BEAD’s Next Steps: Unpacking State Progress and Challenges - Episode 638 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Heather Mills (00:07):
Our purpose is for BEAD. Right now what we're trying to do is make a generational investment that means change.

Christopher Mitchell (00:14):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local in St. Paul, Minnesota. Back on the show, Heather Mills a Principal Consultant at Tilson [00:00:30] Technology Management. Welcome back.

Heather Mills (00:32):
Good to be here.

Christopher Mitchell (00:33):
Heather, it's really great to be talking to you about things that I'm paranoid about.

Heather Mills (00:38):
Yeah, I think we all are.

Christopher Mitchell (00:39):
We are going to talk about some of what we know about BEAD, some of what people think they know about BEAD that they may be getting wrong and what we're learning from states that are boldly moving ahead. And then if I manage to actually manage this time correctly, we'll have a little bit of time to talk about whether there is anything [00:01:00] else happening in the broadband world aside from BEAD.

Heather Mills (01:04):
Sounds like a good agenda.

Christopher Mitchell (01:05):
I like it. The quick rundown, what's Tilson do?

Heather Mills (01:08):
Tilson is a multifaceted organization. How's that for some corporate speak for you?

Christopher Mitchell (01:15):
That's good filler while you're figuring out exactly how you want to describe the work. That is done.

Heather Mills (01:19):
Thank you. Thank you. So at Tilson Technology Management, we provide a range of services, but we also do building broadband consulting, [00:01:30] consulting, engineering, outside plant work. And so my work is with the broadband consulting team and our team very classically I like to say provides advisory services. That's the general term. I also like to say things and stuff and call it the technical term, but advisory services, helping clients wade through anything broadband policy related these days, as you mentioned, my world is BEAD, [00:02:00] and so we live sort of in this speed bubble working with clients which range from states and localities to ISPs, depending on which team there we have aligned down the middle, if you will, and helping to support the process development and implementation for states and localities. And then write applications where we're allowed to in states where we're not doing that work for ISPs or localities, [00:02:30] depending on who's applying

Christopher Mitchell (02:32):
You personally, I think of as someone who has been in this for a long time, very seriously trying to help communities do what's best for them. And so that's one of the reasons I enjoy having you on is I think you've developed quite a reputation as being someone who not just reads the rules but remembers them. And you are doing it not just from a perspective of how do you move the client forward, but what is best for a community and being creative [00:03:00] in that direction. So we're going to talk about BEAD because you're tracking this very closely and I'm curious, what is the latest in terms of what you're hearing before we go into the unknowns, for people who aren't reading it very closely, what are some interesting things that have happened recently in the BEAD world?

Heather Mills (03:18):
Fear and loathing I think is the kind of aura. We're all nervous, we don't know what's next with potential changes to the program. I think we're all feeling sort of a lack of transparency there. We [00:03:30] know things have to be done, like they've got to line up the new people in charge. Those people need to have time to do a review and be comfortable with what they think they need to do. And then there's got to be discussions and things that in my mind it seems a very logical path. But given how other things in government are going, I think what feels like a lot of lack of transparency and very suddenness, I think that's where you feel the amped upness. Does that make sense?

Christopher Mitchell (03:59):
Yes.

Heather Mills (04:00):
[00:04:00] And because on the state side, we have for the life of the program, been in this sort of reactive state to NTIA and the guidance, it feels like we're beating our head against a wall in a lot of cases. But as a long time ago, we talked about BEAD when it was coming up and the fact that this is one of those programs it's meant to be and provide generational change. You don't just hand somebody a check [00:04:30] for a billion dollars and say, go play with this. Have fun. Here are your goals. You require them to plan and you approve the plan and then you tell them to implement the plan and then you follow up and make sure that they've done what they said that we're going to do. So part of what I'm hearing is a sense of the new administration getting their boots on the ground and understanding where they need to make change to align things and then hopefully [00:05:00] they're going to be transparent and communicate that with everybody as soon as possible.

(05:04):
But the other things that I'm hearing are from applicants who a number of states, as you know, have already launched their application processes or completed them. And so now we have this sort of weird imbalance like what's going to happen? And in some cases, I've had a couple of applicants in some states that we're working with say, well, we think given the fact that they're extending [00:05:30] this due date, that they're going to make changes to the application. And my response to that is, let's on its face, no, that could make a lot of sense except if you understand the program and how we got to getting the application live, the implementation thing, if they make changes to the program that affect what is asked for in the application, it essentially means that people have got to go back to the drawing board and redo a lot of planning and get things [00:06:00] reapproved. And to me, honestly, with the concern that everyone has about getting those feed dollars out the door and making an impact, making us go back to the drawing board, wastes more money and time. So I don't think I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. If it's speed to deployment, then we've got to find a way to make it so that everyone can continue moving forward, which most people are just continuing moving forward because [00:06:30] that's what the program has right now.

Christopher Mitchell (06:33):
Those are the rules as established.

Heather Mills (06:35):
Thank you very much. Then once we have new guidance, we can react to that guidance and make adjustments as necessary. But I don't think that the, what is it? Secretary Lutnick and now the person in charge of NTIA. I'm sorry, my name

Christopher Mitchell (06:49):
Secretary Roth. Secretary Roth. Thank you. Sorry. Actually I believe it would be, yeah, assistant secretary who's waiting, nomination or confirmation. So many Asians,

Heather Mills (06:59):
Thank you. Yes. [00:07:00] But I also trust that those people have been in government for a long time. Well, Ms. Roth has, Ms Roth Lutnick has been in business for a long time and he also understands the need to get things done efficiently. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they've got the country's best interests at heart. Positive reinforcement there, everybody. That's where my mind is at these days.

Christopher Mitchell (07:25):
If you're billing by the hour, you could certainly come up with reasons why you should develop 10 different plans, but [00:07:30] plans certainly wouldn't be in the client's interest to be doing that. Right.

Heather Mills (07:33):
But I say that the same way. So it's in our country's best interest. We want to get those BEAD dollars out the door and that's where we were at the end of the Biden administration is on the precipice of doing that. All the background noise and complaints about where's the BEAD dollars? To me that is political noise that is meant to be noise, and it's part of the way that our political system works, unfortunately. But my hope is that [00:08:00] we'll have good transparent communication from the NTIA about what our next steps are. And my ultimate hope is that it's they're playing with and not meeting the requirements everyone's got to deal with and not the application process itself. Because I feel like that's settled.

Christopher Mitchell (08:17):
Well, let's just talk briefly about where we are with that. So Washington and Vermont have just done the first round. We know that Louisiana had, are there other states and about how many, you don't have to, I was tempted to say [00:08:30] pop quiz, but it's not as important as just, I think there's just a few states that have gotten this far right.

Heather Mills (08:37):
Yeah, so I would say Washington, yes, Arkansas, I think they had about 800 or so bids that came in during their application round that finished earlier this month. Vermont had something like nine ISPs, but theirs is a very small state with a different kind of setup than I think other states would utilize. [00:09:00] And so there's reasons for that. And then let me just look at my list. Montana's run theirs. Nevada has run theirs, Delaware and Louisiana. I may be missing one or two people are moving forward. We've seen announcements. We're seeing as a consultant, I see a lot of RFPs coming out as states are evaluating the next phase, which is the post-award stage or the pre-award contracting and post-award stage, which is going to be a life cycle of [00:09:30] what, between five and 10 years, depending on how they maybe change some of the post-award compliance rules.

Christopher Mitchell (09:36):
So the states have different approaches in terms of how they're carving up territories and figuring out how to make sure everyone's covered. When you say post-award, so are we in a situation in which the state basically says, and I realize that this may vary somewhat, but in general or states often saying, alright, well we feel pretty good about these sections of the state, so we're going to get that done and get that money moving [00:10:00] and then we're going to focus on these other areas or No, not at all. Your face is like, Chris, are you paying attention to this at all?

Heather Mills (10:07):
It doesn't work like that. So it's a great question though. And to prime for what is essentially a pretty chunky conversation that we've got to have now, the act of pulling together your final proposal, it's not easy and the document itself is a whole other thing that's just data and a talk about how you did it. But it's really [00:10:30] each team, each state putting together a puzzle. And I'll use Louisiana as an example here. They had a number of rounds. The first round being, I think they characterize it as the ground of greed in which they asked everybody for a bid. And essentially the schema was, and somebody may want to correct me if I get this wrong, but my understanding was any place that only had one bid, [00:11:00] they were essentially saying, okay, we've got that covered. We can talk with those people, maybe go back to the negotiating board later if we need to. Then they did a second round. They called that I think the round of fear because everywhere else there were at least two bids for each defined area

Christopher Mitchell (11:19):
Because they did not have any areas that had zero bids. Right.

Heather Mills (11:22):
And I'll get to that in a second too, in a sort of a hypothetical situation. So then what they did is they said, okay, everybody, you've got competition for [00:11:30] all of the applications that you put into these areas. Go back, make your best and final offer. This is a general schema. And so from there, they took in new applications from everybody or updated applications. They didn't necessarily have to make a change. They could leave it as it was if that was their best and final. And they then scored and ranked those and moved to the next phase. Now we've got all of these things covered and I'm using a hypothetical, say it's not [00:12:00] Louisiana, say it's another state and we've got these four areas that we didn't get any bids on. What are our options? Probably alternative technologies. So that then opens the door to, alright, we need to talk to and follow the process for alt tech and get some options for there.

(12:17):
And then we put the puzzle together and then it becomes about justification for the costs and how much are you paying for a passing or whatnot. And on top of [00:12:30] that, if you're using alternative technologies, you kind of have to understand exactly how it's going to work if you're paying attention at all to satellite technologies, LEO, satellite things in particular, and this is going to get into some weird ethical considerations from Mr. Musk in the backside of things, but currently we're starting to see wait lists pop up on the [00:13:00] Starlink website thing for a while they had taken it down, now it's back up. Leo satellite does not have the capability to serve everybody all at once. It's a capacity problem. And the only way they could do that would be to paper the sky over with LEO satellites in one form or another. And I'm being very general when I say this, if we want to have a whole conversation about LEO satellites as a whole other thing, I'll get you an engineer. We can talk some more about capabilities.

Christopher Mitchell (13:25):
Realistically, this capacity could be constrained in multiple ways. One is [00:13:30] it could be constrained based on the number of satellites that are ever simultaneously overhead. It could be constrained by the amount of links, it could be constrained. And this is the one I keep harping on by the fact that it appears that they have, they've divided up, they don't use hexagons, but they have a base unit

Ry Marcattilio (13:49):
And

Christopher Mitchell (13:49):
That base unit, they have a maximum number of subscribers they can have within that base unit on the ground. And so if you have rural areas where there's a lot of people living, an example might be a ski [00:14:00] town or something which is very far away, you cannot have everyone in town using the service with present technology or the technology that might be available in the very near future that the government would put money into.

Heather Mills (14:13):
So we consider it right now to be very much an emerging technology. And I got a question from some clients the other day about LEO and could it be used for data centers? And I was like, no. Maybe in the future, but for our purposes for BEAD right [00:14:30] now, what we're trying to do is make a generational investment that means change. So I see Leo as a bandaid to be very honest, where as a last resort, we tried everything to get this puzzle of our state together because of the fiber preference there. But if the true nature of what we've been instructed to do per the law is to provide reliable broadband service, LEO satellites cannot do that across the board. They are a bandaid for now. I think [00:15:00] the ultimate costs have to be considered overall as well. So that technology is going to change. Right now a base station costs what $500? So we're going to pay a minimum of $500 for equipment that's going to be obsolete pretty soon.

Christopher Mitchell (15:15):
Right. I guess I would just say that I would take a little bit of an issue with calling it a bandaid in that I've said that I think it is very wise from a cost perspective, from the point of view of a state that if they have a number of locations for [00:15:30] whom the costs are extraordinary,

Christopher Mitchell (15:32):

I think it would be a poor use of taxpayer dollars to then force them to go with a technology that might be more substantial.

Heather Mills (15:39):
I agree. No, we're on the same page there. My apology for by imprecise language and how I think about that, yes, I think that eventually it will be there, but for the moment where we are right now, it is not. And for me the bigger thing is the capacity issues. And then on the compliance side, I'm really waiting [00:16:00] with bated breath to figure out how we would track the equipment in the future if we have to do that. What does it mean for service costs? The other thing is affordability. The lowest cost price right now is $120 a month. And honestly, I don't know if a good portion of those that would need to use that service could afford that service. And maybe that's the point though, that it doesn't matter at the end of the day, as long as the service is available to them, [00:16:30] then maybe that's enough. And it could be that in our minds we are taking it a step further for actual usage and maybe that's more about the digital opportunity or this, I didn't use the other word, the digital opportunity to utilize the service and that's where we go for making sure people have access and know how to use it.

Christopher Mitchell (16:50):
I think the other thing that we haven't talked about and that I've often neglected and when I've talked about this is that some number of these people are in areas where they don't have [00:17:00] a good view of the sky and where they're on the wrong side of a mountain or a big hill that then it will ensure that they cannot see enough satellites on the regular. And so I do think we'll be leaving some of those folks behind and I feel like we should come back and try to find a solution, but I am deeply concerned with any suggestion that we should hold up for the 95% while we try to figure out those other few people.

Heather Mills (17:25):
I agree. I agree. And honestly, I think the thing that would make the most sense [00:17:30] for meeting the goals of the program overall that we're thinking would happen in the background is that they would play with the bounds of what the extremely high cost levels are in order to allow satellite to more appropriately fit under that umbrella, which would make sense.

Christopher Mitchell (17:49):
I agree. I'll just throw in my common proviso that you do not have to disabuse me of which is that assumes that they will follow the law. And I think that [00:18:00] I have been persuaded that perhaps in more than 20 examples, they are not following clear law and they appear not to be following court corrections that are pushing them in that direction. And so we're not going to turn this into a political show. Some people get really annoyed at that, but I just feel like pointing out, we cannot constrain ourselves to assuming that the laws will be followed. So I want to talk about what we learned from Washington because on a recent show I had asked Doug [00:18:30] Dawson and others on connect this about the Washington results. And if I recall correctly, Washington had half of the locations had one bid and one in five locations had zero bids and this news had come out right before our show I think. And so I was just asking, is this a sign of success or a sign of failure or what? And you were pretty unequivocal that you feel like they're on a good path.

Heather Mills (18:57):
They are on a good path. So let me reframe [00:19:00] the numbers for everybody. So because what you didn't do was say how many applications they got, right? They got more than 300 applications and I'm sorry, that is a lot to wade through too, so keep that in

Christopher Mitchell (19:14):
Mind. No, this is applications. Does one ISP can they submit five applications in different project areas. Okay. Project areas.

Heather Mills (19:21):
So Washington defined project areas a map in a way that they determined and then when you bid on an area, you had to bid on the whole project [00:19:30] area. So what this has done is automatically given them an understanding of where the harder places to cover are going to be. So as I said earlier, this is a massive effort. Putting that puzzle together at the end of the day could take a couple of months if not more, which is important for everyone to understand in the mix of things. So their first round closed at the end of January, it's the end of February 300 applications is a lot to wade through. As somebody [00:20:00] who does that on a regular basis, that's a massive team of people being highly organized and that application, single application's not going to just get one look because that's not how that works.

(20:10):
So it's a process to go through. There's validations and verifications that have to be done. And so what their plan is is then to open a second round that will focus on any area that got more than one bid and they'll probably throw in the areas as well that didn't get any bids. Again, they'll go through that round and they'll do the same [00:20:30] thing, figure out what do we have, what do we don't have to fill in the puzzle pieces that they know that they didn't get any bids on those 23%. So 77% coverage of the state is covered by applications that came in in the first round. So now they've got 23% to figure out. They can already start looking at what their options are outside of bids in second or third round that align with approved alt technology rules. And most [00:21:00] states probably would've already had some base conversations even prior to opening their round to understand what costs might be across the state for various areas.

(21:08):
I've got to give credit to the broadband offices in general. They know where the trouble spots are going to be. They know their states. While it sounds like, oh, they've only got 77% of the state covered, there are other states that are going to have a worse time because of the rurality of their state. And I'm going to bet if we looked at the map of where they did and did not get applications [00:21:30] that it's the really harder places to cover that didn't get applications that would most likely be covered well by at least temporarily a satellite or a wireless solution that's approved.

Christopher Mitchell (21:41):
Did ISPs generally know where others were going to be submitting? Do you think through just what they know of each other? Do you think that there's some number who will be like, oh wow, no one else is going for this area. Maybe I'm suddenly interested? Or is it just mostly going to go to alternative technologies do you think?

Heather Mills (21:59):
You mean for those that didn't?

Christopher Mitchell (22:00):
[00:22:00] Yeah, the 23% that had gotten zero bids.

Heather Mills (22:04):
I am not even going to posit a guess there. I don't know because I haven't seen the map of where they didn't get bids. I live in the state of Washington as a, what do we say that disclaimer. And so I am very interested in how it goes and I don't work for the consultants that work with the state, so at least not presently, but I'm fully aware that there's definitely some [00:22:30] areas in the state that there's no way that we'd be able to get fiber to just because of the nature of the terrain. And there are a number of states that have that problem. Anybody with mountains is going to have a similar problem.

Christopher Mitchell (22:42):
We wanted to talk about areas of concern, and this is again, not the sort of areas where we think someone might come in with a certain opinion to make certain rules, but where we're actually seeing something. And so what have you seen that actually gives you a little bit of pause about [00:23:00] real concerns that could be developing down the road for BEAD?

Heather Mills (23:05):
I think we covered something a little earlier, which is as states open their rounds and have rounds open, we're seeing some of them extend those rounds. And the idea was, or the logic was that they were doing that because they were expecting changes. And I want to dissuade anybody from thinking about that. Again, if that were the case, then we'd be spending a whole lot more money on fixing plans to align with questions [00:23:30] that go into the thing. That would be one thing. The other thing is just not understanding fully what's coming. In general, we're all sort of shooting from the hip and I think there's a little bit of fear and loathing about that in particular because of the incredible effort that every state has made in good faith to do what was asked of them. And I think that's where for me where I'm hearing most of the concern [00:24:00] is, are we going to have to redo all of this? No, I don't think so.

Christopher Mitchell (24:05):
There is draft legislation though regarding some of the money being pulled back. One of our big concerns would be if Congress was to pull it all back, I've long felt that that was extremely unlikely, particularly with a historically balanced Congress between Democrats and Republicans. It's hard for me to imagine anything that's controversial getting through, but there has been some legislation that seems less [00:24:30] aggressive that could be an issue.

Heather Mills (24:33):
We saw something come up the other day called the Speed Up BEAD Act. It's draft legislation. So just if you go and look it up right now, just be aware that it's draft, but now is the time to, if you see it and you read through it and you have concerns, call your congressman or senator and say, Hey, I have concerns about this or explain. Because basically some of the pieces that I've seen in there is a pullback [00:25:00] of funds that are not going to be used for deployment priority projects. So anything digital opportunity is the word I'm using these days related. That would be something that could be pulled back. And I think some states might have real problems with that because the plans they had for that money related directly to ensuring the success of the infrastructure that the B dollars are paying for.

Christopher Mitchell (25:30):
[00:25:30] There's a list of allowed uses that basically you can only get into if you've made sure that every home and every location home and business is covered.

Ry Marcattilio (25:39):
But

Christopher Mitchell (25:39):
If you do hit that, then there's some other allowed uses for the funds that are related to maximizing people's ability to use these networks. And some states were never going to get there, but some states are largely because they had made their own investments previously. And so the idea that we would now punish them for having invested in themselves [00:26:00] beforehand, they've already been punished by having less money now we're going to even take some of that money away it seems Ill-conceived.

Heather Mills (26:08):
Yeah. Well I think, again, I go back to our earlier conversation as we were talking when we came on about I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and time to work through it. It's still very early in the new administration and they're only just getting to a point where they're getting their leadership in order. So [00:26:30] we've read all of the, everybody who's listening has probably read all of the little things that have come up about potential changes, but until they're real and come from NTIA, we can't really react.

Christopher Mitchell (26:42):
So there's World Beyond BEAD, I'm told. In fact, I'll say that I have recorded a podcast and I'm really looking forward to sharing about a really interesting project that is a combination of E-Rate and other creative uses to get more fiber out into a rural region that will [00:27:00] hopefully spur economic growth and everything else, not using BEAD dollars. We had a wonderful webinar through ILSR with AAPB, the American Association for Public Broadband about municipal finance and there's things you can do even if you're not getting BEAD dollars. What has happening out in the wonderful world of non BEAD that you might want to comment on.

Heather Mills (27:24):
Like I said, I'm living in a BEAD bubble, but I have been tracking [00:27:30] the E-Rate saga. See, in my mind I see this as a lovely, like an afternoon telecast of a drama show. What are those called?

Christopher Mitchell (27:40):
Soap opera.

Heather Mills (27:41):
Soap opera. It's our funding soap opera, if you will. I'm sort of fascinated to see what will happen with the E-Rate program in general because so many localities rely on that funding to ensure that they can teach, learn, [00:28:00] that sort of thing. So it'll be interesting to see where that goes if they overturn. And again, I haven't been asking if the courts do, if the courts do, if the Supreme Court that makes a decision that this is in fact something that shouldn't have been done and can't be done anymore, then where does that leave the entirety of the people who utilize that funding now to ensure that they can do the work that we've asked them to

Christopher Mitchell (28:26):
Do? Yeah, because so just we've talked mostly about [00:28:30] how this impacts the high cost fund on shows that I've done where rural businesses have taken out loans often from the federal government but from other sources. And they are receiving revenues from the federal government every month to allow them to make payments on that, to serve people in these rural areas. Similarly, companies will have taken out loans perhaps to build a network to connect schools and anchor institutions under the E-Rate program. And they might've just done that recently. They might still be building the network [00:29:00] as we speak. And if the federal government says, you are not getting any more money, well, how are they paying their contractors? So there's any number, I don't know, don't know E-Rate. It's a monthly disbursement, like high cost. But there's still that issue of this is usually a five-year program for E-Rate, right? And so there's people all along the cycle who could just get cut off,

Heather Mills (29:21):
Could be longer just depending because of how that process works and when payments start in general. [00:29:30] And I'm sure that they would work out something related to making sure people weren't cut off, but

Christopher Mitchell (29:37):
I'm not sure of that. But I'm glad you are

Heather Mills (29:39):
Past is prologue. If past is prologue, then we can't make any bets there. I'm sorry everybody.

Christopher Mitchell (29:49):
This is what change looks like. It just sometimes comes all at once like a landslide.

Heather Mills (29:54):
I'm going to try not to do this as you make me nervous. Again, it's just sort of a wait [00:30:00] and see. And of course with the added complication is that they overturn the Chevron deference piece as well, which means there would be yet another layer of, I want to say review compliance approvals that we just don't understand that will, I think, make things less efficient overall. But again, I think their focus is coming from a good place of are we doing [00:30:30] this the right way there? Let's hope. Let's hope positive reinforcement.

Christopher Mitchell (30:38):
I think one of the important things to just remember is, first of all, I think you're exactly right about not freaking out about potential changes from NTIA about BEAD. We certainly know that some of the people involved have made some statements, but they've not yet heard from 50 governors, 30 or [00:31:00] 35 are from their party saying, please, you cannot change this program. So there's a lot of things that may change still. So there's all kinds of ancient wisdom that says if you spend all this time worrying, you suffer twice. Once before it happens and then once it actually happens. So let's only suffer one time in cases.

Heather Mills (31:22):
I agree, and I also like to keep the outlook on people who are in public office. [00:31:30] My hope is that they're there with all good intentions overall. And we have to understand that the definition of politics is the mobilization of bias. And if you want to have a long conversation about that over whiskey sometime, Chris, we should totally do that. But I don't believe that the intent is to harm. I think it is just a different outlook on how it should be done. And so it's a matter of figuring out how they want to do it and adjust it.

Christopher Mitchell (31:58):
Alright, well thank you for your time [00:32:00] again today, Heather.

Heather Mills (32:01):
Always a pleasure.

Christopher Mitchell (32:04):
We'll have you back on later. And then in fact, I will say that I'm working on a piece that makes the case that the Rescue Plan and Capital Projects fund, where they did in fact say, here's a bunch of money, just here's some general guidelines. Go and do stuff is a far superior process. But I'm very willing for you to tell me, yes, Chris. But that was not a goal to get every last person connected with a generational investment

Heather Mills (32:27):
Emergency programs are different and everyone [00:32:30] needs to remember that BEAD was never an emergency program.

Christopher Mitchell (32:34):
Well, I look forward to writing this piece and knowing that it's wrong as I'm writing it. All right. Thank you so much, Heather.

Ry Marcattilio (32:43):
We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at communitynets.org/broadbandbits. Email [email protected] with your ideas. For the show, follow Chris on bluesky. His handle is at Sport Shot Chris. Follow [00:33:00] community nets.org stories on Blue Sky. The handle is at Community Nets. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly [email protected]. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. [00:33:30] Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Sby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.