Too Easy to Reach Orbit? - Episode 16 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:16)
All right, I'm gonna have to ask you to put that buffer down because it's time to get Unbuffered ⁓ Christopher Mitchell here with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and I'm talking with Doug Dawson, the one, the only, the POTs and PANs by CCG guy. Welcome back, Doug.

Douglas Dawson (00:33)
Thank you, Chris. I've never been buffered my whole life. That's a great forum.

Christopher Mitchell (00:38)
Excellent. You and I, we've got a we've got a bunch of stuff to to talk about, some some hot topics. we're gonna talk about what's going on with the Digital Equity Act, the NDIA lawsuit for the lawsuit from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance that ⁓ has had some news. We're gonna talk about a customer survey of of rural broadband, and I'm I'm curious about that. We're not gonna go too deep on it. There's a blog post that you did, that's great.

we talked a little bit about pole attachments and then ⁓ we're gonna talk about satellites and how the FCC is changing the rules around that. So we got a a bunch of topics and I don't know much about any of them, so I'm hoping you can carry the freight. But the only other thing that I I think I would note is that I feel like we've talked about BEAD a ton, and I am more certain than ever. I've just been talking to some folks lately that have been going through it, some who are walking away from it and

I guess I'm more certain now than ever that the American Rescue Plan Act approach of giving money to localities and saying, you know what the problem is, you make the investments that are smart, that proves to be a very smart solution. And the whole like we're gonna figure out everything in Washington, DC and then like micromanage everything did not work out so well. And what's your top line like lesson from all that at this point?

Douglas Dawson (01:54)
Absolutely,

⁓ I mean the program that worked the best was Capital Projects Fund, same money as ARPA. All they did was they went state, here's your money to go solve  broadband, here's five rules, and they didn't and and this was done by ⁓ by was that Treasury, and they didn't micromanage it at all. They just said, Here's your money. You do have to prove to us you're doing these four or five things, but it was very broad, and so everybody used that states used that money to build broadband and and they all

Christopher Mitchell (02:10)
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (02:22)
A lot of them took different approaches, but they that money went out the door fast. I mean some states some states had grant programs three and four months after they got the money, you know, so

Christopher Mitchell (02:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, and so

this isn't this isn't a critique, I think, of bureaucrats in DC or in the States. This is just a recognition that there are a number of things for which trying to do this elegant solution in which you identify every last home in the country that doesn't have service, and then you figure out the best technology for all of them and you have this complex bidding, just it's not a good idea. It takes too long and it's not that efficient, it's not worth all the trade offs. Better to get the money out, have some basic safeguards, and then if the localities screw it up.

Douglas Dawson (02:34)
Yeah. No.

Christopher Mitchell (03:00)
They will be held to account.

Douglas Dawson (03:02)
Well, it came out of the congressional language, but a common sense regulatory agency would have said, that's not practical, let's do it this way. So they they stuck to that every single location thing. And then they're still doing it, Chris. They're still coming back to grants that have already been awarded and changing the locations on people. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Yes, yes, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (03:19)
Yeah. Well they're they're disappearing locations in a bunch of places. And

⁓ and so it's anyway, and it's gotten it's gone from it's gone from flawed to farcical and it's just it's gross and disgusting. ⁓ Okay, NDIA ⁓ had some action in that court case. If pre people recall, there's like two point five billion dollars were set aside for Digital Equity Act. ⁓ this thank you. So that money was set aside in order to ⁓ allow

Douglas Dawson (03:30)
Yeah, absolutely.

Two point seven five billion, yes. Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (03:49)
⁓ different targeted groups of people that made up actually a majority of the country, but like, you know, veterans and ⁓ people that have ⁓ that don't speak the language well and I'm trying to remember all the different groups. one of the groups was was racially historically marginalized folks. And on the basis of that, we think the Trump administration, specifically Donald Trump himself, put out a social media post in which he said, I'm calling this unconstitutional. I'm not gonna spend this money. That's gonna do

training and device distribution so people can use the Internet ⁓ and cancel the program. That's not how it works. You can't just do that. So the National Digital Inclusion Alliance filed a lawsuit and said, you can't do it that way. And ⁓ what have the courts said, Doug? We just got some some updates on that.

Douglas Dawson (04:34)
Well, I'm gonna tell you what the court said, and then I want to give you the history of how we got to what the court said because 'cause we don't know what to do with what the court said. So so the courts the court said the which we're all still trying to really believe they said that, but a DOJ lawyer told the judge that if the if they, whoever they is, just takes the word, takes the racial pars part of that rules out, that they would go ahead and not not oppose this anymore. And so ⁓ so you know, now.

Christopher Mitchell (04:41)
Yeah.

Douglas Dawson (05:03)
I don't know who they can do that. I don't believe the judge has the authority to make that change. NDIA certainly does not have the n the authority to negotiate that for the whole country. So I don't know who that comment is aimed at. But

Christopher Mitchell (05:15)
Right. I mean,

so a normal process would have been that a group such as like the ACLU or perhaps one of the more conservative groups would have sued and said this is an unconstitutional racial preference that needs to be removed. It would have gone through a court case. And then eventually, if it was found that that was the case, it would b have been removed and the rest of the act likely would have remained. There's whole body of thought around severability of contracts and legislation, and this word severability is like comes into play. So

Douglas Dawson (05:25)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, so in that in that case a judge could have said, yes, you have to do this. The racial thing either stays in or stays out. But NDIA just sued and said, ⁓ you can't cancel the program. And so that that was their entire lawsuit. So they, you know, they didn't get into the nitty-gritty details. But let's let's go back and look at a little history of how we got to there in the first place. This stuff was awarded and, you know, this program started in 2000. That's a long time ago.

Christopher Mitchell (05:44)
But that didn't happen.

Right.

Douglas Dawson (06:10)
There were supposed to be four years of grant programs starting in twenty-two. Twenty-two, three, four, and five, or maybe five years and six, I think, had one. And so NTIA compl the old NTIA completely screwed this up. The Biden NTA, they didn't issue the first set of potential grants until until 2024. and so that was covering the first three years, 22, 23, and 24. Half of this money could have been spent already.

Christopher Mitchell (06:24)
The Biden and T I A.

Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (06:39)
Long

before long before the lawsuit. So they bundled all three of those years in, and that makes no sense. This is not like BEAD, where they were fighting over locations and stuff. This is simply a grant that said, you can use money to give people computers, you can train them how to use computers, you can do some job training. I mean, it was a pretty l simple list of things that you could use the money for.

and and nobody really argued about those things. And so but they it took all that time. So they didn't get the first set of grants out for four years. And and by that time we had a change of administration. And you're absolutely right. Everyone's pretty confident that the grant got canceled because it had the word equity in the title. Like 'cause the

Christopher Mitchell (07:21)
Right. They were this is a time when

there was a lot of people in the federal government, ⁓ it's c most commonly associated with those working for Elon Musk and DOGE was that they were doing word searches and

Douglas Dawson (07:30)
Yes. Do DOGE did a a

word search on everything with the word equity they tried to cancel. So they can't No.

Christopher Mitchell (07:35)
Yeah, and they didn't bother to understand what it was. I mean, there was literally

there was debates ⁓ with DOGE people trying to give rid of programs that that supported home equity loans. ⁓ because they didn't because these are also people that had no idea what a home equity loan was. So

Douglas Dawson (07:46)
Yes, yes.

Well, no, they're twenty th they're

twenty-three year old, it's not nose ⁓ rats, is who they are, but yes. ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (07:55)
I mean, I'm sure

some of weren't quite that bad, but yes, that was my impression.

Douglas Dawson (07:59)
Yes. That's

my impression, yes. So ⁓ so yeah, so you know, if if it would have been called the Digital Inclusion Act, it might not have been cancelled, right? So I mean s seriously

Christopher Mitchell (08:09)
Right. Or the or the

let's get money to like rural based people who in the who've served in the armed forces to like so they can use computers and actually ⁓ you know, try to improve their their situation in life.

Douglas Dawson (08:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

But but you know, so now we have the score case and the answer is I don't think that changes anything, the j that what the DOJ said, because that court can't deal with that statement.

Christopher Mitchell (08:31)
Well, I I sort of wonder if like it it could be the situation in which the administration was to say, all right, we're gonna reinstate this, we're gonna follow the law, fingers crossed. We're not gonna we're not gonna do anything that involves racial preferences or racial equity language, and nobody will sue them because they'll just be happy that the money's still getting out there. I think I think that could be an approach that would work.

Douglas Dawson (08:56)
Well, that's what we're all hoping for, but you know, Arielle Roth just had a big presentation in front of Congress and she didn't mention this thing again. So I don't believe they're planning to do that 'cause 'cause I bel I believe she would have taken credit for that if they were gonna do that. So

Christopher Mitchell (09:05)
Well her she's she's

No,

you're right. That would have been a time to do it. she's very focused on getting computers out of schools, oddly. So I don't I I can't even I just like I don't want to even talk about the merits of it. It's just not her job. And it's just it's unreal to me, like what is going on. so so that's basically we're in this we're in this situation right now in which we're not really sure what's gonna go on, in that I feel like there's not a mechanism to do what the Department of Justice has proposed.

Douglas Dawson (09:16)
Yes, out of schools, not into schools, out of schools, correct.

No.

Christopher Mitchell (09:39)
Aside from the Trump administration just perhaps starting to do it and the lawsuit being dismissed. I I don't know.

Douglas Dawson (09:45)
And we and we

don't we don't know that that wasn't just a the DOJ right now is staffed with a whole bunch of brand new rookie prosecutors and some incompetent prosecutors. All the p good people left. And and and it wasn't even a party thing. Good c pr prosecutors didn't stay there. I they I think they lost 70% of their original prosecutors. And so yeah, so who knows what what prompted that guy. That may not represent the administration.

Christopher Mitchell (09:53)
Right.

Right, and the ones who are there are totally overworked now.

That was my other thought. I was like I was like, maybe you just made that up. I mean I'm up here in Minnesota

Douglas Dawson (10:14)
position. He might have just made

that up to make the judge happy for all we know. We it's he the judge might have said, Why are you guys being so obstinate? He goes, no, we're good. I mean who knows, right?

Christopher Mitchell (10:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

So so I I mean I feel like we'll keep an eye on this and and try to get a sense of what's going on ⁓ and and update people.

Douglas Dawson (10:31)
Yeah.

But it's a shame that they

d it's a shame that they didn't sue on the on the equity word because that in that case that statement would have meant something, but they didn't. So yeah, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (10:44)
Yeah, I mean, I who who would have known at that point. ⁓ so so you did you did a post about a rural broadband customer survey that I just found quite interesting. ⁓ and ⁓ well let me give you the the ability to start this one off. What did you find interesting from the results of that?

Douglas Dawson (10:46)
Yeah.

Well, it comes from Innovative Systems who's an OSS BSS to me. They've I don't know, this is their

Christopher Mitchell (11:06)
They provide like software to run the back side of the the customer, the subscriptions and all that.

Douglas Dawson (11:09)
And and and they've been doing this for it says it's their 11th

survey, so they do this every year. And they don't ask the same questions, but it's real basic stuff, how do you use your computer and and that sort of stuff. So, you know, what I always find interesting about it is is the percentage of people who, you know, I mean they found that that and and this this was about rural this year. This survey was about rural households. Other years it's not been about rural. And they found that rural households use their computer ten hours a day. That's a lot of hours.

Christopher Mitchell (11:38)
Sure is.

Douglas Dawson (11:39)
I mean that's a whole lot of hours. You gotta figure people are off working and stuff. So you know only 7% used it less than 3% a day. So I just find these every one of these statistics kind of blows me away a little bit because you know and this was probably the most important one to me was that 46% of rural households use a computer to work at home at least part-time. You know, that's not nearly that percent in cities, because cities people go to work, right? But in rural areas you can't, you know, you can't find jobs around you.

Christopher Mitchell (12:08)
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (12:08)
That's that's really the probably the most important thing. And and we've seen that in real life. I worked with one of your Minnesota counties ⁓ and we did a survey there and every this was ⁓ yellow medicine county, every single farm that we talked to had someone who worked at home. Because you have to.

Christopher Mitchell (12:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're they're

they're far from the metro.

Douglas Dawson (12:32)
You have to. So you know, so computers are massively important to these rural areas. And so that that statistic just kinda blows you away. So ⁓ yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (12:40)
Yeah, reliable connectivity. For me, the

part that blows me away is is I just feel like people misunderstand this. Like I just you remember like all the discussion and some of the people I I I like them, but some of the crotchety old men who are just like, making all this investment just so people can stream Netflix, it's all cat videos and kit and just just this idea that it was not worth it. ⁓ eighty one percent use email, seventy nine percent stream entertainment. That's about what I would have expected. Ninety seven percent of respondents use social media.

Douglas Dawson (12:57)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (13:09)
That's why people have those connections. They don't, they don't, they don't have it to stream entertainment. They have it because we are a social species and we connect to other people. And that's how they use it. Now, if you if you want to count out the number of bits that they use over the course of the month, then you'll find that yeah, most of those bits came from Netflix. Yeah, but that's not how you measure things. That's not we if you want to measure how people care about it and why they have it, it's to connect with other people. It's just and so it's this question of like how do you measure?

Douglas Dawson (13:24)
It's all entertainment. It's all entertainment, yeah. No.

And and if you ask and if

you ask them what they would most miss, it's gonna be that. And people go, Well, social media is a waste of time. People don't understand how rural people use social media. This is how you find out what's going on in the community. All your community organizations have a page and that's where they tell you what's going on. I'm it this is Facebook Facebook is the new local newspaper.

Christopher Mitchell (13:51)
Yeah, there's no local newspaper that's left. There's no no nothing.

Douglas Dawson (13:57)
And I don't think that people realize that. So it it really is. So yeah. In ur in an urban area like you and I live, that's not. That's not my newspaper, but it certainly is in small counties.

Christopher Mitchell (13:59)
Yeah. But that that blew me away.

I don't know. I I think that hyper local stuff, like I would think that that actually I mean, we're lucky enough that we live in a part of St. Paul that does still have a thriving newspaper that just covers some local stuff and big city actions. But but a lot of places, you really would get that from from a Facebook or or, you know, some some local ⁓ like I'm trying to think of there's like those there's some ⁓ some cool like serv like front porch forum.

Douglas Dawson (14:09)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (14:32)
⁓ is huge in Vermont and in some places where people organize like that locally.

Douglas Dawson (14:38)
Yeah, years ago what's the no Cook County in Minnesota, the very northern one, just sticks up in the air. The yeah, the the local Facebook was their this was their only form of local they didn't have a radio station, they didn't have a T V station. And they're what they're so that was it. So the social media was the place to find out anything in the community. So th this is really how it works. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (14:43)
Mm. Right, right over Lake Superior.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I do think there is a local radio station up there, but it might be ⁓ down in Lake County. ⁓ so I don't know how far it goes. Yeah. Right. ⁓ okay, so pole attachments. wanted to talk about this. You have a again, again, great posts on POTs and PANs by CCG. for people who aren't checking that out, they should. but whenever I'm planning to have you on, I always want to be like, all right, what are the hot topics that Doug's been thinking about and are fresh in his brain? And you just wrote about what's going on in the world of pole attachments.

Douglas Dawson (15:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not it's not truly local, yeah. So yes.

Christopher Mitchell (15:34)
It seems like a potential kind of revolution in ⁓ in how pole attachments are regulated.

Douglas Dawson (15:40)
Yeah. Nineteen this is go this goes back to the nineteen thirty-four act. So nineteen thirty-four tele telecommunications act.

Christopher Mitchell (15:48)
So you're saying it doesn't go back to Woodrow Wilson, just just checking. Because I think Woodrow Wilson was dead by then, or at least he certainly had had his stroke at that point. So Okay.

Douglas Dawson (15:50)
It does. No.

Th this does not this does not go back to Woodrow Wilson. So just in case

anyone who might be listening to the show is a big Woodrow Wilson fan is ⁓ he might he might be listening though. So but but that 1934 act said you have to regulate poles and right or immediately it said, but states can do it themselves and if not the FCC should do it. And so so what happened over the years, and that's called reverse preemption, which is some damn lawyer term, but so so over the over the

Christopher Mitchell (16:03)
He's retired. I don't know if he cares anymore.

I think it actually goes back to the Catholic

Church, but with with subsidiarity for people that really want to dig into it.

Douglas Dawson (16:27)
Could be, could be. So

over the years, twenty-two states have elected to do their own pole attachments. And so pole attachment rules are

How much do you pay to get a pole attachment? How long does it take? What are the remedies? Most states who have their own rules, if if things aren't working right, you can go to the state commission and try to get a remedy. So states that and but typically typically the states that have their own rules are the ones that have a lot of poles. I mean, some states don't have a lot of poles. so so so the so 22 states have put these in. Some of these have been in place.

There the list was almost that long when I got in industry fifty years ago. I mean these these states have been doing this forever. ⁓ a lot of states said no. yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (17:11)
And some states have been innovative. Like Maine has been innovative

with one touch make ready efforts and things like that.

Douglas Dawson (17:15)
Yes.

Some of the states actually started that stuff before the FCC who eventually adopted it, right? Exactly. So I I mean I was I was actually a witness in the main one many, many years ago where they were the first one to put shot clocks in too. So they've always been very innovative. ⁓ but the FCC for some reason, which of ⁓ w I d well seems like all they're doing is

is giving the big carriers everything they want. And I think the big carriers assume the FCC will regulate stuff less than the than the states. That's the otherwise I can't even see why they're doing this, but but ⁓ but you know there are you know over half the states have stuck with the FCC because their their pole attachment rules aren't bad.

Christopher Mitchell (17:56)
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (17:56)
I mean

they're not they're they're livable, ⁓ but there's no local flavor. And and the biggest problem with being in the FCC rules is if you get into a dispute between a pole owner and an ISP, you have to go to the FCC to for a remedy, and that's a black hole time-wise. It it doesn't happen quickly.

Christopher Mitchell (18:11)
Right, I I intervened I

I tried to get involved in one or two of those and it was just like the small ISP was fighting against a local investor owned electric company and and the electric company I think was basically like, We'll wait till the end of the universe to to to deal with this 'cause the FCC's not going to move on it anytime soon.

Douglas Dawson (18:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No, no. So but in states, a lot of the states actually move on those disputes pretty quickly. So the FCC came out of the blue. I mean, this there was no prediscussion. The industry's not been talking about we need this. And they're they put out a they put out a a rec you know, a request for comment that said, we're thinking of making every state recertify their program.

And we don't even know that they ever certified to start with. I we think that all they had to do was write to the FCC and go, per the act, we're taking over our own pole regulations here. We got this, exactly. So now they want states to come and ask the FCC for permission to do their own pole regulations. And the only reason they yes.

Christopher Mitchell (19:00)
Yeah, here's my certification. We got this.

And this is from the Republicans. The party of Washington D

C should be in control of everything suddenly.

Douglas Dawson (19:16)
suddenly and and this is also the party in in charge of light touch regulation where we don't want to tell people what to do. So so you know both of those things. So all of a sudden they're they're gonna ask now this has to pass, but this FCC when they ask the question, they're gonna order it. W they're not gonna change th it doesn't matter what those comments are, they're gonna order this now in another 90 or 120 days. So they're gonna make states come in

And they're gonna you're gonna say, can I please, please regulate my own poles? And they're gonna go, ⁓ you're a red state, yeah, you're good. you're California, no, we're taking it over from you. No particular rhyme or reason, because California actually is a really interesting state because they really force the rates low. California is real conscious to keep the pole attachment rates low. But so because they're complaining that states are you know not following the rate rules and all that. The rate rules are spelled out.

And just three sentences in the original 1934 Act, you know, rates have to be b equitable and based upon costs. And so there, you know, st it's impossible to say any state's doing it wrong. Nobody's trying to make a big profit off of pole attachments. Cause it cause it's not in the benefit of the states or the feds to do that. So ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (20:33)
Well

there's there's another thing going on too simultaneously, right? Which is that the historically the cooperatives and the munis, this the mu the basically the publicly owned entities that are accountable to the public, they were not held to those rules. They had the ability to do more self-regulation, ⁓ because there was an expectation that if they were acting against the community interests, ⁓ people would be like, What the heck? And they could just change it. Whereas you know, you know that you know that a big

Douglas Dawson (20:51)
Yes.

Right.

Christopher Mitchell (21:00)
investor-owned electricity company, like for instance Excel Energy up here in Minnesota, ⁓ they have an interest in trying to drive the pool rates up because they don't really care what happens to any of these communities. It doesn't bother them. They're just trying to get as much money as they can. But a co-op, if it's making life hard for people, people have a a means of changing that policy. But it seems like the federal government, and particularly back to Arielle Roth and NTIA, ⁓

Am I understanding correctly that NTIA is requiring the the co-ops that are gonna get BEAD dollars potentially to ⁓ have to then adhere to the FCC's rules that had not previously applied to them?

Douglas Dawson (21:37)
And not just for BEAD, they have to adhere to them for all time. They have to in order to get and some of them, like I know a co-op I'm working with who got already funded 95% of their network, and they were going after 500 locations with BEAD.

Christopher Mitchell (21:41)
That that's remarkable.

Douglas Dawson (21:54)
And so they would have to put their all their poles under FCC jurisdiction to get funding for five hundred poles. You can guess what he said. I you know, he's like, F that. Because that's that's the end that's the end of my BEAD. I don't want it. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (22:03)
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is Yeah. I mean,

people should appreciate that like the co-ops range from Peternales, which is outside Austin, or not even outside Austin anymore, which now has like three million members and incredible density. And like these South Carolina co-ops that have like the suburbs have grown into them and they have like a lot of density. They're totally different from the co ops in other places. I mean, I visited one up in Alaska, and the idea that these are all going to be subject to the same rules is ludicrous.

Douglas Dawson (22:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, it isn't. You know, another one is the the the capital of Oregon, Portland is completely inside of a co-op. It didn't used to be, but it is now, right? So but yeah, most co-ops are exactly the opposite of that. They're just tiny and now one of the things that none of these guys like, the state pole rules actually also have rules about keeping your poles in good shape.

And that's the one the electric companies hate. And I have to think that the electric companies are behind this, because they know that the FCC's not been pushing them on that. Some of the states are pushing them on that. The states are pushing, a lot of the states are like pushing pole inventories and you have to have a plan to up to update your oldest poles. And so there that's what so I don't know that this is coming from telcos and ISPs. I think this is coming from the pole owners.

Christopher Mitchell (23:04)
Yeah, this is important.

Hm. That's interesting.

Douglas Dawson (23:21)
you know, the the big utilities

because that that's what they they r absolutely hate those roles. ⁓ yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (23:27)
I mean, what when I try

to get a sense of what's really happening out there, because I can appreciate that people are like, Yeah, Chris, your theory's great that that that the city owned or cooperatively owned would operate differently, but like they also are run by people that are have their own incentives and they don't really care what the neighbors think and stuff like that. But I look for empirical evidence. And one of the things that has struck me was that it's like tw when did when did Hurricane Sandy hit? Was that must have been twenty twelve, 'cause it was during the election, right?

and ⁓ and there's a I don't remember it was Sandy or the storms that happened the year before or the year after, but there was a series of storms in New England. And I think it was Reuters did a big piece looking at why it was that National Grid and the other investor owned electric utilities were out for a week after these storms. And the municipal providers, there's no real co-ops in New England, there's one in New Hampshire, but there's just not much else. But the municipal providers were out for like usually a day or less.

And they look back at decades of of maintenance budgets and found that the investor-owned utilities had stopped trimming the trees and doing other stuff to protect their poles. And so what you're talking about, Doug, like I can imagine people are like, well, who really cares? Is it like if they if they don't maintain the poles, that's their problem? Yeah, until you get electrocuted or until you lose power to the hospital and like any number of other places, because these companies are skimping, they're taking your money that they're supposed to put into maintenance and they're giving it to their shareholders and their executives.

Douglas Dawson (24:26)
Right.

Right.

Christopher Mitchell (24:47)
And this a that's a real problem. It needs to be managed, ⁓ to make sure that doesn't happen. And yet the federal government is not gonna do as good a job of that as the states, although the states aren't gonna do a perfect job, that's not the argument.

Douglas Dawson (24:59)
You we had Hurricane Helene here and and and and Duke and Duke has done a pretty good job with tree trimming in the city. They do not do a good job in the country. And so that's where they had all the big problems. But even here in the city now, I would say 15% of the poles lean sideways. I I my guess is they're never gonna fix them because there's no one making them do that. So the next time we have a storm, it's gonna be a disaster.

Christopher Mitchell (25:01)
Yeah, you had experience with it.

Douglas Dawson (25:25)
I mean you just you know, I I'm a guy who drives around looking at poles. That's an idiot thing to do. My wife gets real annoyed.

Christopher Mitchell (25:30)
Yeah. No, it's interesting

because I was just talking with folks at Anza Electric Cooperative about the challenges they've faced. And like, for instance, they do not use wooden poles anymore. And I suspect this is true for others. I don't know. I don't know if PG and E still uses wooden poles, but Anza is basically like everything is is a metal or a concrete, I forget, I don't remember what was, but like it's something that won't burn. Yeah, and they'll they'll put in stuff that they can, even if everything burns off the pole, they can get new stuff on the pole quickly.

Douglas Dawson (25:35)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. And at some o some of each there's both, yeah, yeah.

Right.

Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (25:58)
you

know, and and take care of it because they're trying to figure out how to serve their n they live there. Like they're this is their territory. They take it seriously.

Douglas Dawson (26:05)
I've actually seen it. Even if a tree knocks one of those over, if the tree falls down and knocks over a middle pole, you cut the tree out in pieces and you stand the pole back up. I mean it doesn't break the pole. So it's like, yes. So it's it's really that is the way to go. They cost more, but they're good for a hundred years. So, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (26:14)
Yeah.

Yeah. So ⁓ anything else on the on the pole attachments? I feel like

Douglas Dawson (26:26)
that I just think it's extraordinary that the FCC wants to take over local regulation. They want to take over pole attachments, they want to take over wireless permitting, they want to take over fiber permitting, they simply want to do it all in themselves. And on the surface that doesn't sound bad, except what they really want to do is when they take that over, then they don't want to regulate anything.

Christopher Mitchell (26:47)
No,

and they and they don't put competent people in charge of it. I mean, it's it's it's it's incompetent people, it's understaffed, and it it falls through the cracks, people don't pay attention. And I just I mean, if we go if we talk about BEAD again for a second, right? You mentioned Oregon in the the co-op there. Like you look at Oregon and Washington, right? And like these are states for whom if you want to talk about the average cost of doing something, and this is true in many places, but I think about it over there pretty like.

Douglas Dawson (26:49)
No.

Christopher Mitchell (27:11)
Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington are fundamentally different regions than the western parts of those states. And to some extent, in in Oregon, you've got like a majority of the people that live in the Portland Metro. And when you look at how BEAD and these other programs work, they just they they look at a state and they're like, okay, we're gonna do an average cost of this state. Well, that's ridiculous. Like you don't you don't pick it, that's not how averages work. And so and so when it comes to BEAD, you've got on the eastern parts of these states.

Douglas Dawson (27:16)
Yes.

Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (27:40)
People are getting screwed and they're not gonna be able to build the networks that are needed because they can't hit the numbers that people in the western part of the state can hit because the densities are totally different. And I don't even think people understand that at a numerical level in DC.

Douglas Dawson (27:53)
Well that's what they did to North Carolina because all all seven of the most western states, 100% of the grants, 100% of BEAD went to satellite. Because they lowered the amount of money, they cut it in half with the benefit of bargain round and BEAD, and so and then nobody wanted to take the money anymore. So so there's seven counties here where their only BEAD solution is and not only is it satellite, it's Amazon, who doesn't even have a product. So yes.

Christopher Mitchell (28:07)
Mm-hmm.

No, no, they've had they've had 200 satellites in orbit now, Doug. They're well on their way. Okay. All right. we're gonna move on then to ⁓ the satellites. Actually, that was a perfect segue if I'd realized it, but I forgot what we're talking about for the last topic. So ⁓ segue achieved. ⁓ so the FCC is changing our way ⁓ how the satellites are being regulated. And and I don't know, like I I will say that I want to come to this with an open mind because

Douglas Dawson (28:24)
they're almost to three hundred.

Yes. It it was. It was. ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (28:52)
Although I'm deeply frustrated with the corruption and stupidity of the Federal Communications Commission, I'm w very willing to believe that the the government approach from the Federal Communications Commission of how to deal with satellites may need to change when you go from having ⁓ you know, like a few thousand satellites to having potentially a hundred thousand in a in a few years. ⁓ you know, it's I can imagine that we may need some different regulations. So I'm open to it. But from your work, it doesn't seem like it's necessarily ⁓ the smartest approach here.

Douglas Dawson (29:22)
Well, you're first off, they did need to be modernized. The the rules were written twenty, thirty years ago when there barely were any satellites, right? I mean, the entire planet before all this broadband stuff didn't have two thousand satellites, the entire from all the countries everywhere, right?

And so there wasn't a whole lot to regulate. I mean, the sa there's only one collision between satellites in history. The two of them ran into each other. It's like, yeah, we should probably do something about that, right? So there wasn't a whole lot of rules. ⁓ and so all of a sudden now we literally are talking about four or five hundred thousand satellites potentially in the next 10 years. I mean, a big numbers, big numbers. Because it's not just we're not just talking Starlink. There's two different giant companies and and

Christopher Mitchell (29:50)
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (30:07)
China, there's a big company in Europe. I mean there's gonna a lot of satellites up there, so

Christopher Mitchell (30:12)
Now, if

we if we pause there for a second to give people a sense, are you familiar with the book The Three Body Problem, Doug? So brilliant, brilliant book, brilliant trilogy. ⁓ I loved it. Netflix has done a good job of of ⁓ developing it as well. ⁓ and the premise is that like the gravitational challenges of three bodies rotating around each moving around each other is incredibly hard to compute.

Douglas Dawson (30:17)
Yeah, yeah.

It

is.

Christopher Mitchell (30:35)
And right now we have on the order of twenty thousand satellites, I wanna say, up in space. And there's a few companies that are able to manage their trij trajectories to make predictions about potential collisions. I think a lot of folks are working

Douglas Dawson (30:46)
Yeah. Yeah, I'd say we're around

we're around twenty thousand. Starlink will hit by December will hit twelve thousand. There's been a whole bunch of there's a whole bunch of companies that have three hundred, five hundred. So there's there's probably that many, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (30:57)
Right. But there's only a

couple of companies that have the sophistication to be able to like make the predictions of which satellites could bump into each other. And to be clear, like we're talking about an area of space that is much larger than the surface of the Earth. And so if I told you there was twenty thousand objects scattered around the earth and they might bump into each other, you might laugh at me. But above Earth, they're traveling at fourteen thousand miles per hour or something like that. Like right.

Douglas Dawson (31:01)
yeah.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

Well, and they're putting them in a very narrow band that's only about

three or four hundred miles wide. So that it's not like this is an all of space. There's there's got they're talking about having, you know, four hundred, five hundred thousand satisf satellites in a three hundred mile wide thing. All of a sudden that's starting to sound kind of crowded. I would think it I would think it with that many satellites you should be able to look up at any time and see ten or fifteen of them. That's crowded, right? Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (31:37)
Well and I don't know

Well, and the point I wanted to make

is that we may very you can put up enough satellites that we do not have the computational power to make all the predictions to make sure that they avoid each other. And I think I've talked previously, there's academic papers that have been looking into the issues around solar interference when you have these ⁓ solar storms. and that can knock out the communications for the satellites, making it impossible to move their orbits and moving us closer to this dreaded scenario of having a cascading series of collisions.

Douglas Dawson (31:50)
Yes.

Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (32:13)
Інспейс.

Douglas Dawson (32:13)
it's worse than

it's it's way worse than what you just said. ⁓ a year ago, this new administration laid off a lot of the folks who track satellites. Now they brought them back because Starlink and all goes, we kind of need those people because they're the ones who want them. They actually like, we'd rather you the government do that than make that our responsibility, right?

Christopher Mitchell (32:22)
Of course.

Douglas Dawson (32:34)
So they so they but they did lay some of them off. And of course any time you have a government layoff of that magnitude, what you did was you lost the institutional knowledge and the people they hired back are not near they have a ten year learning curve, right? I mean if all you do all day is track satellites, I would think you get pretty good at it after a while, right? So

Christopher Mitchell (32:51)
Well in that and you

remember why you did this thing fifteen years ago that no one else does and like that that that odd, you know, rare problem. But let's get back to so what is the Federal Communications Commission doing?

Douglas Dawson (32:54)
Right, right.

Yeah. So let so so what the re so

the regulation first off they're gonna throw first off, it's the longest order I've ever seen. It's two hundred and ninety six pages and I just I love regulations and I can't read it all.

Christopher Mitchell (33:10)
Ha ha ha.

Douglas Dawson (33:12)
So I started reading the chapter headers. I've read about a half of it. It's just so what they're doing, first of they're throwing out a lot of the old stuff. A lot of the old stuff had to do with the guys who are 20,000 miles up. So they're changing their rules a lot, because who the hell cares what they do? There's you know, there's 13 of them, and I don't care if they put 3,000 of them, they're 20,000 miles away. They are not gonna run into each other, right? There's a input very difficult.

Christopher Mitchell (33:32)
But it would be difficult to intentionally run into each other.

Douglas Dawson (33:37)
You know, they they put in new rules for space stations. It's like, well, how many of those are there? Right now there's none. There's one or two. And so yeah. Yeah, yeah. So so there's some rules about that. But they got rid of a lot of those old things. And they they need it to be modernized. So I have no question they have to do it. But here's the part that bothers me. What they want to do.

Christopher Mitchell (33:44)
Right. We just put out a we just put out a contract for a tug to de orbit it, which is fascinating.

Douglas Dawson (34:01)
Is they want anyone who applies to put up a new satellite, they want to implement what's called bright line regulation. And in case you don't know what that means, that means a regulation that's very simple to understand. And so ⁓ so yes, a bright line regulation is you can't buy beer until you're 18. So you're either 18, you're either eight, you're either eighteen or you're not. That's the bright line. It's a bright line.

Christopher Mitchell (34:13)
Mm. I'm this is generally what I'm in favor of.

Right. There might be like reasons. Even if you're super mature at seventeen, you can't do it.

Douglas Dawson (34:29)
Satellite you just talked about it. Satellite constellations are amazingly qu complicated. I don't want them to to only have to check off seven boxes and they go fine, you have your permission. Because that's what they're talking about. They're talking about barely they're they're talking about a a process to come in and go.

I want to put up 500 satellites to do paging for cellular or whatever, and they go, fine. Did you check off the seven boxes? Did you swear they're good? Yes. Well, here you get your permit. Well, and in the in the past, here was the process in the past. In the past, you had to give very detailed engineering specifications.

Christopher Mitchell (35:00)
As opposed to perhaps some engineer having to review that on an impartial basis.

Douglas Dawson (35:11)
Believe it or not, they used to publish those. So the very first two applications from Starlink were made public. And then they all decided that was trade secrets. And that so ever since then you never see those anymore. But they they were

very exhaustive could that's how c the only thing we know about Starlink are those original papers. Tell it told us everything about them, right? And so you had to you had to prove to the FCC that you knew what you were doing, that you were that you know these satellites weren't going to crash, they were going to be able to go to the right orbit, that you would be able to move them if there was a problem. You had a way to to change your your attitude. You know, all those they had a long list of things that you had to prove to them.

⁓ you had to prove that you had enough spectrum to support them and that they weren't going to interfere with other people's spectrum and a long, long, long list of all the things you have to do. Brightline's gonna do away with that. They're just gonna go, you know, it's they're just, I mean, this is obviously a pro-satellite company set of regulations. Starlink just Starlink member proposed to put up a million satellites for it, for ⁓ a data center in the sky. ⁓ and

And ⁓ and that got countered by by ⁓ Amazon saying that they wanted to put up 150,000 satellites for a data center in the sky. That's a lot of satellites. And and and under if they have bright line regulations, they're gonna go, ⁓ we're gonna go to these orbits, we know what we're doing, you should approve this, right? Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (36:38)
Yeah, no, check the boxes and ⁓ and that's

and what happens internally is you have engineers who are like likely to be like, you know what? Like we don't really know if the system will really work. For instance, to like move it around and and that sort of thing. And there will be this pressure of we have a launch date, we have to hit this, the investors are expecting us to do it. That's what drives this. It's not it's not like this concern about what happens if when these things collide. It's what happens to the investors if we miss our dates. And you get pressure.

Douglas Dawson (36:50)
No.

Christopher Mitchell (37:05)
To then to basically fudge the check boxes is what my concern would be.

Douglas Dawson (37:09)
Well yeah, and what we people probably don't realize this, but the FCC has a huge number of engineers and these are good engineers. They have some of the best. You know, so you you know, if you wanna do something with wireless, you gotta prove all sorts of stuff to them. I mean w w w

Christopher Mitchell (37:23)
Yeah, find me an electronics device

that doesn't have an FCC stamp on it.

Douglas Dawson (37:27)
Correct. So if they pass these bright line rules, it's gonna be easier to put a satellite constellation is than it is to bring a new radio into the country. Because they rarely check it out. The the engineers they and and currently they're satellite engineers, you know, they make you answer all their questions. And and and if

you file and you only ask ask half the questions, they go, No, where's the other half of the questions? You gotta answer my questions and they do. And so I think we want that. So I don't want I don't I don't mind I don't mind now they could have speeded up the process 'cause they can always speed up the process, but they can't shortcut the process and that's what the problem is. Bright line by definition shortcuts the process. So

Christopher Mitchell (37:57)
Right.

Well and I I think again to just bring it back to like, okay, what's the big deal? So a company puts up five hundred satellites and screws up, it's their fault. They've they'll just they've lost their investment and it don't it doesn't work the way they thought they would. Until it creates a a debris belt and means we can't launch anything through the debris belt for a period of years while we wait for it to clear. That is ⁓ changes everyone's lives for the worse.

Douglas Dawson (38:24)
No.

Yes.

No, we're talking about if there's a major satellite constellation, we would set off a chain reaction but put on all these and we would have a cloud of debris that would probably be there for fifty thousand years, meaning we couldn't go into space anymore.

Christopher Mitchell (38:48)
Well, that

would that would be the worst case scenario in the right orbits. If it was in a low Earth orbit, it could take it could clear in five to ten years, depending. I mean, ⁓ I'm presuming so the there's like there's some bad cases that aren't disastrous, but it's still really bad. If we can't launch if we could launch for five years, that would be really, really bad. There's a ton of technology we use that that would stop working over time.

Douglas Dawson (38:50)
Yes.

Yeah. Well, I don't know, there's little there's little those little Yeah. Yes. But the but it's still really

Yes. Well well not only that, but all the satellites

are up there have been shredded. We no longer have weather satellites and communication satellites. That's kind of bad, yeah. ⁓ so I I don't know that I care that we don't have defense satellites anymore, but but I I might I'm well actually how how how how how would I know, right?

Christopher Mitchell (39:22)
you might. I mean, it really depends. I mean, you're in North Carolina a little bit on the interior. Right.

Douglas Dawson (39:31)
You have good point there. So yes. So no, th this idea of of being able I mean this is I mean this I would have to call this the Elon Musk regulation. He's like, it's too hard, make it simple. So they did.

Christopher Mitchell (39:43)
But

this is the thing that kills me is that like it's so short-sighted because this isn't even in his benefit or the benefit of like of Bezos as well. That the sort of these people who are like, probably nothing will happen, and certainly nothing will happen to me in the worst case scenario. Like they're individually insulated from it. The worst thing that happens for them is there's some sort of bankruptcy or something. ⁓ but like this this question of what happens to the rest of us is is it but but ultimately if space is well suited, like the space at the space industry.

Douglas Dawson (40:09)
Well

Christopher Mitchell (40:13)
Will be well served if we don't have a different operator, whether that's Elon Musk or whether that's the next shadow, you know, operating by night organization comes through and screws everything up for everyone else. And this is this is why we have these regulations. A lot of companies actually have good supply chains and don't want to put poisonous ingredients in the milk, right? But like they have good regulations to make sure that those who aren't

that good or or or or either incompetent or or have malice on the mind that they can't ruin it for the good companies also.

Douglas Dawson (40:44)
Now there is a question about whether the FCC actually can do this because all the all the companies who have stuff in space are part of something called the ITU, which is the International Something Union, but it's in I think it's an Italian, the actual name of it, but

⁓ but it's ⁓ but it's a group of all them and they agree on all the rules for stuff like radio spectrums and they agree on satellite stuff. And so I don't know that the US can arbitrarily allow bad actors in space by changing these rules. The rest of the world might say, no, you can't do that. So and of course what happens? What's the ITU's position? Throw us out. Yeah, I I ⁓ we will, we will.

Christopher Mitchell (41:21)
Well, I do think I think that we're gonna see this tested, Doug. I mean, whether it's us or whether it's,

you know, some some either nation or perhaps area of land that's not well controlled, seeing rocket launches. I'm I think we're gonna see this in the next ten, fifteen years.

Douglas Dawson (41:33)
Well

Well one of the I mean, I told you there was two Chinese companies. One of them is completely controlled and known by the Chinese government. Are they gonna follow the rules? The other one's a commercial company out of Singapore and they're not really Chinese, so and the government doesn't have any role in that one. But but, you know, there's nothing you're right, there's nothing to stop Joe Bob from kid having a satellite company if there's if there's bright line regulations. One bad satellite could set off this chain reaction.

That's how that's how tender space is, yes. So

Christopher Mitchell (42:06)
Well, and I think I mean it and ultimately

for for those of you who who are into some of the there's some really good near term perspective like war fiction about battles between the US and and China, for instance. And it always starts in space and like that's that's probably the real threat, ⁓ ultimately, if we can if we if we end up in that scenario, none of this stuff for commercial space really matters a whole lot.

Douglas Dawson (42:35)
Well no, I mean th if the Chinese wanted to do it, no, they're gonna have their own big satellite, but they could start that chain reaction, wipe out everyone's satellites and put Elon out of business, ⁓ along with themselves. So that's the trouble, is nobody wants to do that. So ⁓ now I I have to think that the surveillance satellites are not at the same orbit level. We don't know where those are because they don't tell us. That's a s that's a secret what what altitude those are at. So yes.

Christopher Mitchell (42:43)
Mm-hmm.

Right. I mean I think you can I think

Right, but my but it's it yet it's known, right? Someone has a

database of like yeah, of 'cause like it's measurable with the telescope, presumably so.

Douglas Dawson (43:04)
Somebody knows, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes,

it is. It is. I'm sure that I'm sure if I actually went to Space News there's an article in there about it somewhere, but yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (43:14)
And I yeah, I mean I will say, ⁓ what is it? I think it's satellite map dot space. ⁓ there's a great

Douglas Dawson (43:20)
Yeah. there's comp

there's there's companies that track every single satellite. It's really kinda cool to watch these things. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (43:24)
Yeah. If people aren't familiar, satellite map

dot space, so cool. Different, ⁓ you can just see everything that's around the planet. So ⁓

Douglas Dawson (43:29)
Yeah.

Yeah. Nowadays people

track everything. When they track where every rich person's airplane goes, you know the people track you.

Christopher Mitchell (43:39)
Yeah, I don't know how much longer that's gonna last. We'll see until they there'll be some sort of like kind of like for a while you know who owned a website, right? But now everyone is behind a mask of whoever the registrar is puts up a a screen and you can't see it. I think that the tail numbers may well be scrubbed for certain people, in certain planes, in in the future. We'll see. ⁓

Douglas Dawson (43:41)
Yeah.

Right. Yes. Right.

Well then it might just

say rich guy on a plane. That's all I need to know.

Christopher Mitchell (44:02)
Right.

Right. It's like ⁓ someone else just reminded me of this. It's like the diplomatic immunity from the movies in the eighties, Lethal Weapon Two in particular with they get to do what they want. You hit it hit a certain level of wealth. ⁓ anything else you wanna you wanna mention? Anything else interesting going on?

Douglas Dawson (44:10)
Yeah.

Nah, that's that's a lot. I have a blog tomorrow ⁓ which you'll find interesting talking about the future of broadband offices. ⁓ yeah, so I somebody I guess it was Benton maybe who wrote an article about that and then ⁓ I and I took their first sentence or two and then went off.

They first off, Benton said, hey, there's about half of the states, their s their broadband office is sunset. Meaning they said you're gonna be in business five years and then you that's how long your funding lasts. And it happened to coincide with the federal funding. They expected BEAD to pay for most of this, right? Well, when that funding runs out, ⁓ a lot of them are just gonna let the broadband office shut down. Now they still have obligations. They're supposed to still track BEAD spending and all that. But if if a state goes, well,

Christopher Mitchell (44:47)
Mm-hmm.

Right, they'll bury it in the Department of Commerce or something.

Douglas Dawson (45:04)
But states will just go, I don't care what my obligations are, I'm not doing it anymore. What are they gonna do? Right. So are they gonna come pull are they gonna pull the fiber out of the ground? I mean, I don't think so. So ⁓ so so ⁓ Pew wrote the article and there, and Pew came out with like six or seven things that they should consider doing, but they were all socially responsible. And it's like, you're asking state governments to be socially responsible. Are you sure about this?

Christopher Mitchell (45:10)
Come take the network back.

Douglas Dawson (45:31)
It's a it's a we all would love it 'cause we're insiders of the industry. Like yeah, we would l we would I'm taking a realistic approach. I mean I'm it'd be wonderful if they really take inventories and, you know, track things and get statistics and 'cause that's the kind of stuff that would be really wonderful to have. But I don't know this

Christopher Mitchell (45:35)
So you're taking more of a realistic approach.

Yeah, you mentioned this

before with like having an inventory. I mean, if you really wanted to have a pro competition ⁓ activity, ⁓ making it easier to get on poles and identifying where there are abiliti where there's like free attachment space and ⁓ where you could put together certain paths and ⁓ where there's like open conduit, like and making that more available to small ISPs, that would make investment a lot easier.

Douglas Dawson (46:10)
Right.

if I had to get a fiber line through the D C metro area and I had that complete inventory, I could find a path where it was the cheapest. Which means also the easiest, which means there's room on the poles, right? Which would be good be good would be

Christopher Mitchell (46:26)
Which probably would be like three X less than if you didn't have that information, right? I mean like significant

difference.

Douglas Dawson (46:31)
yeah,

no, I think you're talking you would cut the cost by two-thirds. And those would be the poles where the guys aren't gonna mind you getting on. They're like, well, yeah, they're open, that's good. I my my fiber route would run through neighborhoods. Well, I don't care as a pole owner. As a fiber owner, like I don't need to follow the major highways. So but no, the the inventories would be wonderful.

Christopher Mitchell (46:44)
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Dawson (46:52)
⁓ we'll see if they if you know, hardly anyone has done anything like that. West Virginia wanted to use their non use their non-deployment funds to force that, but ⁓ that's the only one so far who made a s appr I guess Vermont talked about it. So people are talking about it, but that's not the same thing as happened to this wonderful inventory. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (47:12)
Right.

Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Doug, and ⁓ it's been it's been a fun conversation covering ⁓ everything from how people use the Internet to the future of ⁓ annihilating our ability to get off the planet. So it's a pretty wide ranging conversation.

Douglas Dawson (47:28)
Well, what

what I love is that ninety seven percent of the people have a chance to see this video.

Christopher Mitchell (47:34)
I hope all

ninety seven percent of share it on social media.

Douglas Dawson (47:37)
Exactly. I think I

think it could happen. It could happen. So thank you, Chris.

Christopher Mitchell (47:41)
All right, well thank you.

Jordan Pittman (47:45)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unbuffered Podcast. We have transcripts for this and other episodes available at ILSR.org/podcast. While you're there, check out our other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcasts. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show. Follow us on Bluesky. Our handle is @communitynets.

You can catch the latest research from all of our initiatives by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org While you're there, please take a moment to donate. Your support in any amount helps keep us going. Unbuffered is produced by Christopher Mitchell with editing provided by me, Jordan Pittman. Until next time, thanks for listening.