October 24, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Video

12:24AM Oct 25, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Mark Goldstein

Erin Lorandos

Mala Muralidharan

Heather Floyd

Marcelino Flores

Anthony Constantini

Kelly Mukherjee

Mallory DeVol

Moosh Ansari

Reid Sharkey

Frank Martinez

Lena Fowler

RJ Husky

Rob Salas

Garridyn Henderson

Keywords:

digital inclusion

broadband report

tribal liaison

workforce development

cybersecurity pilot

telehealth access

digital equity

competitive grant

fiber network

cloud business incubator

digital literacy

telehealth integration

public WiFi

affordable devices

digital navigators

I think I'm finally comp bobulated. So let's, let's go ahead and get started here. As you know, we're recording the session, as we always do, and want to welcome you all this morning. So let's start with, with introducing a couple of people. So we're going to hear later from Reid Sharkey, but read you want to introduce yourself real quickly?

Yeah, sure. Hi everyone. Thanks, Steve. My name is Reid Sharkey. I am a community broadband specialist and research associate at the Benton Institute, so I think a lot of you know my colleague, Drew Garner who works with many on Hollis and the Arizona Digital Inclusion network, and, yeah, I'll be published yesterday an article that I wrote and had significant help from our writer writers team covering the congressional races in Arizona in their the records of those candidates on broadband. So excited to speak with you all, Matt and have a discussion if, if there are, there's interest. So thanks, Steve.

No. Thanks Reid. He we connected yesterday, and so I've added him to the agenda, and I'll mention this again, but the report that he's presenting this is not an endorsement of any particular party or candidate. It's just kind of reporting what's happening. We have tried to stay away from any kind of partisan politics or anything like that, so we will do that again. But I thought his report was pretty interesting. So again, we'll talk about that some more in the future. So let's see, who else do we have? Anybody else new Gordon, Anthony, Mallory Kelly, marcerino, you've been it's been a while since you've been here. Do you want to introduce yourself again? Sure.

Thank you. Steve, lesson, that's me. No, I give a little brief interpretation, but the little be backwards. So good morning. I am Marcelino Flores. I'm the tribal liaison in the Pima County Health Department down here in southern Arizona, and what I shared was that we we honor and respect those that have walked this earth by honoring and respecting those who are among us and we live behind only gifts on this land for those that are walk ahead of us. Thank you. Steve

good, thank you. Marceline, glad to have you joining us again. And is that? Frank Martinez,

that's right. Steve, yeah, it's my first time calling into this meeting. Frank Martinez, I'm with connected nation, based in here in the valley, and our organization works with at the federal, state, local level, to, like many of the people on this call, close the digital divide, I was brought in to work with the tribal nations, and just very interested in the topics that you have on your agenda today. So that's why I'm calling in

and Frank, I think I left you a message a day or so ago because actually wanted to have you do a presentation to our group here. So yeah, the message you

left was at our at the corporate and so I just got it this morning, but we didn't talk offline.

Yeah, I didn't have another number for you, so that's the number I left. So anyway, let's talk. Yep. Okay, and Lena, do you want to introduce yourself? Did you say Dana? Dana or Lena? Lena? Lena Fowler, are you there?

Good morning. Yes, I'm here.

You want to introduce yourself, please? Okay, hello,

good morning. This is Lena Fowler, Coconino county supervisor, calling in from Tupa city. Thank you.

Glad to have you join us this morning.

Yeah,

thank you so much. Appreciate it. And Helen Costello, good morning.

I'm Helen Costello. I'm

the deputy CIO for Coconino County. Thanks for having the meeting. Okay,

have I missed any. RJ, I think you've been I know you've been here before, but you want to introduce yourself real quickly. Yeah, sure.

Good morning. I'm RJ husky.

I am a virtual Chief Information Security Officer supporting the Candace township on the Navajo Nation.

Great. Thank you. Glad you're glad you're here joining us. Did I miss anybody new this morning? I take that to to be a no. Okay, so let's jump into the agenda. Well, first of all, I want to thank our sponsors as always. Care first health plan, Karen Ziegler, consulting services, valley, telecom, Kajeet and triad wireless, so we thank appreciate your support. So jumping into the agenda.

Oops. All right,

so first of all, I want to just, just announce and Heather, you're online. Heather Floyd, who has been a regular participant with us, has been appointed Regulatory Affairs Specialist at Valley telecom group. You want to say anything? Heather, well,

I think partially because of all the new reporting requirements we have going on here. So we're getting, we're really establishing quite a department and a team over here so we can be responsive to those needs, and that comes with some title and responsibility changes, I think just more work, more paper.

I hope you got, you got a salary bump along with it.

We'll see about that, but it's alright. We have good working conditions over here. Okay,

and moving on, I don't know is Kelly. Kelly, Are you online today? Kelly Mukherjee, Okay, anybody from Aiden online that wants to just talk about the T shirts.

I can just share that they're in their second round of printing for them, and it's super awesome. They're beautiful shirts. If you haven't seen them, I can dig up the link and put it in the chat if you'd like,

yeah, and it's also been in my newsletter, so hopefully I've been able to define that. So moving on quickly, what's a perfect transition is to introduce Erin Lorandos, as you all know, is the ACA digital equity program manager, and so Erin, you're on.

Okie dokie, well, I don't have a ton of new information. I know that seems funny, since it's been like forever since I've been with you, but I know other members of our team have been able to join periodically, the state broadband office is in the middle of a market sounding for the project areas for the bead funding distribution. I'll drop some links here momentarily in the chat on where you can get this information. But at this point, basically, we're looking for feedback from eligible entities around what those project areas look like, and if there are any you know, concerns that anyone would like to share, this is you know, primarily, again, for local governments and and our partners and ISPs to take a look at what those proposed project areas are and and provide feedback. The office is also conducting one on one, I guess you'd say it meetings with potential ISP sub recipients to kind of get you know those, those bits of information and and start that process later on in the next month or so. Here the pre registration information will be available, and then the application window, we do anticipate will open in mid to late November is kind of the target at this point. And so those will be that will be the cut off for the bead side of things, being able to really share detailed information. Because while that application window is open, of course, we need to kind of be careful of, you know, sharing information publicly that you know is, is maybe part of that process. So, so if there are, you know, folks who are interested in those in those spaces, I encourage you to reach out to our office. Our general email address is broadband at AZ commerce.com, I'll put that in the chat momentarily too, and then, you know, we can have those conversations on the digital equity side, which is my side of the shop. Um, really, no updates. We are still working through curing with NTIA to to basically get that allocation of of that $16 million for our capacity grant. Um. Which will allow us to enact the goals and objectives that we laid out in the digital equity plan. So since we don't have that allocation secured yet, and we're still working on that conversation, I don't have details yet when our sub grant process will open, but you know, I am intending to give as much notice as possible, hopefully at least two months notice before the window opens, so that I can do the same thing that the bead side is doing, and share the specifics of the application process and have those individual conversations with anyone who might be interested, so that, so that the the application can go smoothly, just so this group is aware the once we get that award, that the date of that award, we will only have nine months to get back to NTIA and let them know where every one of those $16 million is being spent here in the state. So it will be a process that keeps moving, but I hope to make it as as well equitable, of course, but also as smooth as possible for our potential sub grantees. So I will put some information in the chat on how you can get a hold of all of us our our state broadband director, Sandip, unfortunately, is unable to join us today, but I'll provide his contact information as well, and please let me know if there are any

questions, any questions for Erin. Erin, so Robert, while you're popping up here, do you want to introduce yourself? Robert southwest, forgive me. I

didn't realize

you just muted there. Whoops. Forgive

me. Forgive me. I didn't realize my mic was hot. My apologies. I didn't mean to be a distraction there. Yeah, since you're offering me a platform I will I will introduce myself. My name is Rob Salas, executive, Executive Vice President for tribal indemnity. We work with tribes directly on a consultative basis, on a large scale basis, from enterprise risk management to economic development to what we're talking about here today, I've been able to participate in quite a few meetings. I see a few recognizable names on here. I think Marcelino sending me a message down from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. But just want to say hello to everybody. I apologize for interrupting. I didn't realize I had a hot mic.

No, no problem. Thanks, Robert, glad to have you join us this morning. So I don't believe Nicole is online today. Speaking of tribal liaisons, Erin is are you guys still looking for a tribal liaison manager for their ACA,

yes, that position is still open, and I can find the link to that too. If you're interested. We would absolutely love to have help in that, in that realm, of course, not only for the broadband side of things, but for ACA as a whole.

And that link also, again, I'll remind you all that a lot of the things that we mentioned in these meetings, I include in my newsletter. So I try to include links and contacts and all of that sort of stuff, because it's hard sometimes and again, I guess while I'm mentioning this, that I remind people all the time that while I do send out the chat, that if you need the chat right away, if you've heard things and contacts that you can download the chat to your computer after right after this meeting, you'll find if you go to chat and you go to the top, there's three ellipses, three, three dots. And if you click on that, you can download the chat directly to your computer. So if you're anxious to get that, don't want to wait for my my information, you're welcome to do that. So that's that's that couple of things. So we're looking at a couple of future presentations. One is workforce development. It's an issue that comes up all the time. What's happening workforce development. We've done some presentations before about that, but I'm looking at putting together a panel to talk about workforce development, so that's going to be on the agenda in the future, and again, to not put Erin on the spot, but sometime in the next few weeks, hopefully we'll be able to get more information about the market sounding exercise and where they are and and the project, their draft project areas, and all of that sort of thing. So those are a couple of things that are going to be coming up in the future. Are there any digital equity competitive grant updates? Anybody? No.

The window for that closed, and I know that there were nationwide, over 700 applications, which is pretty significant, and it really proves the need for it, of course, but that also, of course, completely outpaces what was available in this round. So I will default to anyone on the call who may have been part of an application if there are other updates. But my understanding is, as folks will know, at least if they've, you know, they're still in the process by by later this year, so it should move pretty quickly. So fingers crossed for the I know of at least 11 applicants from Arizona, which is really awesome, and I would absolutely love to share the who they are, but I have no idea. I it was not something that was ever, you know, it wasn't going to be published or anything like that. Because, you know, it's just about who, who ends up getting awarded. That'll be what's, what's released from NTIA. But, yeah,

I would love to find out who all applied from Arizona. I know a couple of people, but it would be great to know I didn't realize we had 11 people who submitted. That's great. Gather

there were at least 11 cool

okay, well, hopefully we can trace that down. So moving on. Oh, I'm sorry. So one other program coming up in the future is wired fiber, and so we'll be hearing from them in the near future. So with that, we I want to do federal schools and libraries and other updates. And Judy, are you still on Did you were you able to connect? I Judy salt, trip from, from Senator, from the senator's office. Sounds like she may be having a problem. Okay, well, let's move on. So as we mentioned earlier, read Sharkey introduced himself, but again, just want to introduce him again that he's a community broadband specialist and research associate with Benson Benton Institute for broadband and society, which is a very significant national organization. And he is going to kind of do an update on the report that he helped to draft on Arizona's competitive congressional races and the 6c and that's the race between Ruben Gallego and Carrie lake. And again, I want to make it clear this is not an endorsement of any particular candidate. Our party is strictly reporting the information he had on their the positions that they have taken to date. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to you. Reed,

sure, and I'll, uh, pop the link to the article in the chat, if that's okay, yep,

and I'll be sending it out also,

sure. Great. Thank you so much. And yeah, so thanks Eve and thanks everyone. Good to see you. Just a little bit about me. First, I've been with the Benton Institute for just over a year now. Started last summer, and before that, was a fellow spent time as a fellow for a year in the Tennessee broadband office, which is where I got to know the Benton Institute. Through some community engagement work, I was hired on initially to do our community lead our community engagement programs. I've done work in Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma. Yeah, that's, that's, that's it for now, and some more in the coming soon, I think, primarily working with local governments to form broadband plans, typically to make, create a plan to secure funding for infrastructure. So obviously, in the last year, typically, is positioning communities to have a plan to support a bead application or create one for themselves if they're interested in owning infrastructure. And so that's what keeps me busy most of the time, but sometimes I get the opportunity to look at a different issue, get out of the states I'm normally looking at and look at a different state or an actual issue. So it was really happy to take a look at Arizona and some of our election coverage. I'll highlight bead,

my colleague, Zoe Walker, or anything. What's that

you need to share?

No, no, okay, just, I'm just going from the article. So okay, all good. Yeah, my, my, we've highlighted North Carolina as well in a similar, similar way of highlighting the elections there. It's the governor, Governor race, and then also some relevant congressional races. And like Steve said, we do, we don't take a position on endorsing any particular candidate. Our mission is to provide advocate for open and affordable broadband to the entire country. So you know, the way we see it is, it's that this should be a non, non partisan effort that every everyone is in support of. So the report that we drafted and put out yesterday is just highlighting the positions and record that the candidates in the for the Senate seat room Gallego and Carrie Lake, as well as the first and sixth congressional or for Yeah, congressional districts, it highlighted those races as well. But to get into the article a little bit, the first kind of set the stage and this overview for you all, since you're steeped in these issues in the state, but think Arizona has a really unique challenge, and it's well recorded in the commerce authorities speed plans and digital equity plans of the the statistics looking like, you know, sort of a Metropolitan State of, you know, it's not a statistic you might see somewhere in The Northeast, you know, like in a Rhode Island or New York, maybe not New York, there's a lot of rural area there, but a smaller northeastern state of you have upwards of 90% of the population as served, close more than that, if you're talking about over 25 three, but You have a massive disparity between these urban areas, urban centers that have good access, and then the majority of land area in the state being among the most rural areas in the country. So it's, it's an interesting challenge, and one that is unique, I think, with the population density of the Phoenix area, and then the sparsely population, sparsely dense population of the rest of the state, especially in the north and northeastern areas of the state. So we try to highlight that in the article and highlight the work that the commerce authority has done to prepare for the nearly a billion dollars they're set to receive in the bead program, and the moving from then into highlighting The positions of congressional candidates and the way that they have been involved in broadband efforts in the past, whether in their positions as state representatives or in the case of the two incumbents in the first and sixth districts and Ruben Gallego running for Senate, their involvement and broadband efforts at the national level. So I'll run through some of the highlights for the candidates positions for Ruben Gallego, he has a pretty well established record over the past several years serving in the house. He sponsored, co sponsored and introduced a bicameral bill to extend the ACP this year. Last year, he was involved in introducing a bill to ease the bead tax burden on grantees, so that grantees aren't they already have this financial burden of getting a letter of credit, and then they're under current program rule, will be hit with the tax burden of their award as well he has during the pandemic, supported hotspot lending and device lending programs through ARPA, and has been a continued tribal broadband advocate, serving on a committee in the House as far as Carrie lakes, positions you know, not being, not holding office in any previous role has far less, a far less established position on the issue. Most of what you can find on on her broadband positions come from statements via Twitter. Uh, or interviews where speaking about the infrastructure investment and jobs act. So there's far less information on her positions, uh, moving into the first and sixth districts. So the first district, that's the race between David Schweiker, the incumbent Republican, and Doctor Amish Shah, who's the challenging Democrat. Schweikert introduced a telehealth and a bill to allow for Medicare recipients to receive telehealth coverage as part of their Medicare benefits. He introduced that in the House last year. He also voted on party lines against the the infrastructure investment and jobs act, which obviously established the bead and digital equity programs. Amish Shaw has a positive road broadband voting record at the state level. In the state state house, he voted for two separate bills, one to establish a committee on researching broadband, and another, he voted for just the establishment of continued funding for broadband grants at the state level, as for the sixth the race and the sixth district. Excuse me, that's between incumbent one siski money and Kristen Engle siskimani, the Republican and angle, the Democrat. Siskimani has introduced, he co sponsored and introduced legislation in the House this past year to reform USDA, reconnect ease some of the burden for smaller providers in applying to that program, which, prior to the bead program, was known as the big bore, the the heart, the program that was very difficult for a provider to apply to, but And now, in my experience, working with community, local communities, and often small ISPs, those folks are Seeing looking back at reconnect like the good old days, compared to the size of the work required to forming a bead application. But now siski Money introduced that legislation to ease the reconnect process even further. Kristen Engel's campaign has a pro BA, pro broadband investment stance, but not having prior positions in government also has a lack of a voting record. So all that can be gleaned is from their statements, their campaign statements. And yeah, that's, that's the positions highlighted at a top level, high level, the kind of the and I'll credit Kevin tagling, our executive editor, for reminding me to use our six clever 6c headline there. I think we have several other articles, one that highlights the the bead affordability program, or affordability plan to that started using the 6c language for connectivity, and I'm not sure if that's in any of the Commerce authorities plan. So that might be, that might be you're always doing as well. And yeah, the we are, we're happy to look into these. I thought it was a really interesting it was in your digital equity plan. First thoughts, okay, well, kudos, kudos to you all. And I'm, I'm glad that we can put it in a headline to pretend like we're clever the so there's additional coverage of Arizona. At the bottom of my article, Grace tapper highlighted the digital equity plan. She's done that for all 50 states plus territories. We have an affordability program summary, and then we also just have a bead five year action plan summary, I believe. So I'd welcome any questions or discussion, if, if people have things to talk about, I'd love to, love to hear from folks that are on the ground and in the state,

any any questions or comments for read, going once,

going twice. EJ, in the chat, we did, I did not look at positions in the second district. Was mostly looking at the races that were thought of as competitive, and I believe the second district was, is one where the poll point is not close. Frankly, if I'm wrong, then please correct me. Yeah.

Okay, any other questions or comments for Reid before we move on? Okay? Well, thank you, Reid, Thanks for being here today. Really appreciate your taking time to be here. I know you joined us before and haven't seen you in a while. So glad to have you back. Yep. Kirk, see, let's get rid of that. So Mala, do you have any updates? Any other federal updates? You kind of keep track of everything.

No, just that. There is just one week left to apply for the cyber security pilot program for schools and libraries, the Application Filing window closes on November 1. I did a detailed presentation last week. And if anyone wants more details, they can refer back to that. The filing Form, 484, part one. The the deadline is for filing that form. As I mentioned, it is a two step process. The form 484, part one is an expression of interest by those who are interested in application. It really does not have to be complete, and as long as you throw your hat in the ring to say that you are interested and that you know what you what your cyber security needs are, what you're looking for, just as a bear outline, they're not asking for details, because they the FCC will shortlist from those applications, and those who have been shortlisted have to do a more detailed application process, just as you would do for E Rate. That process remains the same. The only additional part is that this expression of interest as in the form 484, so if anyone needs more details, reach out to me. I'm happy to help them. I'm also happy to look through applications if you're applying for it, because I've been working with on the E Rate process for so long, I know what the kind of questions that the program integrity assurance officers asked, So I'm happy to look them over. I'll drop my email in the chat once I'm done talking. So you can reach out to me if you need more details, other than and there are a lot of resources available, both on the usac.org website as well as on the fcc.gov website. If you look for the cybersecurity pilot program on both those websites, you should have not only details about how to fill the application form, but webinars and FAQs and things like that. So please look at it, reach out and see the this is a great opportunity to apply, although I totally don't agree with all the rules and regulations, but I'm willing to help with anyone who needs that assistance. We had our AZ Library Association Conference, annual conference last week. Erin was there as well, joined us right after her trip to Greece, and really appreciate being there. I did three presentations. One was the gigabit libraries toolkit. This is a free toolkit that is available for all libraries. It was put together by Carson block using the LSTA funds, so that, that is why this toolkit is available and free. It is absolutely a good read. You don't have to read cover to cover. You can pick and choose the chapters that you want to read if you are planning to upgrade the technology within the library and you know nothing about it, you know, as librarians are not expected to know, unless you happen to be an IT specialist in your own library. So gigabit library toolkit is really a very good book to have. It's a great handbook. Yes, Erin, Erin says it's an amazing handbook. She's worked on it before, and, of course, her dedication. I applaud it. The second one that I presented was one that I did last week. For all of you. It's called learn without limits. It's. The FCC program on Wi Fi for school busses hot spots, through the E Rate program, as well as the cyber security pilot. And the third presentation I did was on telehealth, where we are at at the State Library, the grants that we've given. Most recently, we have given grants to Douglas Huachuca city and Sedona libraries to start their telehealth program. We call them telehealth access points, so they are a part of that network, and we are looking to fund some more this year. So if you are interested, please let me know. I'm gathering details and data and would shortlist the libraries that are interested. We're also waiting for the NTIA competitive grant that Michelle Simon and team have applied for, keeping my fingers toes, everything crossed, hoping that we are going to sail through and that's all I have. Unless anyone has questions for me.

Any questions? Okay, so malaria, see, you're online again. Do you have anything else to add regarding any of what's happening in Washington,

not a lot. I guess I have myself. I've

been focused a lot on a couple of different cable specific issues, rather than broadband in the last couple of weeks. So I there's not a lot going on, you know, with the the election happening.

Okay? Thank you. Yep, okay. So moving on. Any questions for anybody before we move on, if not, give me just a second here. I

music. So time for us to do our updates on the digital inclusion presentations and please to to have the Navajo NTIA, the Navajo tribal utility authority, here joining us. They have gotten very engaged with us in recent times, and we're glad to have them here this morning to give us an update on the great work that they're doing. So I want to turn it over to Garret and Henderson and Musha And sorry to give us an update on some of the great work they're doing. Do you guys need to share anything?

Yes, sir. Garen is going to do the presentation. I just want to thank everyone for giving NTIA the opportunity to provide a little more information on what we do?

Okay,

so Garret and you're on, please. Okay,

yeah,

let me start the slide show here real quick,

I'm gonna highlight you also I think,

okay. Can you guys see my screen? Yep, sure can. Okay. Is it okay? Alrighty? Good morning, everybody. My name is Gared Henderson. I'm NTIA ways. I'm a project manager with the communication systems division here with NTIA. So here's our table of contents. Here's what we'll be going over today. We'll give you a brief history of NTIA, how are and then also moving over to our communication systems division, kind of giving you guys a brief briefing of how our division came to be, how we built our network. We'll be showing you guys our fiber map. But then also talking about how we how we relate to this group? Here is with one of the grants that we recently applied for, which is the Navajo Nation cloud business incubator grant, going over in detail, giving you guys an overview of you know, our vision, our goals, the key components and the services that we will be providing. And then lastly, we'll open it up for any questions. Okay, so NTIA was established here on the Nava reservation in 1959 the. The whole goal at the time was to support water and wastewater facilities that were starting to be created on the Navajo reservation. So they with that. They had to build electric lines on the Nava reservation, and from there, they worked with IHS Indian Health Service on taking over the operation and maintenance over those water and wastewater facilities, and then also as a utility provider. On the utility side, we manage and we build our own infrastructure. From there, we moved into the natural gas. We tapped into the natural gas utility, and then to the affordable tick of solar. And now we're into the communications field here. So we're a well established multi utility company, our enterprise that's not for profit. Everything that we do, it's to serve our people. And a lot of the initiatives that NTIA way relies on his grant fundings to to build and to continue to support our and to serve our people here on the reservation. The overall goal was to promote employment opportunities for Navajo Nation and also to improve the health and welfare of the residents of the Navajo Nation, and overall, improving the quality of life here on Navajo. So the the creation of our communication systems division, which entails covers, building towers, which are fiber fed and also transport through microwave point to point solutions, as well as building out fiber to residential and businesses on the reservation. We before we got into this field of the utility, the only real broadband providers, or internet service providers here on Navajo were for profit companies and at the time management and noticed that, you know, there, they were only building In profitable areas where they were going to be receiving revenue. And there was, as you guys know, the Navajo reservation expands over 27,000 square miles, covering the states of Arizona, parts of New Mexico and Utah. So there's a lot of rural areas here on Navajo. So our executive management, our board of directors, our general manager, that did come in at the time, they created an opportunity to bring improved quality broadband services to the Nava reservation. And at the time, there was the B Top grant, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, NTIA. They did apply for that and what the award of that grant, NTIA was able to build 60 self supporting towers throughout the reservation, covering a lot of the rural areas on Navajo, they were able to start the fiber, the fiber backbone construction, and deploy 550, miles of fiber optic cable throughout the reservation. But then, of course, with this, did bring the first certified data center onto the Nava reservation, which we use as one of our as basically the main backbone of where we're deploying our services out from. So this did take a good five years to get built, but they did build the 60 towers and over 550 miles of fiber. And as you guys see here, the fiber network that we have, it's a very redundant network that we that was created. So the fiber extends from ship rock the data center, as I stated, and it goes out to a pop in Albuquerque, which is the internet's point of preference. Our presence in Albuquerque, and by the end of this year, through the. Different grants, and through the expansion of our division here, we will have a symmetrical 900 gigabit internet transit from Albuquerque to Phoenix, and then also the way that it was established was the middle mile fiber also does extend, as I stated, out from the ship route data center all the way to bitter Ho Chi, which is north of Holbrook, Arizona. And then from there, NTIA does least dark fibers from Hopi Telecom in hope to Holbrook. And then also, we are getting fibers, dark fibers, from APS to Iron Mountain. So the development was was planned out with, you know, using, using an approach that would allow for a redundant network to be created here on Navajo that will be able to support basically the whole Navajo Nation. And with that, Intuit is also working with Emery telecom to get dark favors access to Salt Lake City and Denver for full regional connectivity to all the major southwest pops. So now, to date, you know, NTIA has built over 1000 miles of fiber optic cable on the reservation, and then also, we are exceeding 100 towers now that we have put in other rural areas on the reservation. Here's our fiber network. So you see everything in blue which is which is already existing now and through different opportunities in which we are working to get completed, we will be constructing the everything in red here. And by 2026 the everything should turn to blue here on what you guys see are see on the screen. So this is our fiber network and our towers we have pretty much scattered throughout the reservation here. As I did state, you know, there's over 100 towers now that we do have, and we're working to provide, you know, having each one of them be fiber fed that way. There's redundant network for that, that area that it's serving there.

Karen, not to jump in if you the reason we are not showing

our systems, you know, basically is supported is through grants, whether it be through the government, the county or state funding. This allows for NTIA to build infrastructure. Okay, the infrastructure is deployed on Navajo, so everything does stay cycling through the Navajo reservation. And the overall goal is to improve the quality of life for people. As you see here, we do ride it along our power lines. So that's where the fiber optic cable does, gets, does get constructed. And then also you see our data center there, serving as the main host there, and all of these do, we're able to bring new types of services to our people, even within the utility industry, going working With all of our towers, working with our internal SCADA or water, and then also we're able to utilize the connectivity to improve, you know, meter reading and whatnot, so everything returns itself into operating and to keeping the utility expanding for our people here on Navajo. So how we play a role in with this group here? It's UA did apply for digital equity competitive grant. Which we are, it's, we're calling it the Navajo cloud based our business incubator grant. The overall goal for this is to allow our Navajo people to capitalize on broadband infrastructure in the investment by expanding digital equity beyond the basic communication infrastructure. So we have the infrastructure in place now it's tapping into another area that will allow for us to further serve our Navajo people by enhancing digital literacy, fostering workforce development, and fully integrating Navajo into the digital equity streams of area. Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and then, of course, support and foster local entrepreneurs. So with this, the incubator business will serve as a catalyst to expand, expand, spur development on the Navajo Nation and promote sustainable economic growth, and then also provide the opportunity and incentives for Navajo youth to migrate, mitigate the exodus of Navajo and then also lessen the digital divide on tribal lands. So our whole goal here is to allow for new and upcoming businesses or entrepreneurs, an opportunity to utilize the infrastructure that's in place to get their businesses started up.

Okay, the key components here again, utilizing the infrastructure that's in place into ways cloud based solution. We will be implementing this so this will allow for entrepreneurs or startups to have access to scalable cloud services, which will allow them to manage their own network, servers and data storage. They will also have the ability to create, develop tests and deploy applications, and then the overall availability to support various workloads that they might have, whether it be through web based applications that they might get access to, that will also provide them to look into their data analytics, but then also meeting the needs of diverse business needs. So every business or entrepreneur that would be housed as part of the in the incubator facility will have access to, you know, the digital needs to provide the support for their business. The services that will be provided through this initiative will be collaborative workspace. So this will be housed in our data center in Shiprock. There's the workspace that will be equipped with high speed internet, ergonomic workstations, meeting rooms, but then also multimedia presentation facilities and more. So it's a place for new and upcoming entrepreneurs to really use what's already in place to start their business and to see where it's going to go from there. You know, we will foster the creativity and collaborating amongst other entrepreneurs. So this allows for them to network and cross, share information and their resources, and the resources that we will provide to them will be bandwidth services. So for the term of the grant, the new businesses, we will be providing routers for them to use, to take home while they're not on site. They will also be having chrome books that they'll be able to use with all the latest applications installed, which will be Microsoft suites. There'll be Acrobat and more. And then, of course, the hot spots that will be used at home for them to use, then also access to the Navajo cloud, as this will be one of the new, the newest things on Navajo for entrepreneurs to use, okay, securing access for the next generation. So we're trying to move the next generation, securing a place for them to go to, and knowing that they have the opportunity to utilize NTIA to help reach their digital literacy and technology access. So with this, they'll be able to develop comprehensive they'll be able to take comprehensive trainings that we will provide to improve their literacy amongst the digital side for community members, including workshops and basic computer skills that they'll be able to obtain their on site, also online marketing, social media management and E commerce strategies. So this will empower individuals to utilize technology effectively in their business and personal lives, and then also access to technology. So this will provide access to necessary technology, such as computers and softwares for entrepreneurs who might not have these equipment, and again, on. Navajo, not everybody has access to simply a laptop or broadband services in home for them to support whatever their goals or initiatives that they might be wanting to do. So so the incubator site will help close that gap here on the Navajo reservation. And we're, we're eager to, you know, look into this further this further, tap into this platform and give back to our Navajo people, so that way we can continue to expand services that we provide here on Navajo, and then also to collaborate with others to see what else we might be able to do for our people here on under the reservation. And then we do have my contact information here, but then also our program manager, Busch the bond, sorry, who's also known as mush, if anybody has any questions, or, you know, would like to talk further, you know, we'd be happy to set up a meeting. Or, you know, whether it be through zoom, or, you know, simple phone call, you guys can go ahead and get a contact with us with the information provided here. So with that, I'll go ahead and stop sharing that. Open the floor for any questions that you guys might have.

Moose, did you want to add anything you I did? Thank you.

So one of the things, and it might seem a little saying strange that we're presenting this our program for this dei grant in Arizona, and the reason is, so this application was actually submitted as part of the New Mexico, New Mexico state. And the reason is is our data center is in New Mexico, but the actual project encompasses all the Navajo Nation, and the majority of the Navajo Nation is in Arizona. And that's why we felt it was important for us to present that here, one thing that I wanted to add is it's not just helping with a free computer and broadband services, but for those that are interested in actually starting a business, or have a business and need help, we will also provide free legal Help, free business planning, just a host of assistance that is, you know, generally required to start a small business. So it goes beyond just computer literacy, who, you know, really holding their hands and and helping them in all different facets, legal, financial, you know, and the business planning like those are so important when you're trying to start a business, and if you don't have the right support, it can be very cumbersome, especially if it's not something that you're is your you know, field of expertise. Also, I noticed that there was a gentleman from kienta, so I just wanted to mention that NTIA was proud enough to receive part of the RUS or USDA reconnect program, which was cumbersome to fill out. But we are very, very thankful that we were awarded that to do fiber to the home in the Candace, in the city of Candace, Arizona.

Great thanks, mush, Karen and you have anything else you want to add?

No

any questions for either of them. Okay, well, thank you guys for being here and for joining us and participating with us regularly. Remove that pin. Remove that pin. Okay, so we have a little time left, and I want to introduce who you've all met before, Anthony Constantini, who is the State Library Digital Inclusion library consultant. And I get that correct. So for those of you who are fairly new to us, you may know, you may not know that the State Library has been a big partner with us. From the very beginning, we have one of the most amazing state libraries ever, and they've been into the digital inclusion space for quite a long time. One of the which, one of the projects that they have been doing for a long. Time is connect Arizona. And so Anthony is going to give us a quickie overview of what's happening lately with all the stuff that they're doing, what connect Arizona is, and some of the things, things that they're working on. So with that, Anthony, I'm going to turn it over to you. Do you need to share?

Yeah, if I can, I was just going to try

to Sure. Go ahead real quick. Let me see.

Okay. Can

you see my screen here? Presentation? Yes, perfect. Okay, so I'll just try to run through this quickly. I appreciate everyone who's still on the line here. So I'm going to talk a little bit about connectors on the my program and what the Arizona State Library is kind of doing overall with digital inclusion. Steve mentioned, I'm Anthony Costantini. So for those of you who aren't familiar, the State Library is divided into a number of different branches. We have the Talking Book, library that works with disabled patrons, state archives, E Rate, which Amal is part of, and then I'm on the library development team. So Library Development just supports libraries around Arizona through consultations. We do trainings with different libraries. We provide grants and generally, we try to just make different resources available.

So let me see. Sorry, that's out of order. I just want to talk a little bit about the different ways the state library supports digital inclusion overall. One of the ways that we do that is through our Library Services and Technology Act grants. And we offer two types of grants. We have Express grants, which go towards smaller projects. These are $4,000 each, and one of the most popular ones in recent years has been the Wi Fi hotspot lending grants. So you can see on the screen here, these are all of the different libraries that have received hotspot grants just in 2024 and then, in addition, we also have general grants. These go towards bigger projects. So you can see here all of the different libraries that have received those general grants this year for projects, you know, really ranging the spectrum, everything from, you know, Career Services Center to adaptive workstations. You know, purchasing google chrome books, also purchasing hot spots, really, everything you can imagine. Another way we support digital inclusion is through E Rate. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Mala and the amazing work that she does, so I won't get into that in too much detail. We also work on telemedicine projects. So that's, again, something that all works on a lot. Just to you know, touch on one project, Health Connect, was launched in 2022 by the Pima County Public Library, and this was a joint effort by a number of different organizations, but essentially it made telehealth services available to their patrons so they could walk in have an appointment in a room with sound dampening walls and all of the equipment that you Need. So laptops, blood pressure, cuffs, just anything you need for a general health appointment. And that brings me to my own program, connect Arizona. This is a digital inclusion initiative. It's essentially just a online resource hub, a website and a team of digital navigators. So this was launched in 2020 originally, it was called Arizona libraries, tech access phone line. So it's changed a lot over the years, but at its core, it was really designed to be a digital Navigator service. So it's for connecting people with devices, internet access, digital skills development and all of those things we kind of associate with, digital navigation. This was the original website here, and then after it was upgraded. To a WordPress site. This was redesigned by one of the digital navigators. So it's a really great site. It's connect dash, arizona.com and just to give you a quick rundown, the way it works is basically, we're open 9am to 8pm Monday through Friday and Saturdays, 9am to 3pm It's a totally free service that's open to anyone in Arizona. You can call in, text us, email, and we are happy to help you with you know, really, anything you need. I'll give you basic idea. This is all of the stuff that our navigators will do. They will work on computers, internet device basics, troubleshooting devices, researching low cost devices. So gives you kind of an idea some of the things they won't do. They're all remote right now, so they can't support in person help, unfortunately. And they also don't do any kind of purchasing technology for clients or completing work for clients. Each client receives two hours per week of support, and it can be divided, you know, any kind of way, throughout the week or during the day. We try to keep our data collection minimal so we don't collect much data, and we definitely don't collect any sensitive information. This is our team of navigators. You can go on our website and kind of read more about them. You can also read testimonials from former clients on our website just talk about all of the great things that they've been helped with by the navigators. And just to go through quickly, some of the resources we have on our website, we offer a low cost internet plan list, so you can browse through and find different plans in your area. You can search by zip code, you can filter by the cost of the plan, the speed of the plan, and really find something that's affordable for you. This is something that the navigators can walk you through. We also have a free public Wi Fi map. This is a Google map that just shows different locations in Arizona for free public Wi Fi, libraries, schools, any kind of organizations offering free Wi Fi. We have a list of different organizations in Arizona that provide devices, affordable devices, free devices, to both individuals and groups, nonprofits, schools, libraries. So you can look up there. We have a lot of great orgs on that list. And then some of the other resources. We have a compilation of tech help videos. These are available in English and Spanish. We also have North Star digital literacy. This is a online digital skills learning platform. Can see all of the different topics that it's covered on that site, and that's also totally free to the public as well. We have a Arizona Digital Inclusion directory. So this is really kind of a broader database. It collects a lot of those different resources, and really anything else that we miss, we try to include on this, this directory. And then, you know, the main point of Connect is really connecting the public with internet. But we also have some resources for professionals that are working in this space, you know, that can be library staff or really anyone else interested in learning about digital inclusion and digital equity. I think one of the coolest things that we offer is county profiles. So we have different profiles showing internet statistics for each county in Arizona, so you can see kind of what percentage you know, have an internet subscription, what percentage are only using cellular data don't use cellular data, all kinds of different interesting statistics. That's basically it for me. So, you know, I appreciate everyone's listening in and feel free to spread the word. We have promotional materials, rack cards that I'm always happy to send out for free to different organizations, if you'd like to share it with your patrons, clients, whoever so with that, I am done. And thank you so much. Steve,

thank you, Anthony. I know we we had to cut your time a little bit short today, but really appreciate you being here. And. As always, as I as I mentioned, the State Library has been a strong supporter for Arizona and the digital equity space. So thank you for being here, Anthony. Any questions for Anthony? Take that to be a note. So we're pretty much done for today, but I did want to share one more thing. Let me bring my screen back up here real quickly.

Anthony, there was a question in the chat from Paul about what the service intake is on Saturdays. Do you have some statistics?

Yes, I don't have any numbers right now, but I can tell you that. You know, Saturdays tend to be a little bit slower, but we definitely do see clients on Saturdays for sure. You know, there's just a lot of people who are working during the week and just, you know, it isn't really convenient for them. So, you know, when we decided to expand to Saturdays, I think that's been really valuable for a lot of people we might not otherwise get. So it's a great question.

Any other quick questions for Anthony, so if not just a couple of things and Mala you might be interested in this that I just read an article, and I'll share the link with you that Tucson now dispatch for fire and police. They will now provide telehealth for 911 calls, and so they will now ask people if there's if it's not emergency, but they would like to speak with a doctor. They will now connect them directly for a telehealth telehealth call. So I thought that was really interesting, and can share the information about the contact information for that, and I will try to get them to provide a presentation to this group. And so I thought that was really interesting. Secondly, is just a reminder that T Mobile is still providing free iPads. And again, that information on how to be able to apply for that. Who can apply is in my newsletter with a link in the contact information here in Arizona to get more information about how to be able to do that. And then a couple of other quick things that on November the 13th, the Arizona Technology Council's 21st annual Governor celebration of innovation. And on the 20th that they are having a tech inclusion forum, breaking barriers for disability inclusion in technology. And I am working, I'm going to try to contact them, because that is not it is a in person only event at the moment, but I'm going to work on trying to get them to make it available online. So any other quick announcements that anybody has?

Steve Mark Goldstein in the chat the Arizona tech Council's 2025 public policy guide was just released this morning as a PDF on the website. So I put the PDF in the chat, which, of course, you can't it doesn't download with the chat, but also the link to the landing page where it can be downloaded. I know you'll include that now in the newsletter. I will

any other quick announcements going once So Kelly, I don't know if you want earlier. We did announce about the T shirts.

Awesome. Sorry, I did come in late, but

thank you for Erin. Erin did announce about the T shirts, and as you probably have seen, that I do have in my newsletter,

awesome. Yeah. I think Aiden is going to be very happy. I think we were all very excited to have the opportunity to work together and create wonderful T shirts. So thank you everybody for your support.

Okay, anything

else I'm going to stop sharing, stop recording. And as you know, I.