Why ISPs Fail and the Reality Facing State Broadband Offices - Episode 29 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:16)
We're launching into another fun episode of Unbuffered. And for this one, we've brought out three great guests, all repeat offenders. we're gonna be talking today about why Internet service providers fail a bit. And then we're gonna dig into some hot gossip. What's been going on? The broadband state offices, what do they have to deal with around BEAD? And and is that interesting enough to keep you here to the end of the show? That's the question we are testing today on. Unbuffered.

I'm Chris Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self Reliance. That gaffe you heard was Doug Adams. Doug, welcome. Doug is the head of broadband marketers

and is also the reporter at Broadband I.O. Welcome.

Doug Adams (00:59)
Thank you very much for having me.

Christopher Mitchell (01:01)
And then to keep people on their toes, we've got Doug Dawson who is back as always from CCG Consulting. Welcome back, Doug.

Doug Dawson (01:08)
And I'm glad to see people laughing because that's the whole point of this podcast. If you're not having a good time w don't even bother being here. So

Christopher Mitchell (01:14)
Right.

A little bit of information, a lot of entertainment, right? That's what we go for.

Doug Dawson (01:18)
Yes, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (01:19)
And then we also have Jade Piros back. Jade is the market expansion and government affairs guru at Ideatek, an Internet service provider. Welcome back, Jade.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (01:29)
Thanks so much for having me. You want to be careful not to put BEAD in the description of this podcast or you run the risk of nobody listening to it because we're all over it. We're over it.

Christopher Mitchell (01:38)
Yes. Yeah, there's a danger there.

I I feel very over it.

Doug Dawson (01:40)
We we I feel

over it, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (01:46)
so I saw a post from Doug about why do why some ISPs fail. And it both resonated with me. And then also I just felt like there was some more detail that we could expand upon on some of those items that Doug identified. I thought it would a fun conversation for people to better understand the challenges here. And so for that, I was gonna talk to Doug about it, but I was thinking that we should pair it with what's happening with all of the NTIA changes and the the hassle.

And and bring in Doug Adams, who has worked with a number of ISPs on marketing stuff, and Jade, who previously had been in a broadband office and now is with an Internet service provider, but has always been trying to keep a sense of what's going on for ISPs in real life. So that was my logic in pulling this group together. Doug, I'm just curious, Doug Doug Dawson, why did you decide to write about why ISPs fail? Was there some precipitating event?

Doug Dawson (02:42)
No, I was, you know, I have about 600 ISP clients and I used to be an ISP. And what my what my consulting company does for a living is we fix these kind of problems we're going talk about. Which really at the end of the day irks me because I always warn them not to get into these problems and they get into them anyway. You know, today when day when clients listen to consultants, I could retire. So that would be great. So but but you know, so so

Christopher Mitchell (03:07)
Right.

Doug Dawson (03:10)
I I I ran into a couple actual

recent

problems and just I mean, I wrote I've written blogs like this in the past, but it was time to renew it. So yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (03:19)
Well, Doug, we all feel like

we're gonna be the exception. Like we're gonna be quick to market. We're gonna be you know. Yeah.

Doug Dawson (03:22)
Of course. until you're not, yes, until you're

not, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (03:29)
I

I've always wanted to create a consulting business called Cassandra Consulting and then I was curious how many of the of my clients would get the joke for I don't see any dawning realization any of you. Maybe you're none of you are fans of Greek mythology.

Doug Dawson (03:41)
Well well none

none and this is why you're not a consultant.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (03:45)
My daughter is named Athena

Chris. I

Christopher Mitchell (03:48)
Okay. That's so Jade gets it. But like also I'll just note that what I should do then is ask a consultant if I should name myself that. They'll say no and then I'll go ahead and do it. And it'll just prove the point. Cassandra was gifted with perfect foresight to know what was happening and nobody would ever believe her. So that's the the Greek myth there. Doug, I just want to jump in on one that I thought was fascinating, which was the a a client or maybe a company that had

staged everything up, they set everything ready, and they forgot to have a contractor lined up to pour the concrete pads for their

Doug Dawson (04:20)
Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (04:22)
their items in the in the field and for the

Doug Dawson (04:25)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (04:25)
cabinets and that set way back. Just stuff like that is fascinating to me.

Doug Dawson (04:31)
It is fascinating. And the reason for that is launching a new ISP or a new market is very complicated. you know, we we happen to use Ganttcharts, but there's several other planning tools. There's usually 1500, 2000, even 3,000 tasks you have to get done to launch a new market. And you can't forget any of them. You can forget some of them. Some of them are not just annoying to miss, but some of them are critical. And it's the ones you don't think about. If you don't have somebody pour the concrete for the huts,

You can't bring the HUD in, you can't put the electronics in, you can't launch the market. So so you know, all those little things matter. I I I've seen somebody miss almost everything you could ever miss. So and and it's really

a a matter of of of it's a very complicated and people don't have good planning tools, is is really what it boils down to. So they almost everybody forgets critical stuff. Now, unless you've done unless

you've done it a bunch of times and finally you learn, right? Finally you learn. So

Christopher Mitchell (05:26)
Well this that's the thing is that I do feel like for people who are like, how could you miss that? 2500 steps means if you are ninety-nine percent of like, you know, if you miss if you if you like 99% of what you if you get it right, which is no one gets ninety-nine percent right, you're missing twenty-five steps.

Doug Dawson (05:40)
You could

and you're still four or five months late. Yeah, exactly. That's

Jade Piros de Carvalho (05:45)
Yeah. Well, and the other

thing is that you can conduct as much due diligence as you should with regulations and still not be accurate in your forecasting because you may have just a personality that wants to throw up a barrier here or there that you could have never, you know, anticipated. And so you can do everything right and have all the perfect planning tools.

and

have twenty five, thirty years under your belt and still run into a community that takes six months more to open, you know, than you forecast.

Christopher Mitchell (06:21)
Right and go ahead, Doug. Other Doug.

Doug Adams (06:24)
there's usually not a line in the in your in your project plan for unforeseen circumstances and or some jerk standing in the way of of X, Y,

Jade Piros de Carvalho (06:36)
Yeah.

Doug Adams (06:36)
or C.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (06:37)
Although you should

Doug Dawson (06:37)
Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (06:38)
anticipate it, right? If you have any level of experience, Yeah.

Doug Adams (06:40)
but you b you you put a little buffer in there but but you don't dedicate a month to it, yes.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (06:45)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (06:46)
One of the things that surprised me was the OSS BSS, which is a software that basically allows you to bill and provision, turn people on and control everything. And Doug, you were noting that this is not something that is the timeline could also often be set by the vendor and not you, which surprised me a little bit. I would have thought that, you know, have not run one of these businesses, I would have thought the vendor would be like, we want to keep your business. So we're going to like make sure we're available when you are available. But it sounds like that's not the case.

Doug Dawson (07:15)
No, two years ago, there was like what, 60 or 70 co-ops who all launched fiber at the same time. They almost all used the same OSS vendor. And that OS vendor had like two people to go help up set up new systems. And they're going, huh, it's October. I can schedule you for May. They're like, Well, no, we have to get going now. You know, so so that that became a massive roadblock for those guys because whoever expected that many.

You know, because of RDOF, all these guys came online at the same time and nobody was ready for it. And so that would turned out to be a massive roadblock for a whole bunch of those companies. So, you know, it so that and that's external to the company. I mean, who would they just figure it because that that vendor really did want to help them all. They just didn't have the people and they couldn't scramble to find the people because the people had to be experienced. So that so they had to wait. So people waited. It was yeah, so it's it's always something you don't expect. It's like, well, yeah, I'll just call them up and

We'll come in in two months and do it. Like, well no, we'll come in in ten months and do it. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (08:18)
What else what else are examples of things that kind of stumbling out of the gate? 'Cause what we've talked about mostly are things that are the front end and we'll move on to things that may come further down the line.

Doug Dawson (08:30)
Well, here's some interesting ones. One is is you can't piss off the public. And so there's three or four things that can really piss off the public. One is you launch a new neighborhood and you haven't tested it. Everybody's in a hurry. They're well, yeah, we have a customer, we can hook them up tomorrow. Let's go. Like, no, I've always said put five or six guys on, burn that network, that neighborhood for a couple of months, then you go live with it. You don't charge them, they're a beta customer. Sure enough, people turn it on.

And

then those five guys lose Internet for two days and then they tell all their neighbors and then nobody wants to buy it. So you so you know, the other big one is that you make a big mess during construction and they're never gonna they're never gonna let you be their ISP, at least for three or four years till they forget about it. So you know so that you know, those things aren't even related directly to to the timeline or those twenty five hundred steps. They're just things that are done poorly. So, you know, it's pretty amazing how many

And like like you know, the the bad construction is not the ISPs. They all want to do a good job, but then they hire contractors who don't care, is always what happens. 'Cause they don't know they don't know how to babysit their contractors. Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (09:35)
Yeah. specific

provisions about restoration and they have to be super specific, that sub that sub's gonna get paid either way. They don't they really don't care about

Doug Dawson (09:49)
Right.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (09:49)
your hydrangeas. They don't.

Doug Dawson (09:51)
No, no. If you pay an ISP by the foot of construction, that's what they're gonna do is they're gonna get a lot of feet of construction done and they're gonna blast through town and they're gonna leave a holy mess. So the good ISPs will have their own guy who goes and does the restoration behind the contractor. We don't trust the contractor to ever do it, right? So and it's expensive

to do that and they don't build that into their business plan.

Christopher Mitchell (10:13)
A few years back I noted that one block up from me, the they did some construction underground. They put in a fiber line and under the sidewalk. And they had in the pothole in co destroyed, I don't know, 30% of the sidewalk. And they did this in October or November. And at that point, they actually just poured a like a black macadam to to fill it in some. And I was like, this is ridiculous.

but I'm guessing they didn't have the ability, given the forecast and the weather in Minnesota, to do it until the spring. And in the spring they did it right.

Doug Dawson (10:47)
you can't

pour concrete. Yeah, you can't pour concrete. So you know,

Christopher Mitchell (10:51)
So so but like the neighbors were pretty upset.

Like we're we had like this uneven crap and like and like we have to shovel on the regular, right? I mean, that's like twenty times where you're out there like cleaning it off and it sucks.

Doug Dawson (11:01)
I mean, you that the old stories Comcast when I live in Florida came to my house, gave me my broadband, laid the drop on the ground, and I begged him for like eighteen months to come and bury it. So every every time I mowed the lawn, it was a challenge. Like, I don't want to cut my stupid drop. You know, it was laying on the grass. Like, could could we please get this tank care of? It's amazing that those little things that get left out. So yeah. No.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (11:24)
And a new company's not gonna know that, but an experienced company's

gonna know, get it done in six days because they're gonna notice the next week when they mow. You know, you just

Doug Dawson (11:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (11:33)
don't know that until you've done it for a while. And that can

Doug Dawson (11:37)
Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (11:38)
really impact your take rate.

Doug Dawson (11:40)
Well, yeah, 'cause you

Comcast hasn't been doing this for a while.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (11:44)
Yeah, they're they're relatively new to the game. But if they're the only game in town, you know, we've built a system with a lack of competition.

Doug Dawson (11:46)
Yeah, they are. They are.

they were the only ISP in the subdivision, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (11:55)
There was a a build in Minnesota, forty-five minutes northwest of Minnesota, Doug, and you'd worked on it, the Monticello. And I remember talking to one of the people from Charter who was trying to shut him down and stop and and later ended up engaging in you know, price predatory pricing and on other illegal or seem seemingly anti-competitive shenanigans, I should say. And one of the things that that he had said was that like they didn't think they were

the

the the community network is gonna work because that area, like the that county was just very f heavily hunters and fishers and had a pretty low subscription rate. And I feel like you wouldn't necessarily know that coming into an area that like, you know, a county that looks like a suburban, exurban county, they all they'll all look alike in some ways. But I don't know, Doug if Doug Adams, if you have a sense of how well you can tell ahead of time whether you're likely to

to be ice skating uphill or downhill when it comes to marketing, trying to get people to sign up.

Doug Adams (12:59)
Well this is where this this is where the the feasibility you know feasibility consulting f

Christopher Mitchell (13:07)
I thought those things were useless

Doug Adams (13:10)
they are kinda I don't I don't

Christopher Mitchell (13:11)
Yeah.

Doug Adams (13:12)
believe in This is where the this is where they make all their money. I think that I think what you really have to do is you have to make sure that that you're coming to the market not with not with faster and cheaper, but with with an actual story. With an actual story not only of what better Internet will do for

for households, but what your organization is actually going going to bring that Comcast Charter Spectrum. I guess it was the same thing now. will

Christopher Mitchell (13:40)
Soon enough.

Doug Adams (13:42)
soon enough. so I think that I think that you could conduct a feasibility study. I think it's about as effective as wetting your finger and sticking it up in the air. All due respect. This you always say all due respect when you've said something with no respect respect. But I I

Jade Piros de Carvalho (13:56)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (13:58)
Doug, Dawson, your life has been meaningless.

Doug Adams (13:59)
Ha ha ha ha.

Doug Dawson (14:02)
Well no, parts of it are certainly meaningless, but y you can do real market research to find out if people in town want your broadband. I mean you can go out and talk to them ahead of time and and a lot of cities Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Adams (14:11)
No, absolutely. You wanna find out if if people are happy with their current connection, et cetera, et cetera, which

Christopher Mitchell (14:17)
Okay,

let just let me just push on that because I do feel like if you ask people, they'll be like, Yeah, no, I don't like my connection. Yeah, I'd like to make I'd like to spend less, I'd like more reliability, I'd like to support a local business. How do you actually know how they're gonna react in the moment? Cause my feeling is is that pretty much everyone says I don't like my company currently, I'd rather have something different. And yet when they're presented with a real choice two years down the road of, I could stay with this company that I hate and I can save ten dollars a month.

Or I can go over this new company that, you know, is gonna be better and but cost a little bit more in the short term. I don't know that we can always tell. And like this gets actually down to the marketing of like you have to convince that person. They're it's not like they're just like gonna break one way or the other. It depends on your message, I think, right, Doug?

Doug Adams (15:04)
Yeah, I think I think that you're never gonna go poor betting against people wanting to change. changes change is typically something that people avoid. Well, my Internet works now. What happens if the new one doesn't work? what is that gonna do to my life? so I think that the most effective way of really going into a community is

To have those six guys, Chris, that you said that are gonna bang around on the on the network for for a bit, and have those folks be evangelists, have some small businesses be evangelists, and whether those those folks you do some online ads with actually pictures of them and talking about how this new service is great. I think you really need to use, you know, those grassroots, you know, fast with some

some minion being blown away by how fast a speed is. That that doesn't work. It's got it's gotta be a local local local presence saying that this is this actually works. This is actually better. This is

Christopher Mitchell (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Doug Adams (16:11)
you know we just went we just received a new new provider here in superior outside of Boulder. and I've told several folks about about it. and they've been quite happy to get out out of Comcast

Out of Comcast world, let's just say.

Doug Dawson (16:28)
what was surprising is you had to tell them the new provider didn't tell them. Yes. Right.

Doug Adams (16:30)
yeah, they they've done a terrible job marketing it. Terrible.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (16:34)
Well, I will

Christopher Mitchell (16:34)
Jade?

Jade Piros de Carvalho (16:35)
say that, you know, everybody's focused on these providers searching for unfibered locations, and that is our number one priority, and any overbuilder's number one priority. But we're willing to go head to head in any market where a large incumbent, you know, is not well thought of. We're doing that in the largest market in Kansas with a $250 million investment. We're going head to head with the national provider and we're doing better than our

Forecasts. I'm not to say that's going to be the case in every market, but I do think there is a level of frustration with the constant price increases and the lack of investment

Christopher Mitchell (17:17)
Mm-hmm.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (17:18)
and the poor customer service in some of these companies. Some of them do a good job. And also if those if we're looking at a market where you've had a large incumbent for greater than two or three years, that

might be on the table in a way that it wasn't a year or two ago because like there's not a lot of pickings for unfibered, right? You really have to start looking at these markets where you're gonna be the competitor and that's gonna take a lot of unique marketing.

Doug Dawson (17:48)
Yeah, and I've always found out that the people who do well in the marketing pre sell, if you can get twenty or thirty percent of the folks sold up ahead of time, you know, eighty or ninety percent of them will actually show up. And then and you have to then touch people. I mean, my most successful people knock on doors. They do it two or three times during the build and launch process. And and

they usually make their penetrations. Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Adams (18:11)
sponsor community events. You know,

every every community has some sort of summer fest or something like that. Yes.

Doug Dawson (18:17)
Ice cream ice cream socials really work, that sort of thing.

Christopher Mitchell (18:19)
Yeah. There is there is

Doug Dawson (18:21)
Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (18:21)
some number

of people who are ready to sign up and putting it off until tomorrow is what I think we see.

Doug Dawson (18:24)
Yes. But you have but you have

to you have to touch them and ask them face to face. passive

Jade Piros de Carvalho (18:30)
Yeah.

Doug Dawson (18:30)
marketing just never gets them convinced. So yes.

Christopher Mitchell (18:33)
Okay,

my last one I wanna ask about how about criminality? just engaging in like rampant rule breaking, law breaking. Is that one that you've come across anyone?

Doug Dawson (18:42)
yeah. I don't know that that actually tends to s that tends to speed

Christopher Mitchell (18:44)
I mean, we see it with the big ones, right? I mean like

Doug Dawson (18:49)
up the deployments. I've seen folks going out hanging their fiber on poles without any pole attachment agreements. So you know, th there's people who break the rules, but that's not gonna slow you down. That's usually a positive.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (19:00)
That's called asking

forgiveness. I wouldn't say it's criminal. I mean maybe bordering.

Doug Dawson (19:02)
Right, right. Yes. But it's certainly breaking all

the rules. Breaking all the rules and it could get you some serious later fines if anybody cares. But yes. But there are there are ISPs who who do that. Now, that does sometimes completely stop you. I mean, there's some ISPs like Tang in Alexandria, Virginia was breaking all the rules and they put a stop order on them and they never did come back from it. So I mean you have you know, there comes a point where you can't.

break the rules too badly. And the weird thing about all that is, because it's back to someone said you beware of the assholes. You don't it's somebody in the government was mad at them and and that's the guy who stops you. And it's like whatever you did, you really teed that guy off, right? So, but you know, there are people who have the power to stop you in the world. So you don't want to go that far. What they did was not at all criminal, but it was but it was a they were violating some sort of local rule, who know what it w whatever it was. So yeah. So

Christopher Mitchell (20:00)
If you come

away from an argument or a disagreement with satisfaction, you've probably made an enemy for life, is what is what I tend to think. You know, like you really

Jade Piros de Carvalho (20:05)
Yeah. Yeah. It's not worth it.

Christopher Mitchell (20:08)
wanna have that quality of just let the other person walk away with some dignity, you know, don't rub it in, just move on with your life and don't make an enemy for life because you're gonna run into that person again. That person's gonna show up somewhere else in your life in a position of power and you're gonna be in trouble.

Doug Dawson (20:24)
Yeah, this industry we c we all come around, don't we? How many everyone here has had seventeen different jobs over there?

Jade Piros de Carvalho (20:30)
It's very incestuous, for

Christopher Mitchell (20:31)
Nami.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (20:32)
sure.

Doug Adams (20:33)
And I I I don't know if you could call this criminality. I don't think I could. But I've heard I talk to state broadband offices two or three a week. one of mentioned to me last week that, you know, some people are actually going going going forward with the build and I figure they'll get the NEPA the NEPA will

Doug Dawson (20:51)
Right.

Doug Adams (20:52)
come. Don't worry don't worry about that the you know, that that's you know, so Yeah.

Doug Dawson (20:55)
absolutely. I've I've seen I see several people doing that and they're gonna be stopped

dead in their tracks. They're gonna be cut dead. Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (21:00)
Yeah, they're not gonna get reimbursed.

Doug Dawson (21:02)
No, no, they're never gonna get a check. So they're t yes, they are.

Doug Adams (21:06)
They're taking a chance, whether it's whether it's stupid

or criminal, they're they're taking a chance.

Christopher Mitchell (21:11)
All

right, so I wanna move on to the other topic and I wanna I'm gonna start with Jade, because I do feel like it's been several years since I think you unexpectedly left the Kansas office. And I'm wondering if you wake up every morning saying, God, I'm glad I got out when I did

Doug Adams (21:28)
Mm.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (21:29)
I

do I do feel blessed, you know, there. yeah, I don't know that I would be able to handle this level of chaos and inefficiency and I mean I'm not sure I have the the proper constitution for this level of shit show. and I do feel a bit like a you know, unofficial therapist for the broadband offices, so I hear a lot and I just feel

It's just not fun anymore, Chris. Like what was fun about it is that it was bold. We were gonna eliminate the digital divide. We're gonna do something bold. The government was gonna fix it the right way with the right technology. And now it's just become the same old, same old. It's just not exciting to be a part of a failed program that isn't delivering on the promise that we all told our states. You know, it's it's not fun. It's not mean it's meaningful, you know.

Christopher Mitchell (22:28)
So Doug, do you have run in any Doug Adams, do you run into anyone that's having fun?

Doug Adams (22:33)
No. And and you you asked me about this this morning before I hopped on and I called about ten ISPs. it's funny because

Christopher Mitchell (22:41)
You mean you mean offices?

Doug Adams (22:43)
yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry, thank you. I called about ten SBOs and they said that ISPs are mad because their consumers are getting mad because of the promises they've made. that that really they're really people people that were supposed to benefit from BEAD have just

written it off like I'm not gonna it's not gonna happen. there's a lot of discontent, but there's a lot more optimism than I thought there would be, from SBOs, but we can talk about that after after this topic. So

Doug Dawson (23:17)
Well, no, I I also talk to a lot of SBOs. What they all tell me is that they're all expecting about a third of to quit during the next year. So

Jade Piros de Carvalho (23:25)
One thousand percent. I hear the same thing. I mean, I'm passing along resumes every single week.

Doug Dawson (23:27)
Yeah, right.

Doug Adams (23:27)
Thank you.

I

think that's low. I think that's low.

Doug Dawson (23:33)
I I think it's

low two, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (23:36)
Well, I think a number of them don't have any sign that that the office will be supported, right, by the state legislature

Jade Piros de Carvalho (23:43)
No.

Christopher Mitchell (23:43)
or the governor, depending on how it's structured. I think a lot of a lot of these positions were created specifically because they had to to receive federal dollars. I think there's a lot of merit to having someone at the state that's keeping track of this. It's so important to make sure people are connected and can use the service, but I don't think we're expecting a lot of states to to be able to really support the office.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (24:04)
Well, Kansas was formed by executive order. We're not even a statutorily defined department. So who knows? That's the other thing that's factoring into the, you know, the the kind of chaos in their minds is we're a lot of these states are in election season. So next month they may have a switch that changes their their mission, their direction, their existence.

So you're getting it from the federal level, but then all you have you have all these unknown pressures and political dynamics at the state level too, right?

Doug Dawson (24:38)
Plus we've all we made that flip now where we're going from let's get the money out the door to let's babysit getting the actual checks out

Jade Piros de Carvalho (24:46)
Yeah.

Doug Dawson (24:46)
the door and review the invoices. No and that's the miserable part of all grant programs. It's horrible. It's horrible.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (24:50)
The compliance piece, yeah, that's not sexy at all.

Doug Dawson (24:53)
And not at all. So yeah. Yes.

Doug Adams (24:53)
Well, it's an entirely different job. You know, you

being entrepreneurial and being excited about getting you know, getting folks interested in in applying for BEAD dollars and growing and and developing broadband networks versus triple checking whatever form i is is that's not not necessarily the same skill set.

Doug Dawson (25:18)
Well w what I

expect what I expect you're gonna see is even as these broadband offices may not fund their people, NTIA's not gonna disperse the funds if if they don't do the paperwork. It's gonna get to be very ugly, I think. So

Christopher Mitchell (25:31)
I mean, how much of this are we expecting just to end up being what's it called? where you you don't really try hard, you just mail it in. you know, where you've got a bunch of states that are just gonna be like whatever, like we're not triple checking, we're just like passing along things, it's someone else's problem. you know, maybe it's even just an AI that's like that's moving through things and like I mean, do we expect NTIA to take this seriously? Are there still I mean, are there real consequences?

You know, for for

Jade Piros de Carvalho (26:01)
Don't you think that

they'll audit states where they dislike the political leadership?

Christopher Mitchell (26:08)
That's what

I was wondering. I mean, like I think California's gonna be in a lot of trouble, but I don't know that Texas will be.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (26:11)
Yeah, Illinois' gonna struggle.

I mean, but some of these yeah, I think some states will be able to, you know, do less.

Doug Dawson (26:20)
Well let me let me give an example of what you just asked, Chris. I see I I do we do NEPA reporting and didn't that stupid horrible stuff and and I I've worked in like ten different states who've all taken a different approach to doing it. Some of them are going like, Give me whatever you want, check mark. Other ones are making me dot every eye in the world. So and so they've already decided they're they're not a lot of them are not following the NTIA guidelines. Now I don't know what's gonna happen to them in the future, but they are mi they're passing us through and they like

We're gonna spend this money. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (26:51)
And so just for for people, we've said NEPA a few times.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (26:52)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (26:54)
I should have said at the beginning that that's the National Environmental Protection Act, I think. it's the

Doug Dawson (26:59)
Yeah, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (27:00)
it's it's requires if you're building something somewhere, you gotta make sure that you're not killing the habitat. and so, you know, you might be building along the side of a road and you might not be able to build during certain months when some species is reproducing or more vulnerable or something like that. but in a lot of cases, you're attaching to existing poles or

Doug Dawson (27:17)
it's

that hoary crested podcaster is the guy. They they do not build anywhere near those guys, I'm pretty sure. So

Christopher Mitchell (27:26)
But one of the challenges is that like I don't know it feels like this whole system is broken. And so as you're saying, Doug, like there's there's some folks that are just like not taking that seriously. I mean, if

Doug Dawson (27:32)
Yes, i it is. There are yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (27:36)
you the fact you have to have someone go over that you're attaching to a bunch of poles that are already there on disturbed road, you know, it seems like it's enough. But I can appreciate that like, you know, there is a system that one should go through. It should be funded correctly if we're gonna actually have it.

It's not and so it ends up being a giant challenge.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (27:55)
Well, and you've gutted the federal bureaucracy, so you have nobody reviewing those. And so it's gonna take long that's probably why they're phoning it in, 'cause they know who's gonna look at it. They don't have time, but they have all this political

Doug Dawson (28:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (28:06)
pressure to get shovels in the ground. Like it's actually an incentive to game the system, right?

Doug Dawson (28:14)
Right. I agree.

Doug Adams (28:16)
Well, in the system is sort of strange in a lot of different ways. I've I know that a few state broadband offices think that the the NTIA is making this so hard that the states will just throw out their arms and walk away. and they'll get more savings. savings. the sometimes they're you know, what the NTIA is requiring is goes against state laws or other laws.

The whole FCC with the polls, it's ignoring the Doug Dawson that will be able to explain this better than I am, but the you know, there's an there's a law nationally to allow co ops to have their own polls, right? And not not offer them to Xfinity or whoever else that might

want to.

Christopher Mitchell (29:05)
Right. Well, so it

the way the the way poll attachment works is that there's a different set of rules for cooperatives and municipalities

Doug Adams (29:10)
Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (29:11)
because they are regulated in part by the people that they serve. They're directly accountable, in many cases, democratically accountable. it's not a perfect process, but it is they have a different incentive when they're making decisions than a for-profit company

Doug Adams (29:25)
Right. There

Christopher Mitchell (29:26)
like Duke Energy. And so there's been a different set of rules.

And I feel like people have basically said, Well, that system actually fails in this way. And so we're gonna try to change everything and not do it through Congress, which established this framework, but we're gonna try to like force people to change but if they accept this money. And that is and that is, I think, not appropriate.

Doug Adams (29:45)
That's what I've heard that

that that it's that there are providers and incumbents that are not taking BEAD bunny looking to be opportunistic and saying, look at these the new poll regulations and look at co-op A who had to follow the FCC regulations for every single one of their polls. this is why there's so many co-ops are walking away.

Doug Dawson (30:05)
Yeah.

I'm familiar with at least eleven co ops who have turned down BEAD now. So we're gonna

Jade Piros de Carvalho (30:12)
Wow.

Doug Dawson (30:12)
see a lot more defaults. We're gonna see a lot more defaults. I I so I know eleven. So yeah, I th I believe

Christopher Mitchell (30:13)
Right, I think according to light reading, I think it's twenty some now. So you've d you Yeah.

Doug Dawson (30:19)
that. Yeah. So

Jade Piros de Carvalho (30:19)
You know, Chris, the irony

is that as a provider, I find co-ops and munis infinitely easier to work with on poll attachment agreements than I do investor

Doug Dawson (30:27)
Yeah. Right.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (30:29)
owned utilities. Now their polls are usually short, shitty, and congested, which is a problem, but they're a lot easier to deal with from just the agreement standpoint.

Christopher Mitchell (30:42)
Yeah.

And I think there's a different culture in different ones. I think some have done a better job of maintaining. In a number of cases, they've gone underground to avoid their own poles where they're building themselves because they have not kept up with with maintenance over the years. And in other cases, they've been models of doing it well. I mean, you know, it really depends on whether or not that local organization has made responsible decisions over, you know, the past 20 or 30 years. So it can be quite a different across the board for different co-ops.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (31:08)
Yeah. I

just think that that was kind of marketed as this really great way to help businesses thrive and like keep these munis and these co ops in their place. And it's like they're not really the problem. I mean in in my part of the world, in the Midwest, it's it's quite the opposite.

Doug Dawson (31:26)
They're they're not any well,

they're not anywhere except they're like I'm aware of one co op where I believe every one of their polls was bad. I mean there are places, but there's

Jade Piros de Carvalho (31:34)
Yeah.

Doug Dawson (31:34)
you know, that's a whole different situation. So yeah.

Doug Adams (31:38)
I was and you would be surprised, Chris. and maybe Doug Dawson would be as well. I I the state broadband offices, it's either an act or they're just the happiest people in the world, some of them. They're really optimistic. They're, you know, some like the art the RDOF default states, the CAF2 default states, they're thrilled that they're gonna have a a cleanup.

True up, whatever you want to call it. they don't love the fact that it's gonna take as long as it's gonna take. And the lists might not come till next year. to a to a man, to an office, they do believe that this is just one other way of getting rid of non deployment dollars for other things besides deployment.

go ahead.

Christopher Mitchell (32:28)
sorry, I I just have to

know what is really happening at NTIA? Because when they came in and they said, we're gonna change the rules around and make it faster, I was like, Whatever, these people are just gonna like slow things down. But I thought

Doug Adams (32:39)
Uh-huh.

Christopher Mitchell (32:39)
that by the time we got to today, in the middle of twenty twenty six, that they would say, you know what, whatever, we're just writing checks. We gotta get money out there. We gotta like make sure that people are that like people aren't angry and shouting at their governors and their senators and stuff like that. But it seems like NTIA is content to just do nothing or just

keep fiddling with the rules. I'm just I'm mystified as to what is going on there.

Doug Dawson (33:01)
I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna mimic something or agree with something, Doug. The other Doug said, I don't think they would be completely unhappy to see more defaults for a bigger savings. I they're definitely not they're not acting proactive.

Christopher Mitchell (33:12)
Savings.

Doug Dawson (33:13)
Yeah, savings. Yeah. So

Jade Piros de Carvalho (33:15)
And I do feel like the fact that our like we're experiencing the downfall of our republic has put broadband on the back burner of their priorities of commerce, you know. So, yes, I think a year and a half ago we existed in a different universe. And it was, you know, this program carried a lot of political weight. They kind of got what they wanted out of it. They got to give a lot of money to satellite.

They got to save a lot of money. but yeah, I totally agree. I don't know if Doug, did you write about this? I know Doug just mentioned it. I'm dealing with Doug Squared, the

Christopher Mitchell (33:52)
One of the dogs did, I can tell you that.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (33:54)
other Doug, about this is really just an effort for Congress to avoid or to continue to cede their appropriations power on this issue to the administration by, you know, letting this next round take another two years, and then non-deployment is still just like.

Doug Adams (34:13)
Well, eventually

this the BEAD ends, right? The BEAD ends that you know,

Jade Piros de Carvalho (34:16)
Yeah.

Doug Adams (34:17)
sorry, it's over. without without an extension, those non-deployment dollars go away. I think that you still have to g look look at the head of the NTIA is Howard Lutnick. how involved he

is how involved he is, I don't know, but he's thrilled about savings. He says savings a lot. he's also

My understanding has a really close relationship with Elon, who, by the way.

Christopher Mitchell (34:48)
I also I just the thing that that Jade said

sits with me too. This a reminder of like the downfall of the republic in that like a lot

Doug Adams (34:55)
Ha ha ha.

Christopher Mitchell (34:55)
of the people around Trump have extracted bags of cash.

Doug Dawson (34:59)
You all had to go. Now we're gonna get a Chris rant. There we go.

Christopher Mitchell (35:01)
I'm I'm no, I'm gonna keep this one really light and just say

Doug Adams (35:03)
Go.

Christopher Mitchell (35:04)
that like I think it's Besant Bessent Bessent Scott Bessent who's like doubled his net worth. Like he's made billions of dollars since coming into the administration. And like I I gotta think that like right, that's what I'm

Jade Piros de Carvalho (35:11)
Yeah. I mean they all have. The entire cabinet has benefited.

Christopher Mitchell (35:16)
saying. So like I don't know exactly what the figures are for Lutnik, but like I also think that like it's a different world when you're like, you know what? All right, like I'm more chill now. I don't really care what happens because I've made my billions and like whatever happens, happens.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (35:25)
Yeah. I got my billions. Your bread

is $7.29 a loaf. Like nobody cares about broadband.

Christopher Mitchell (35:33)
So I that's but like Doug, I I'm curious. Like you said people are optimistic. I I gotta think that like I'll come back to what I said before based on your numbers, which is it seems like they're in dispute. I mean, different people have added it up in different ways. I mean, you came up with almost two out of three connections being fiber right now, is what we would project for the money that's being

Doug Adams (35:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (35:50)
spent. I I do think that may drop because we're we would expect that for all the makeup and everything else, we're gonna see more satellite coming on as opposed to more fiber coming on for.

Anything

anything that's changing. We're not gonna change anything from

satellite to fiber, but we'll change some stuff from fiber to satellite, I would think. But anyway, like that's good, right? Like that's two out of three is good.

Doug Dawson (36:10)
it's good except that

in the benefit of the bargain round they wiped millions of passings out of the program that should be in there. So yes, it's yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (36:15)
Right. Right. So I was just gonna give Doug Adams a chance. I've

cut him off like every time he tried to talk.

Doug Adams (36:20)
So yes, they're optimistic. Yes, they're happy more money is going going to connections. Yes, they're irritated that the the average cost per location is gonna drive that. and the thought is is Leo's gonna get a lot more if the if the percentage of Leo was thirty five percent, it might be fifty percent in in Bob two or whatever we wanna call this.

The cost the average cost per location is a real hurdle to get over. and whether the states are have any success, I know several several are trying to push back on that. Whether they have any success is is a your guess is as good as mine. But ultimately the people in the SBOs, they have a passion for getting Internet to as many people as they want. I mean, I'm talking to people who are probably earning

Half of what they could in in the private sector. and maybe that's I'm estimating low. They have a true, true passion for getting people connected. So when there's money, that more money that comes along, they're they're thrilled. so they will say that they will say that this program is is better than RDOF and CAF2, and I'm and I will answer, well, that's not much of a bar. but this obviously isn't as good as ARPA. So

It's somewhere in between. I am surprised about the optimism, but I also would agree with Jade and Doug Dawson. we're gonna see a lot of people leave.

SBO people, sorry.

Christopher Mitchell (38:01)
Yeah, no, I'm I'm sure of that. And and I'll just say that my expectation is that, yeah, I mean, for for some people, they would be able to double their salary. For others, it might be merely a 50% increase, as though many of us wouldn't wouldn't love that.

Doug Adams (38:11)
Yeah, to merely. Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (38:14)
but also like it's not like they're gonna the people who are leaving the SBOs right now have a have a window in which they have consulting opportunities, right? A

Jade Piros de Carvalho (38:21)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (38:22)
number of these people are developing expertise where if there's no federal program, there's not like a gonna be a great market for their services. So they're not.

They're not just foregoing a temporary you know, windfall. They're really

Doug Adams (38:32)
Right. Right.

Christopher Mitchell (38:35)
sacrificing to try to make the country better. And I think that's something that really should be honored as they're doing it. I hope that I'm not awakening in them the horrible mistake that they're making

Doug Adams (38:45)
Yeah, make the podcast headline.

Chris Mitchell s tells all SBOs to quit to quit.

Doug Dawson (38:53)
Chr

Jade Piros de Carvalho (38:52)
I know. Thank God for that.

Doug Dawson (38:54)
Chris, there's something to think about. I'm not sure that they all do get jobs. The job market for people at those kind of salaries in the whole nation is drying up. It's getting harder

Jade Piros de Carvalho (39:02)
Yeah.

Doug Dawson (39:03)
and harder for people to find jobs. I'm not sure that they all find a landing place. So

Jade Piros de Carvalho (39:08)
Especially our industry in particular with all of the

Doug Dawson (39:10)
Right, right.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (39:12)
mergers. I mean, it's just been a bloodbath out there, even for like decades long

Doug Dawson (39:16)
Yeah. I mean they're laying off so many people exactly.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (39:19)
experienced people, you know, it's it's really sad.

Christopher Mitchell (39:22)
Well, we

we all agree that like, I don't know, single millions, perhaps as many as fifteen, twenty million people are not well connected, right? Like they don't have decent infrastructure available to them. And we don't really have documentation on it because we don't take it seriously as a country to actually know whether or not connections are performing. And I'm not even just talking about like whether or not there's a fiber, but like whether it's run in a competent manner with some kind of speed testing regime that would

Doug Adams (39:48)
Right.

Christopher Mitchell (39:48)
actually give you a sense. So like there's a significant need.

Do

we think that over the next several years states are gonna try to address this in some ways? Are they mostly just gonna ignore it and people who don't have it too bad? We're just gonna write off the the property values in those places and just move on with our lives? Or are we gonna see a program that's going to try to address this?

Doug Dawson (40:08)
Some states will address it. I don't think we'll see another federal programme for a decade, but I think the states will address it. Yeah. Some. So yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (40:16)
Yeah, I think it d it depends on the political makeup of the legislature

Doug Dawson (40:19)
Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (40:21)
and whether or not they consider it a government problem or a problem that's readily solved by those people subscribing to satellite service that is ostensibly available, right? So I mean it used to be it didn't r matter which side of the aisle you were on, you believed that your constituents needed a wired connection. but that

That seems to have split along partisan lines. Or that's how I'm seeing it. I don't know how you gentlemen would see it.

Doug Dawson (40:53)
Not sure it's even partisan. There's cer certainly a lot of people who have bought the story that that satellite's good enough. So I I don't know

Jade Piros de Carvalho (41:00)
Yeah.

Doug Dawson (41:00)
if that's entirely partisan. Yeah.

Doug Adams (41:03)
I think this one question that we don't ask ourselves enough because we're so ingrained in the fact that the Internet is a utility. the rest of the world doesn't necessarily see it that way. if electricity is out in Doug Dawson's town, and you know, and it's out for a week, that's a that's you know, that's a real big deal. that's a BFD. But if if they don't have electricity for a week or or no, don't have

Jade Piros de Carvalho (41:28)
Maybe Internet.

Doug Adams (41:29)
Internet for a week, sorry, then it's like,

You know, it is the Internet as critical as we, the four of us around this virtual table, believe it is. and until either the government or government agencies start to understand or come around to the fact that the Internet is a util quote unquote utility, you're not gonna see action. for many, many, many people, the Internet is a technology. I'm not gonna argue what it is.

But I'm just saying that's what many people see it as.

Christopher Mitchell (42:05)
The the thing that I hear when I talk to utilities

that do both electricity and Internet access is that the Internet has become more important to their customers than electricity. Or at least maybe it's the louder ones. I don't know. But I'm regularly

Doug Adams (42:16)
Flat of it.

Christopher Mitchell (42:17)
when you talk to places that have an outage, they are surpr when they I'm sorry, when there's a devastating storm like Doug had with Hurricane Helene, and we'll probably see this in Alabama, there will be people who are clamoring for Internet access before electricity because

And I think this just comes down to the basic need that once you're used to connecting with other people, especially if you're in a more isolated area, losing that is a bigger deal than losing the dishwasher. and that that personal connection really matters to people. Now, for people who have never really experienced it and haven't built up that relationship, maybe, maybe not. So it's hard to figure out exactly where that line falls. But I am consistently been asking this question for I don't know, six or seven years before the pandemic started.

because I've been fascinated at the number of people who will say, Yeah, I prefer Internet to electricity if I have to choose.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (43:09)
But my do my

nine-year-old daughter is definitely in that camp. She can

Doug Dawson (43:13)
Yeah.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (43:13)
go without lights. She cannot go without like say YouTube.

Christopher Mitchell (43:18)
I mean, when when

Doug Adams (43:18)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (43:19)
when we lost when our ONT failed and we had no Internet access for two days, it was shocking to me how just different, you know, it was for for those two days. One was a Sunday and one was a Monday. It was it was just fascinating how many things I've just gotten used to that I take for granted and and how many times I would just like pick up my phone and like, you know.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (43:40)
Did you

go touch grass, Chris? Did you frolic in the woods?

Doug Adams (43:42)
But

Doug Dawson (43:46)
he went out and worked

Doug Adams (43:44)
would you take a walk? Did you take a walk?

Doug Dawson (43:47)
on his he finally worked on his garage that we've been heard about for six years, I think. So

Christopher Mitchell (43:50)
Ha ha

ha.

Doug Adams (43:52)
I mean not to be not to be literal, but your ONT needs electricity to run. it all

Doug Dawson (43:58)
Yes.

Doug Adams (43:58)
i you know, it's all at electricity. Electricity is the base. No, I understand.

Christopher Mitchell (44:02)
No, I agree, but people have solar batteries and

things like that that they'll use now and they're basically that's good enough. If I have to choose between the two, I'll take inconvenient electricity and Internet access rather than Internet access and inconvenient electricity. Well, the opposite you know what I'm trying to say. I'm not gonna repeat it.

Doug Dawson (44:17)
No I don't.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (44:19)
Ha ha

Doug Adams (44:19)
No, try it. Yeah, like I've heard satellite being compared to a generator, by the way, now that we're talking about generators, is that when we were connecting everyone with electricity, we didn't say, Well, you're too expensive or you're too far away, here's a generator.

Christopher Mitchell (44:34)
Right, they considered

it, they rejected it.

Doug Adams (44:37)
Right. So we right now are giving people Internet generators and saying it's good enough.

Christopher Mitchell (44:44)
Right. All right. any last thoughts on the the BEAD program or the BEAD offices? we salute you, we wish you well. we'll still criticize you, but we we really appreciate what you're doing.

Doug Dawson (44:57)
I've I've actually stopped I I'm not criticizing the broadband offices

Doug Adams (45:00)
No.

Doug Dawson (45:00)
anymore. I put this all in N T I A. I I think the broadband offices are doing great. Yeah, they

Jade Piros de Carvalho (45:01)
No. Yeah. They're doing they're doing God's work and

Doug Dawson (45:06)
are.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (45:07)
you've got a lot of committed

Christopher Mitchell (45:07)
Well,

Jade Piros de Carvalho (45:08)
people.

Christopher Mitchell (45:09)
that's actually so that was the last point I wanted to make, which dropped out of my head as I was thinking about the tasks I have to work on in my garage Doug Dawson. the if we get to a point where the federal government does say we're gonna put some more money into this, I would hope that it looks more like the American Rescue Plan Act approach of sending money to the states with very few strings attached and like a list of acceptable uses.

But

that will require state broadband offices that have a plan and and and have a sense of how to do it, where to put the money. So I think the most reasonable approach is not to ever have a massive federal effort like the one that we just saw for BEAD. It was the wrong way to go about it. I I don't I don't I would like to find the one person that would defend that approach at this point, but but I think we will need state broadband offices to be effective to to work on this.

Doug Adams (46:03)
Well it's what you expect with any federal program. There's gonna be a lot of hoops, there's gonna be a lot of forms, there's gonna be it's gonna take three times as long as it should.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (46:12)
ARPA didn't.

Doug Dawson (46:14)
Capital project funds was fast and effective and it it just w ran

Jade Piros de Carvalho (46:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Dawson (46:18)
like it ran like grease skyline, yes.

Christopher Mitchell (46:18)
But I mean I think Doug's but

and then and Doug's point is correct, I think though. Like a lot of the programs are. Now, at the same time, USDA, a lot of paperwork, but predictability, right? Like you have established offices that and in field support. There's all kinds of ways that they make that tolerable. This new program idea really didn't work. So but I agree with Doug.

Doug Adams (46:36)
No, no.

Christopher Mitchell (46:37)
We need to learn the lesson and look at what worked and focus on that. And I hope that that's what a new Congress would do. But I agree with Doug Dawson that it's hard to imagine that happening anytime soon.

Doug Adams (46:49)
b well no, I

Jade Piros de Carvalho (46:49)
can we leave on a positive note? That was kind of

Doug Adams (46:51)
first wanna ask Chris if he doesn't invite me on this thing more often because it's just way too confusing. Go ahead, Jay.

Christopher Mitchell (46:58)
Well, I'll tell you this, next time we're gonna bring you on, I'm not gonna have Doug Dawson on. We're gonna bring on Doug Adams, the

Jade Piros de Carvalho (47:02)
Ha ha ha.

Christopher Mitchell (47:06)
the the famous author of of of Hitcheg yeah, it's gonna I was trying

Doug Adams (47:09)
Hitchhiker's Guide. The Hitchhiker's Guide the Universe.

Christopher Mitchell (47:11)
to think of the Don't Panic fame.

Doug Adams (47:13)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Mitchell (47:15)
Yeah, Jade, we'll find another Jade and

Doug Adams (47:15)
Sorry, Game Tim.

Christopher Mitchell (47:16)
we'll confuse you next time.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (47:17)
Yeah. I mean you're not gonna find someone with my last name, probably.

Christopher Mitchell (47:22)
Not maybe someone who speaks Greek or Portuguese.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (47:22)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (47:27)
All right. I appreciate you all coming on. It's interesting to try and get a sense of what's going on, but also a reality check of what the offices are facing, as well as just some of the challenges so people can appreciate my Internet access. Like I complain about reliability here and there, but like it almost always works. And the networks that we have historically were really remarkable. People did a great job. They are engineered well, they were not.

Profits of they were not engineered just to drive massive profits to a few people to buy a third yacht or something like that, right? They were run as a utility, and and they worked well. And we should have that expectation in the future. So, but just going over some of the challenges that we face in this industry. Something I like to do from time to time. now we can ignore BEAD for another month or two and come back to it after Thanksgiving.

Doug Adams (48:13)
I think we can ignore

Jade Piros de Carvalho (48:13)
Excellent.

Doug Adams (48:14)
it, but I think we have to remember that these offices are are doing the best they can. As Jade said, they're doing God's work God's work. not all heroes wear capes, whatever whatever you wanna say. but when you think about it, they were given a finish line and they crossed that finish line. And now they're given another ten months to cross another finish line. And they're waiting for this no, they don't believe non-employment dollars is actually gonna come. but

It would be nice.

Christopher Mitchell (48:44)
Is there a new deadline? I mean, w this would be the fourth or fifth deadline. Is there does NTIA pretend that they're gonna get it to us in December or Easter?

Doug Adams (48:51)
I I was told

I was told by the PR office at the NTIA that the guide the guidance that they promised by the end of the summer was the true up program. That was the guidance. and they're not going to know how much non-deployment money is is there until the true up numbers come through and they tie they multiply that by the average cost per connection. so

This is a this is you know, this is a very this is PhD level kicking the can down the road. It's

Christopher Mitchell (49:26)
You cannot

design a program for twenty one million dollars and then later find

Doug Dawson (49:31)
Million.

Christopher Mitchell (49:31)
out that program has twenty point

Doug Adams (49:32)
Billion, billion.

Christopher Mitchell (49:33)
yeah, sorry, you can't design a program for twenty one billion dollars and then find out that program has twenty one point three billion dollars, Doug. We need this level of certainty immediately before we can think about how to decide this program.

Doug Adams (49:44)
Correct. Yes, correct. Let's let's be fiscally responsible, absolutely.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (49:48)
Well, and it would take Congress,

Christopher Mitchell (49:48)
That would be

Jade Piros de Carvalho (49:49)
the oversight committee, actually pushing back on it. And they're not they have these hearings that are just kind of I mean, you've you've talked many times about the hearings and how those could be more effective. And we hear these deadlines that are, you know, missed with no consequence and yeah, it's just frustrating.

Christopher Mitchell (50:09)
Yeah. All right. I will say that like for all of our f we we wanna end on a more positive note, Jade. that positive note, a story I told yesterday on Building for Digital Equity, is that on Wednesday night, my wife came to me at 7 30. I was sitting here at my computer working, editing photos, and she said there's a car on fire outside. And sure enough, there was a Tesla, 2025 Tesla burning on my street.

I I was inside. I have I have an alibi. I have keystrokes. I have and

Jade Piros de Carvalho (50:41)
Chris, shame on you.

Doug Dawson (50:43)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (50:44)
and I had to go move my car before my car also caught on fire. Police the the fire department handled it really well. Some people were driving their car and all of a sudden their feet got hot and the carpet caught on fire and they decided to pull off and park right in front of my house, right behind my car and get

Jade Piros de Carvalho (50:58)
Banana.

Christopher Mitchell (50:59)
the heck out of there. And so but yeah, I mean that's

Doug Adams (51:02)
So it was it

was it was a car, not those those hideous cyber truck things.

Christopher Mitchell (51:06)
Correct. It was a car. If it was a cyber truck, my neighborhood might be gone. But

Jade Piros de Carvalho (51:09)
I love your

idea of ending on a positive note, you psychopath.

Christopher Mitchell (51:12)
It was it was loud. No humans were hurt. it was great.

so I assume it if it had full self-driving, it would have taken itself to a lake to take care of the problem. but we didn't have that opportunity. So Yeah. I recognize this address.

Doug Adams (51:21)
Or into your or into your living room. Yes.

Doug Dawson (51:27)
Well in

Minnesota there's a lake at least it's no more than two blocks away. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (51:31)
Yeah,

right. All right. Thank you all for coming on.

Doug Adams (51:34)
Thanks for having me.

Jade Piros de Carvalho (51:35)
Yeah, thanks

for having us.

Doug Dawson (51:36)
Thanks.

Jordan Pittman (51:38)
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.