just wanted to introduce Anthony Constantini. He's the State Library's new Digital Inclusion library consultant. So Anthony, if you want to unmute and say Hi,

everyone, it's a pleasure to be here today. I'm coming from ASU library, where as a public services coordinator for about a year. And then previous to that I was at Scottsdale Public Library for a little over four years. I'm just happy to be here and working with everyone on Digital Equity.

Sounds great. Anthony. So we look forward to your regular participation in our meetings. When you can use you'll see we do try to do regular updates. We'll add you to the list from the State Library about regular updates from you. Anyways, that's great. And then I know Erin, you're probably got some I know you've got at least one or two new announcements also. And so let's just jump into the Broadband office. And I don't think Sandip is here. I haven't seen him yet. But Erin, are you doing the update today? Yep,

Krystal and I are gonna do a brief update from the Broadband office and then unfortunately, we do need to hop off for another call as well. So I do apologize, but I just want to say welcome Anthony. I'm so excited to get to know you more. So I'm super briefly I'll just start. We do have a new Team Member. You remember as well, who was able to join today's call, we actually had two new people start this week. But Kelly joined us for today's call. And then our other person who started this week is Jamie Garrett. She is the Senior Broadband Program Manager focused primarily on the infrastructure side of the BEAD program. And she will be joining a future meeting to meet you all, just didn't work out with the schedules this week. But I would love to hand the floor over to Kelly to introduce herself. We are so excited she's doing this.

And as we know, we were talking about earlier, Kelly, we're so glad to have you back. And joining us again, we missed you.

Well, thank you. Yes, I am back. Prior to commerce authority, I was at the Arizona Department of Education for about two and a half years and was able to participate in this meeting. And now I'm at the commerce authority as the Community Engagement Manager for the state Broadband office, which is very exciting. This is my first week. So I am drinking from the firehose, but so excited to be here and excited to be a part of this group again. So thanks for having me. And nice to meet you, Anthony as well.

And then otherwise, just super briefly from the DEA perspective, and then I'll hand it over to Crystal to do BEAD update. We are in our final final updates, hopefully, for the Digital Equity plan. We are still on track to have that submitted back to NTIA in its final format by our due date, which is March 28. And then very shortly thereafter, we don't have an exact timeline, but we do expect to see the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the state to apply for the capacity grants, which will then precipitate a sub grant process, probably in the fall, but again, exact dates TBD on that. But of course, we will continue to share that information as we have it. In other general broadbean News. The many members of our team are kicking off our engagement tour. This next week, we will be in the north eastern portion of the state. And we do have a flyer that we can share out with more information. I'll drop my email and and Kelly's email in the chat so that we can share that flyer out with anyone who may not have seen it yet, I did send a copy to you, Steve. And I also sent it to the State Library already. So a couple folks on this call have probably seen it. All I did,

excuse me here in just a second. So I did include I didn't, I don't usually don't send attachments. But I did include the dates and times and the link in my email. Excuse me, engagement tours.

I do appreciate that. Thanks so much just in case anyone would like a school flyer, though we do have one that can be printed and shared with community members if you are so inclined. Um, let's see here. So so this is the first of four trips, right, so we're going to be going around the entire state meeting with every county and every federally recognized tribe here in Arizona. So we've got our work cut out for us. But we are so excited to continue these relationships that we were able to start to foster during the Digital Equity plan writing and the BEAD plan writing portion. And now as we move more into, you know, the implementation of these programs, we're excited to get back out and make sure that what we're doing still aligns with all of the local efforts. So those are my super brief updates. And I do believe that crystal is with us for a few more.

Hey, okay, so not much to comment on for the challenge process. But anybody that doesn't know what the challenge process is, it's an opportunity for folks to challenge the status of BEAD eligible locations. So if you go to our Broadband page az commerce.com, forward slash Broadband, go to the BEAD on the left side of the screen, and then the challenge process, all of the materials related to the challenge process can be found there. We also have our AZ Broadband navigator map. So that's a map that shows basically all BEAD eligible locations. A BEAD eligible location is location receives less than 100 by 20 megabytes per second Broadband services and where there's not already a federal commitment there. So you can check that out. And if you have any questions, you can email us at Broadband or AZ commerce Broadband, email or you can email myself

Thank you Crystal Have any questions for Erin or crystal? If not moving on? I don't believe Nicole or Crispus NT, are on the call this morning. Oh, oh, there you are. Nicole didn't see Sorry. Empty in a while. Got any updates for us?

Hi, everybody. I'm Nicole Umayam. I'm the federal program officer with NTIA for the state of Arizona. You know, we're in the thick of all these processes that Broadband office has laid out. But you know, as a reminder, I'm also here as a resource for stakeholders to answer questions about the BEAD program, or NTIA or as best as I'm able to facilitate connections with our other federal partners as well. But it's an exciting time. Please, if you're able to help connect people with the challenge process information, because this is a really critical window, as everybody knows, to make sure that we're doing that appropriate ground truthing of the BEAD map to get all those right locations on there.

Sorry, go ahead.

Well, I know I know we had Chris speaking last week. Tomorrow is the deadline for the TCP round to NOFO. There, we can't really comment on the other Digital Equity, no photos that are upcoming, but that'd be about it.

So Nicole, I believe you have a good PowerPoint presentation about the challenge process. So does ACA. Do you guys all that stuff online? And it's out on your web page? Aaron?

Well, the the Broadband office has done a great job of building out resources for eligible challengers. A lot of that is built on NTIA A's guidance and a lot of it is tailored to Arizona. So if you go to their challenge, page portal, you can get instructions on registering for the challenge process. And then they'll essentially link to the NTIA documents as well for some of the technical guidance around what constitutes challenges and that type of thing. But always happy to share more information. If you'd like another version of some some of the challenge process stuff that we've presented before I can certainly circulate that too.

Thank you, Nicole. Any questions for Erin or Nicole? Yes, Steve

Moore Goldstein. Go ahead, Mark. So actually, I don't see PJ way on the call today. But he's started both a LinkedIn post in some correspondence with some of us, looking to initiate some dialogue with the Broadband office. And among us about the art off process, the FCC has just raised their expectations, you know, to 100 Slash 20 universally, and our office back in the 25. Three requirement days and also there's continuing and ongoing issues with our doff defaults. So the issue is how that will affect the availability of Broadband service or we'll locations for funding in the BEAD round. And whether there will be blocks of locations that are not available for funding but will not be served by art off in the end. And so some states have actually sent proactive letters to the art offer recipients in their states seeking to engage on their commitment and their plans. And sorry, I'm raising this issue. I believe it is an issue but on behalf of PJ who is trying to initiate some dialogue, so I don't know if perhaps, Aaron, we could inform Sandeep and see if there's an appetite for some focus discussion on that issue.

I just wanted to pop in with a reminder that this state Broadband office is hosting weekly office hours as well which we can drop a link to and those are one on one conversations built into the schedule directly with Sandeep and crystal and Perla Lopez necessary in that what might be a great way to start this conversation or of course, you are welcome to reach out you know directly and we can get something on the calendar. You know, we have a few ways to do that, I guess is the the short thing here.

And perhaps you know someone could reserve a specific office half hour and alert other people and make that a focus of one of those half hours. That's a good good suggestion. Yeah,

we can share that link to again, all of those links are all on the challenge process page. But it's a lot so we can filter down for you and send that link to the office hours.

Thank you. And can I can I jump in as well. This is Tamara and, and from resound networks. And we do have art off. And we are actively building and for all of our areas that we have art off. Those are gigabytes, BEAD networks. So we will be exceeding the art off obligations for the areas that we're covering. So I just wanted to jump in and say Not everyone's defaulting. And also just to point out that Sandeep Sophos has actively reached out to, I believe, and I can't speak for you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe he's reached out to all of the vendors already, because we had our meeting with him. I want to say back in January, where we were asked to recommit and confirm that we are doing what we say we are obligated to do.

Great information tomorrow. Thank you.

You're very welcome. So Mark,

you beat me to it, I was going to raise that issue. And I'm glad you did. Can you just go back for a minute, and explain a little bit about art off and what it is, and, and maybe a little better, a little more understanding about what the issue is. Um,

yeah, I'm not intimately familiar with the program. But providers basically, bid for the right to cover certain areas in a reverse auction mode and gain or gaining substantial federal incentives to do that. But there have been a spate of of winners and interesting losers like Starlink, who at first seemed to win, but then was dis disallowed. So there's a lot of flux in the areas that were offered and thus committed to there are a spate of defaults going on and more expected. Frankly, I credit Tamara, and those that are delivering on their art off commitments. But those areas under our dwarf are taken out of the BEAD service of a location BEAD availability. support model. And so if they fail to get their art off infrastructure, in the timelines that were committed initially, they will be outside the BEAD funding window and remain unserved or underserved.

Yeah, I'll just I'll just add that this has happened in other states with true defaults where those providers have gone back and contested Hey, this enforceable commitment no longer stands and re releases those locations up for for BEAD eligibility. So that is possible. I mean, ultimately, states have to rely on the FCC designation. So even as they're amassing evidence that maybe the build out is not going to happen. Maybe it's, you know, maybe there's other delays to impact that they have to rely on that final FCC determination before they can remove it as an enforceable commitment or, you know, a massive burden of proof. So this is the cert most certainly is the space to watch. There's one more wave of deduplication efforts that will happen after the challenge process. So you know, as this stuff is really day by day, we could we could see that change, too, even beyond the challenge window. You know, ultimately there's a line in the sand the, the map has to be the best they can get in and begin to open up those project areas.

So my follow up will be to get back to PJ alerted me to the conversation I had initiated by his outreach to some of us and suggest that perhaps we do schedule, one of the Broadband office, office hour sessions and invite a variety of people of interest. To that to discuss though tomorrow I am glad to hear that the Office has specifically engaged the odd off recipients in the state and sought their recommitment or continued commitment to meet their goals. Thank you. Oh,

yes, they put our feet to the fire so you can rest assured they're on it.

Okay, We need to move on. We have a couple of people who are going to have to leave us pretty soon Johnny, who's still on John Kelly.

Here, Steve.

So you gotta you gotta leave as soon. So you want to give us an update, please? Yeah, just

the I don't know, how serious.

Can you introduce yourself real quickly? Sure. My

name is John Kelly. I am a principal with the Government Relations consulting firm try advocates. The lobbyists for the HVAC group as well as number of other entities but the state Broadband office sits within the Arizona Commerce Authority. The Arizona Commerce Authority is up for its sunset continuation review by the legislature. It's had a lot of great support out of the house of representatives on a bipartisan basis. But the Senate has been a different challenge the Senate government Chair, Senator Jake Hoffman from the Queen Creek area, has proposed to eliminate the ACA and most of its programs. He's running an amendment in a committee today, our committee on a bill a strike everything amendment that would eliminate ACA move most of its functions. Under the Office of Economic Opportunity changed the leadership of the ACA board to largely consist of small business members would create a private right of action. So anybody could sue the ACA for any of the economic development programs, they have the least or sorry, the most innocuous thing in it is just simply transferring the ACA from transferring the state Broadband office to the department administration. Now ACA is not formally a state agency, it operates under a different set of rules. So moving it from a non state agency, to a state agency may have some unforeseen consequences, both from a staffing standpoint and other standpoint, I don't see that as necessarily being the biggest problem with that amendment. But I wanted to make sure this group which is so heavily focused on Broadband was aware of this

issue today. And the bill number, John, please.

House Bill 2471. I put it in the chat. Ah, thank you.

So John, is there really an appetite for this or just one one person who's kind of pushing this?

Well, he wouldn't be doing it unless there was some other support for it. But I don't think it's not going to go anywhere. I think the strategy is to the business community is putting in a lot of words of opposition to the proposal, but not giving it the time of day. But it's definitely a risk. But it's going to have to get worked out in the in the fullness of time with negotiations over budget, and other most past kind of things, but it's gonna be ugly.

Thanks. Any questions for John? Okay, moving on, Judy Solterra. With Mark Kelly's office. Judy, you still there? And you want to give an update?

Sure. Um, let's see right now, you know, our office is really busy. This is this is the submittal time for cities, towns and other jurisdictions to apply for congressionally directed spending. So these are projects that, you know, are funded either through the through existing grant programs, but they're a non competitive process. So we, we have a deadline of April 5, we just pushed it out. And so this is, you know, we have funded Broadband projects before, but a lot of I think a lot of jurisdictions are using some, they, you still have to qualify in the programs where it's available, if you will. So if it's a rural program, they still have to qualify under, you know, USDA Rural Development. But, you know, our team, that's what's keeping us really busy right now, because we're fielding questions, and we do work with nonprofits at times, but we've coordinated with a senator cinemas office, and so the process is a little more streamlined this year, if if an entity submits then they will. Senator cinema, this office will be looped in. So you know, all submissions will be seen by both Senators at the same time. And that's really our update. It looks like they've reached agreement on the budgets. There. You know, I'm not sure if the vote will happen tomorrow, but we're still waiting to find out there's a waiting period so there may be a few days here where it officially the government will be shut down but it will probably be over the weekend. And yeah, that's it for right now. I know They're, you know, we were in DC last week with the Tick Tock ban, you know, was being voted on. And I think it comes in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee early next week. Yeah. And then the senator just announced a lot of funds for the chips act. It looks like they are going to start funding those coming in. I think that it brings like 2000 jobs to Arizona. And, yeah, it's for national security. And that's all I got.

Judy, on ACP from the senators perspective and office? Well,

I don't I don't have an update on that yet. I don't know if it was included. I know that he supports it and has written letters. But you know, what, our, our team has been really focused on these funding requests. And so we haven't had a breakdown. But I, at this point, I haven't heard that it's in. So that's, you know, that's the news. I'll let you know as soon as we we get the information? I keep asking. So I know it's very important. And the senator surely supports that. It's makes so much sense.

The Mark? Yeah. This is my Allah. I'm the state rate coordinator for public libraries. I do have some news for ACP, which I saw in the communications daily, they report that the additional funding for ACP is not included in the 2024 appropriations, the minibus package that Congress will take up later this week. The White House also has reached an agreement for the for the funding, and they say that this is not in that package. And also the things that we were looking for any rate, the rip and replace, you know, the Huawei and other Chinese products from China that we are expected to rip and replace with the allowable products. That's also not in the package. So

that's the $3 billion gap from the initial funding to rip and replace, who is another Chinese equipment? Right? There was about 5 billion or 4 billion, but there was a $3 billion gap.

Right. Right. And that's also not included in the packet. So that's not good news. Do you have anything?

Nope. That was my report. Steve. Thanks.

So the President was just was just here in Arizona.

Put some of the information in the in case anybody wants to see what didn't catch everything. Mala just said. So. If they want I don't have the link right here. But communications daily, was reporting it yesterday. Yes. So can look up that article if you'd like. Okay. Oh, and I'm with Common Sense Media. For those of you that don't know me in Arizona director. Sorry, Steve.

No problem. We're

gonna you were gonna juice myself.

I'd never do that. Okay, so as I mentioned, as most of you probably know that the President was here in Arizona, yesterday, they before lost track of time here, but he and of course, the senator bank was here also announcing the grants and loans for hintel and the new Bab and the development they're doing here in Arizona. So that's pretty exciting. Well, they're doing actually, I guess Intel has four sites, including my son working with them and Portland. Anyway, moving on. Anything else? Any questions before before we move on? So if not, I want to jump on to our our update this morning. And welcome Brian Fickett, who's the general manager of Tohono O'odham Nation, utility authority. And with that, Brian, I'm going to turn it over to you and I believe you have something to share. And so I will stop sharing.

Okay, thank you. Hey, let me get my screens pulled up here.

While he's while he's doing that. So this actually is continuation last week, we had some presentations about what's happening in Indian country. And so this is a good follow up to that. So go ahead, Brian.

All right. So I'll just kind of give a brief overview of the utility authority. A lot of people don't understand or know we even exist. And we are a the utility that provides all all while we're a unique utility. We've got all these these different services that we provide for the Tohono O'odham Nation. Back in the 70s, the leadership of the the tribal leaders took the they saw what the Navajos are doing with their utility authority. And they took that model and and designed that model for the Tohono O'odham Nation. So we've got the services that we cover, I'll get to here in just a little bit, but we've got 4400 square miles of territory that we cover. The reservation is basically the size of the state of Connecticut. We've got approximately 35,000 tribal members. That number varies depending on which statistics that you're reading. We've got, we employ 110 employees, we've gotten 91% of those employees are tribal members. And the tribe is broken to 11 different districts. So each district, we has kind of their own set of rules that we have to to go by. It's almost like working for different states. The different services that we provide is we've got electric service in and the whole reservation that's on all of them, as far as reservations are concerned, is a little different than most reservations because we have 100% of our housing Left Coast 100% of our housing and commercial buildings have electricity. We got 4000 of services that in total of about on the residential side, there's about 3200 services that we serve out of that 4000. On the water side, we have around 3360 services that we serve and that includes some commercial and dental services are broken down into 26 different commercial water systems. And we have an additional five non commercial water systems which are non commercial ones, they have five or fewer customers hooked up to him. And those those different commercial water systems, they're all individual. They've got their own tanks, their own non wells. So it takes a lot for us to manage. We also have wastewater lagoons, and we've got 90 160 services that are connected to our lagoons. The rest of the services, our houses or commercial buildings have septic tanks. We don't we're not in charge of getting a septic tanks, the Indian Health Services is in charge of the septic tanks for the the nation. We also serve 700 customers on propane that's a mixture of commercial and residential customers. And then on the telephone side we've got round 3300 access lines which is commercial and residential. And then we have currently we have about 1300 customers of Broadband and today I want to bring to you the Broadband side of it but just kind of to show the electric side we in the past we've we've really dealt with grants on the on the telecom side and the water and wastewater side the water wastewater infrastructure was all funded by Indian Health Services and we continue or the EPA

look at question 80 And see responses to 71 but I think 71 of 72 are in leaders

who is that speaking Can you please look like Brian

anyways, the the the water wastewater infrastructure like says is all been kept has been providing funding through Indian Health Services. The electric side, we've not really had a grant funding on that until the last couple of years. And now the grant funding has really been active with some of the legislation that's passed in the legislature. And so we're now that's kind of where I'm focusing my duties out right now is going and getting grant funding and electric side and the telephone side. So we tween those two, we stay very busy. Going to the telephone side, what's really interesting is back in the 80s, the utility authority created its own telephone company it is an FCC regulated telephone company. This is a map of the the main reservation, which is the territory for our our telephone company. The there is a couple other areas that we do not cover for telephone, which is the savvier district which is just south of Tucson where the SAFFiR mission is. And the we've got a little district just in the Florence area, it's called the Florence village. And then he lived in and we get to San Lucie district. And we don't serve either one of those two currently, but we are looking at opportunities that we can serve those those villages. But when you look at this, this map is a very busy map. But the if you look at the the all the it's got really highlights all of our villages that we're we're at. And we do have fiber running completely all the way through the nation. Our fiber is the magenta or color purple color. Right now what we're doing is working on our fiber to the home projects, which is replacing a lot of the carp copper, that's it in some of these villages. We just got a connect reconnect three grants or the USDA around $10 million. And then we've got around three or $4 million from the Arizona Broadband group through the ACA. And both of those projects will get us pretty much now 91% fibre to the home. And then we are have put in an application or in the process put an application into NTIA for the TVC P grant, which is a tribal Broadband grant to finish our fibre to the home projects and provide fiber from our our main reservation to the Santa Vir district and then run fiber all around the San Vir district because currently they have some copper that's being served by CenturyLink. We will replace that in in have fiber running through all that whole village. But in the meantime, if you see the numbers on here, that represents our fixed wireless system that we recently have have launched. And we're about 99% Complete. This fixed wireless system is running off of a 2.5 network and a 3.65. The 2.5 is a spectrum that TL UA purchased. Several years ago, the FCC opened an auction up for the 2.5 on the reservations. And we were lucky enough to get that 2.5 The 3.65 Network is an unregulated network. This the plan is is that we're gonna put this wireless system even in the sand veer and sand Lucy and forests junction villages. So that will be any place that we don't have funding to put Broadband This is a stop gap for those areas. And then once we have the fiber built in we're going to use this network as a backup and redundancy system. And eventually my plan is in my vision is is that a village member can walk from their house to into the village to to the rec center or somewhere and never lose connection be able to use their own neuron account and have fiber or access to the internet. Now with all of this infrastructure that we've gotten in place, one of the challenges is, is education. And it's very interesting in today's world, that we've got people on the reservation, that do not understand what internet or Broadband services are. And that has been a challenge. And luckily, we've partnered with the community college with the Tohono o Community College who received the NTIA grant. And they have put together a program where they're giving laptops to participants in the program, teaching them how to to turn the laptop on how to set up email. And really, I'll teach them all the functions or things that they can do with Broadband. Because this is something that especially our elderly community, they just don't understand it. And there they are, a lot of them are a little concerned about even getting out on the internet, if they even know what it is. One of the other things that things that we got to tackle is the feasibility of this, we've, you know, we've got about 55% of our customer base is low income. And the tribe does provide a subsidy to these low income folks and the elders. But the subsidy really only covers their their water and electric bills. And it really doesn't cover their Broadband. We've with ECP program we've had close to 400 people on our on that program, and on tribal country that's $75 off of their telephone and internet bill. But that's gonna be a challenge going forward, because those folks won't, that's another $75 are going to pay without a CPA program. Now, some of them don't, don't take advantage the full 75 Because of subsidies and other programs that were able to get them on. But that's, that's a challenge. And we're trying to figure out how we can come inside and really compensate or put something in place in place today ECP program, but all of our funding comes from basically from grants or the tribal members. So it's, it's a challenge, it's a very big challenge. So that's kind of a highlight to you, a i There's a lot of good things out there going on. One of the other things that's happening as we are on electric side, we are starting to we're putting together a plan that will allow us to use this fiber network to be able and wireless network to be able to communicate to our substations and communicate to the outside world with in and then we want to take that this infrastructure and be able to put micro grids and and battery storage in different areas of the reservation, be able to control those those devices and eventually reduce our peaks on the electric side, which is very costly, and provide some of our own power on the reservation itself. So it's it's a, it's a very interesting time to be in the utility business and looking forward to more funding and more help out here. But it's we're changing lives every day with all the utilities services that we're providing and adding to the system. So there's any questions I'm open to questions.

Easy stuff, Brian, you guys are doing great work. So Brian work is there mobile service on the reservation.

There is there is cellular. We don't provide it but we manage what cell companies can come on the reservation and where they put towers at and that type of stuff. But if you go out there on the highway 86 There is As soon as dead spots on the reservation, and if you go up north also, like, if you're going from cells to Castle Grande, there's a couple areas that are really dead spots on for cellular. And we're currently working with some cell companies to fill in those sites.

So are you seeing transition as we have with almost every place, that people were dropping their landlines and moving towards mobile is that happening on the reservation at this point,

it's it's happened to some degree, but not like it has off the reservation. And some of that's because of the the ruggedness of the territory and the lack of cell coverage in some of the areas. Because we have, there's like, like on this map, there's managers dam and popsicle farms, those are down right on the border. And there's not much out in those areas. And managers dam, we do have a cell tower in that location. But it's, it only serves that little area. And so it's, it's, it's one of those things, if you ever have a chance and have time just to take a drive just go down Highway 86. And you can see the vastness of the of a rural area that this really leads to serve him.

That's pretty amazing stuff. questions for Brian. Brian, do you want to stop sharing? And yeah, I will chat with you. So any questions or comments for Brian?

Now he's going to ask Brian, what what does a tribal member pay for fiber to the home service? How much do they have to pay for the service?

Currently, the 100 because we got, you know, 25 into service. But if you do the 100 to three, it's a little over $100? Or 220? I'm sorry. Yeah. And actually, you know, even from from my house, I live really right next to the reservation in rural part of, of Tucson. And I don't get as good as services. So most of the area's on the reservation. So it's, it's kind of interesting, I pay a lot more than $100 for the service I have. So it it's one of those challenges, because the price is high. But and we're working on looking at that rate structure, and how we can can manage that. But the it's it's pretty phenomenal, though the type of service that we do offer for a vast, vast rural area. So

yeah, so you said the bandwidth is something like 100 megabits? Yes.

120 100 100. Download and 20 Upload. Okay, that's our top tier.

Okay, so you can go Well, beyond that. I guess. That's what you're offering with?

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the highest speed that we have right now. We've got 25 Three, service and some others in between there.

Okay, moving on. Thank you, Brian. I have a question. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Michael.

Hi, Michael Holcomb, Arizona Telemedicine Program at the UV. Just a question. Wondering how the ACP funding running out might be affecting the utility as a provider, if that's an effect for you at all, or for the carriers that you have on? Coverage?

For? Well, one of the things that we've struggled with is we do compete with a cellular companies for that ACP program because they can only sign up for one utility. But as far as the total utility as till you weigh risks, we receive around $20,000 a month in ACP funding. So that's how much is being supported by our tribal members. So that's a good good chunk of change for us.

Yeah, I read somewhere that some maybe not necessarily in Arizona, but that some tribal carriers might be really a significant problem for them to continue. or operating if the SCP is not continued. So maybe Thank you. Yep.

Okay. Anything. Yeah. Any other quick questions or comments for Brian? Before we move on? If not, let's jump to some of our updates with the State Library. And, mom, before we get to you, let's do Megan real quick. Megan, do you have anything besides the introduction you've already made today?

I think that was it. Steve was just wanting to welcome Anthony. Thank you.

Okay. Right. Mama, know, you always have great stuff to share with us.

I'm not quite sure. But yes, you know, right now, I'm working on getting all our applications, applicants to finish their applications on time. 27th of March is the deadline for submitting ERate applications for the cycle starting July 120 24, to June 30, of 2025. So hopefully, we will get them all in on time. We are still working on some contracts and things like that to make sure that the applications are complete and submitted. Having said that, we the Navajo Nation chapter houses, sites, I did mention even last time, we're still having problems with the RW. That's the right away issues, as well as the stability of the poles and some areas where we cannot, you know, put fiber under the ground. So let's, let's hope that we get another years extension. This is the fiber buildout extension that was approved, like 2220 1920 20. And it's been so many years since that ERate approval has happened, and when still not able to finish that project. So every year, we've been applying for extensions, and trying to sort the issues out, hopefully, you know, and this year, at least, we'll be able to complete as much of it as we can. I also wanted to draw attention to the Benton Institute, they have actually brought out a how to build public Broadband network. Report in their blog. And it's really worth seeing the public. It's like a handbook on public on building public, Broadband networks be really useful as we proceed with the BEAD build out. When it happens, it's this is a good time for us to be reviewing those kinds of documents they, they have, they've done a study of what has been successful, what has been cost effective. It's a complex, dynamic landscape. And this actually puts policy technology and finance all together in that one report. They've studied about, you know, 11 155, applicants that have requested for self provisioning fiber networks, and using that data to create this report. Really interesting report, and I would recommend that we look at it I will put the link in the chat once I'm done talking.

Well, thanks for sharing that I've actually been thinking that we might want to do a session on municipal networks and the pros and cons and benefits and issues with municipal networks.

That'd be lovely. That'd be lovely. And if we can get someone from Benton Institute to present this would be that the report that would be even more interesting to see how that how they put it together for

sure answer sharing that I'll definitely look into the hell

no problem and just the one other thing that I'd like to share is that there was a discussion during our shall be meeting about FCC 706 report. For those who are not aware this report comes out every every other year. And the 706 report usually talks about changes in speed standards and Broadband speed standards. And it opens the doors for suggesting higher Broadband definition One for anchor institutions as well as the non anchor institutions. The anchor institutions are currently stuck at one gig, as the standard. And Shelby's recommendation shall be is schools helps help libraries Broadband. I said that before you asked me, Steve about. So Michelle is looking for schools and libraries, as well as other anchor institutions, by definition in the BEAD program to go up multi gig standards, of course, which means that all of the underserved all of the underserved will become unserved or low served, you know, and most of the servers will go into underserved, which is, you know, it's that is a challenge. But again, looking forward, in that five years down the line, or even couple of years down the line, I think that standard benchmark has to be upgraded. So I'm really excited that they're even thinking about it and thinking of doing it at inviting suggestions on that. So back to you, Steve, unless there are any questions for me.

I have questions for Mala. Okay.

So 706 report Mala? Was that the report where they raised the the home Broadband definition to 120 recently from 25? Three is that?

Ah, I haven't, you know, I haven't been able to open the report. Look at all of the details in a right now. I think if anyone goes on to the press release of this report, it it does not open up, it gives you an error. So I've got it bookmarked, and I'm waiting for it to do that for them to make make that error go away. So, let me give you a let me just put the link in the chat and then once it clears the error, you should be able to see the details. So all I mean, I can tell from reports that I read is that they are actually considering long term. It considering changing this for the long term.

Okay, let's move on because it's getting kind of late. Any other quick questions from our before we move on? Okay, let's jump on. Michael. Michael. Come on. Come on, give us an update on what's happened with the telemedicine program.

But it's really new updates today just would extend kind of our ongoing invitation to anyone working on improvements to rural Broadband infrastructure, telehealth, healthcare in rural and underserved areas to collaborate. We're having a co sponsor, help get the word out through our networks and host events, things like that. So if that's of interest, please, please let us know.

Thank you. And Miko you have a council meeting coming up soon. If I'm not mistaken.

We do April 17. Briefly, we're going to be hearing we'll get the agenda posted pretty soon, but it's a remote patient monitoring from deserts in NIDA gaps gasps and Broadband from our sociated director for telephone policy, Tara Sklar. Children's Hospital discussing the hospital at pieces of Lexa for telehealth the American Indian Health discussing the restriction strategic plan are the main items on the agenda.

So that's the Arizona telemedicine Council. And it is open anybody who wants to participate, and again that link and communication is available in my newsletter. So with that, thanks very much. You bet. So anything else anybody has? I think we're getting out of time here with

Steve mark. Two quick things I posted earlier and Mala just posted a link as well. There's an interesting report out of Benton, I think 40 pages or so own your own internet how to build The public Broadband network. So we're tribes are communities interested in that it's a good basic guide, lays it out pretty clearly on what what's involved for those kinds of entities. And then I also posted a link, there's an international cybersecurity conference here in May, May 8 to 10th. I sacked as it's pretty expensive, and it's for it cybersecurity professionals and managers, but I thought there might be some interested in that. Okay.

Thank you. I have a couple other things. But Elena, you want to give us a quick update on hidden?

Yeah. So just really quick, sorry about the dog. Somebody's at the door. Just really quick, we've been discussing life after ACP and helping, you know, trying to figure out ways to help organizations help their clients. And then Cindy wanting me to remind everybody about a bit in Tucson. And Steve, I will forward you that information. I know we're out of time. So I'll forward you that information. It's a Digital Inclusion event, and you can include it in the newsletter.

And I do have that to Elena and I will include it in the Oh,

you do. Okay, great. That was it. Just if anybody's got any ideas about what they're doing to help their customers and clients after ACP, we're putting together kind of a tip sheet, I guess you could say. So.

So Mark, as his we were talking about municipal networks, and so forth in the report that we'll be in touch with Drew, who many of you know has been had been participating with us, we miss him. By the way. I know, he's got different things going on. But he would be an ideal person for us to connect with. And

actually, Drew's gonna be in town, Steve, Monday and Tuesday for he's on a panel with Mark and I. And then also, the Digital Equity Institute. gala is the as Monday night, and he'll be at that. And then I think he's staying for with Gigi SOEN. They'll be here and I think they're staying for the that ASU summit smart regen summit that I put the information in the chat already.

That's good to know. That that he'll be in town, so I will try to connect with him. And like I said, it's a topic that I had actually been thinking that we needed to have some discussion about. Okay, anything else? Anything I missed? Anything else anybody wants to share before? Before we end for today? Going once, going twice. Okay. Well, I'm going to stop recording and I