 So Michael, if you want to begin the recording for you. So Lauren Glenn said that she was having trouble connecting. What I did was I connected from my phone, and that worked. And then once I was in, I was able to transfer to the computer. She has that option. I just tried four times, and it worked the fourth. Well, this meeting won't be the same without Lauren Glenn to be in, so we'll wait one more minute. Let's get started. Good evening. Thank you for joining us tonight. My name is Clay Purvis. I'm the director for telecommunications and connectivity with the Department of Public Service. The purpose of this meeting is to get preliminary public input on issues and items for inclusion in the 10-year telecommunications plan before we issue a public comments draft. These meetings are also an important opportunity for Vermonters to hear from other Vermonters on issues of importance to them. Tonight's meeting will focus on cell service, public safety, and public educational and government TV. This session will be led by our moderator who will guide the discussion. Members of the public are encouraged to provide input on these topics, but also any other topic related or unrelated that members believe should be included in the plan. To complete the plan, the department has hired CTC energy and technology along with rural innovation strategies incorporated. Today's discussion will be led by Matt Dunn of RISI. He will ask a series of guided questions that are meant to increase participation and guide the discussion. Staff from the Department of Public Service will monitor the chat room and call on participants to speak. We will collect comment first from folks who attend the meeting through my call teams. We will next take comment from those who joined by phone. If you wish to speak at today's meeting, please indicate your desire by raising your hand using the raise hand feature. You may also indicate your desire by stating so in the chat function. It's helpful you can't use the hand feature for whatever reason. Once we have moved through each person who's online, we will request comment from those who joined by phone. Each participant will be allowed three minutes to speak at a time. Please bear in mind that we are recording today's meeting and the recording will be posted on our website. Comments are being taken in advance of the public comments draft of the plan, which is set to be delivered May 10th. These two public input sessions are not the exclusive means by which members of the public may comment. You may submit written comment to the department at any time between now and May 9th. Please keep in mind that the sooner you file comments, the more likely we will be able to consider them. Once the public comment draft is published, the department will solicit public comment on the draft. In June, the department will issue a final draft and again seek public comment through a series of public hearings. Members of the public may provide written input at any and all stages of the plan process. The department will accept written comments on our website. Additionally, we will have a residential and business survey that you can take. The link to this material will be posted in the chat. You may also send written comments by email to psd.telecom at vermont.gov or in writing to 1112 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont, 05602. I'll now turn it over to Matt, who will begin the discussion. Thank you, Clay, and thank you for everyone who's joining us and has persevered through the team's interface to do so. Delighted to be a moderator for this discussion. For the most part, we're going to allow just people to comment, but I want to provide a couple of prompts that is the focus of this evening's part of the public input process. Before I do that, just want to ask that when folks aren't speaking to put their microphones on mute so we don't get outside noises, which there is frequently in our households in this time of the pandemic. And also just to note that we did do a public comment period, or public comment event yesterday that was focused on broadband, terrestrial broadband. And again, this one is intended to be focused on wireless public safety and peg access, which are all prescriptive parts of the 10-year telecommunications plan. We as an organization, along with CTC Technologies, have been conducting interviews, data analysis, and other kinds of inputs. But obviously the input from the public is incredibly important. And we are delighted to be doing it in this kind of a format, not only to make sure that people feel that they can be heard, but also so that Vermonters can hear Vermonters, hear what their concerns are and have it be part of more of a dialogue as we go forward. So the three prompts that I just want to provide for folks to possibly jog their thinking on how they would approach comments in their three minutes, are these, in terms of cell service, where would you like to see the state prioritize cell service across the state, roadways, residences, or both? What considerations should the state keep in mind as they work to improve cell service? How does public access television impact your life on a daily basis and the life of your community? And do you have telecommunications related concerns regarding public safety in Vermont? So those are three prompt questions that we're using to guide our planning process and can serve to prompt the kinds of questions, the kinds of input that we're looking for today. So with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to Clay and have him call on people in the order that folks are raising their hand as well as indications in the comments. And we'll keep this open understanding that some people may be struggling as we all did to get into the team's platform to make sure that everyone is able to be heard that would like to be. Sure, and thank you, Matt. So it looks like first we have Lauren Blendevidian with her hand raised. So you can kick it off. And I think if you just came in and missed the spiel about public comments, I'm gonna be starting first with the folks who are on Microsoft Teams and use the raise hand feature. You can also tell me that you wanna talk if you say something in the chat and then we'll move to folks on the phone who can't raise their hand. So we'll ask those folks after we've moved through the round of folks on Microsoft Teams. If there's a chance to speak, we can come back. You can have a second churn to speak if you have more to say. So we'll start with Lauren Glenn. Hey, thank you. I guess I hopped right on that hand raising. So that worked out. Thank you. It's nice to see you all. I'm Lauren Glendevidian. I'm the executive director of CCTV Center for Media and Democracy based in Burlington. And we are a member in Vermont Access Network, which is a mutual aid society of Vermont's 25 community media centers, also known as Access Management Organizations, or AMOs. And I think as you know, the good news is I don't think I really have to recap the value of public educational and government access in Vermont. To you, other than to say we are considered as of this year as an essential service, not only providing content, community-produced content in the areas of P, E and G, but more than that, we are part of the resiliency plan for the state in that we weave our communities together. We provide local non-commercial communications, training technical services, and have been recognized to serve a vital function in the life of our communities. The state's regulatory structure and regulators have recognized the value of PEG, which is the abbreviation I'll use, for more than 35 years. And that's embedded in statute and it's embedded in certificates of public good. I will say that I was going through archives today and I found some comments from the 1990 telecommunications plan, which dates me. And it was actually a draft written by a department staffer who sort of left the public access, it was the draft and then he left the public access section out and said, maybe my colleague can fill this in for us. So I think we've come a long way. I wanna speak about the recommendations I think should be in the plan. I will write this in more detail. So I'll keep it very top level. In terms of the financial constraints, we know that PEG is losing revenue because cable revenue is declining and it's expected to decline 35% by 2025 internationally and nationally. So the PEG study that was recently funded by the legislature has a series of recommendations that I think should be seriously reviewed in this version of the plan. And it basically calls for ways to find alternative funding, not only for PEG access, but other public benefits like universal service and E911. And it calls on the state to modernize the telecommunications tax structure. And these recommendations were reinforced in the recent tax structure committee report that came out in January, 2021. So I think that's a lot of work that we have been pointed to is spelled out there. And we wanna consider that and the recommendations for this plan. And then from the technical standpoint, just very quickly, we continue to seek parity with commercial services on the cable system. And when the cable operators won't give us HD channels, that's not parity. When we're nickled and dimed in order for our programming information to appear on the cable channels to the tune of $6,000 a year to a third party so we can just have our metadata show so people can see what's on TV. For it to cost 6,000 a year, a channel is, we're being nickled and dimed and this is subscriber money. And these features that cable companies are kind of picking off as no longer their obligation. And I think we have to look at that carefully. And then I would just say in conclusion because of the support of the state and the department and the PUC, we have flourished really and the Vermont Community Television Channel that is statewide that Comcast has provided us. I mean, not all our relations with them are strained but we were able to negotiate that HD channel for the state. We hope that there will be recommendations to encourage other cable operators to interconnect with that channel. And we also see that there is a really important role that van members can play in state level interconnectivity whether that's feeding legislative coverage on the TV channel or a Vermont Interactive Television 2.0 but we see there's some great potential there for us to be sort of exercise our value or provide our value through the new and expanded broadband network that hopefully more Vermonters will be enjoying in the years ahead. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lauren Glenn. Thank you very much. We'll move next to Ann Mann Waring. Oh, thank you very much. I was unable to join last night so I hope it is all right with you folks if I make a comment on broadband tonight. Is that all right? That's absolutely. Just to reiterate, folks are allowed to comment on any topic I think is important for the telecom plan related or unrelated to tonight's focus on cell coverage and public safety and tech. Okay, very good. Well, my name is Ann Mann Waring and I'm the chair of the Deerfield Valley Communication Union District, one of nine districts in Vermont. I won't go into all of that but here are a couple of comments that I would like to have you folks consider as you're doing this 10-year plan. First and foremost, Vermont's 10-year telecommunication plan should lead us to world-class infrastructure that provides access for all Vermonters to this vital 21st century communication network. The plan should focus on the role of communication union districts to be the vehicle for reaching the last mile as commercial companies driven by their need for sufficient return on investment have not shown the capacity to deliver high-speed service for all. Unfortunately for rural Vermont and America, the federal government decided years ago that broadband should be delivered via the free market. Therefore, CUDs, which are municipal corporations must do our work in a competitive environment. The plan needs to acknowledge this dynamic and provide tools for CUDs to complete, to compete for enough customers so that we can become financially stable and socially responsible providers of high-speed broadband for all. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate it. And with regard to your other topic, I wish I had public access television in my community. That's another thing that's difficult to come by in rural Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. Thank you, Anne. I appreciate the comment. Yeah. Blake, can I point of process the dial-in number? I've tried it multiple times. I had to go find a different dial-in number from a TCAP sheet in order to get in to hear this meeting. So the dial-in number on your web page for these two meetings was not working after four or five attempts. Okay, well, we'll go back and confirm that. We had several people, other people dial in, so, and we had people dial in yesterday. So I'm not sure what's happening, but several people have reported problems during the meeting today, including myself. So we did wait two more minutes to allow people to come in. Let's move on. It's the same as the website, by the way. Oh, thank you, Michael. Let's move on to Christopher Linowitz. Hope I said your name okay. That's just fine. Thank you, appreciate it. And I appreciate this opportunity to comment tonight. I'm a resident of Brattleboro, Vermont, and I'm also the president of the board for Brattleboro Community Television. And I'm submitting a public comment in support of the PEG Studies recommendations to modernize Vermont's telecommunications tech structure to include public benefits such as PEG. To do so would be in the same spirit as the creation of the Federal Law, the Cable Communications Act, which initially established funding for PEG stations and recognized them as a public good. For rural communities like Southern Vermont, where I live, which do not even have the presence of a television network affiliate like other parts of the state, White River Junction, Burlington, Montpelier, PEG stations are critical for providing coverage of local issues. They also connect parishioners with their houses of faith, and they provide a forum for charitable organizations to communicate how they are serving their communities. Lauren Glenn also talked about many of the other benefits that PEG stations provide to the communities with regards to production services and training. When technology evolves, it just makes sense that the laws evolve with it, and this occurs in many other industries that provide goods and services that have technologically advanced over time. So it makes sense to do so here too, where the end goal is still the same, and that's providing a public good to the local communities they serve. Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity. All right, many thanks. We'll move next to Kim Cheney. Kim, you're on mute. I'm the chair of the Vermont, Central Vermont Public Service Authority, which is composed of, it's a municipal corporation composed. Our members are Barry and Montpelier and about 17 central Vermont towns. The principal means of communication at the moment is radio, and most firefighters and EMS communicate by radio. On the other hand, the growing technology allows, let me break up a minute. The present time, if you're sick and callous and needed a public service person, and you have a telephone, your call goes to Williston, Vermont. That dispatcher picks a call up and calls, in this case, Montpelier, which dispatches, and they call callus and send out a tone to the callus volunteer fire department that then comes to your house. The system we are now using is about 25 years old. It's antiquated, the radio equipment is difficult to operate. It's hard to communicate from different towns to the right dispatcher to get people where they need to go. And it takes a lot of time to do this. So our desperate needs of money to rebuild the system. And I don't think we're a unique statewide. I don't think it's going on all over the state. The communications future is in combining radio with access to broadband and broadband voice communications. For a lot of reasons, one of which is you don't run into fights with the FCC and conflicts with Canadian broadcasts. Right now our communications are frequently compromised by taxi cabs in Southern Canada. And other users of similar frequency which endangers the public. We're in the process of doing a complete technological study. And I'm a little on Vanguard on this. Firefighters and EM people like radios. They don't like broadband and don't use it much. But there are devices which will now allow in a single unit you can choose to converse by radio or if you're connected to a broadband service you can relay some of your messages via broadband. And increasingly technical data. If you're in a fire scene and you want to get a picture of what it looks like people can access that data and send it to you. They can't do that on the radio. So we're in desperate need of funds. We're trying to align with our CUD who have been very welcoming to us. And they're partnering with the Washington Electric Co-op to use some of their broadband services to communicate with their people. I hope we will be able to expand our study. We don't presently have the money for it to see if we can use all these services together so that when Matt Dunn, if he lived in Plainfield got sick one day, you could get an ambulance. The people are doing now are amazing how they do it. But it's patchwork work. And my plea is to allocate some funds to radio communication improvement as it connects to broadband services because it's a serious public health need but incidentally nobody can sell advertising on it which to me is a great benefit. So I hope you'll do that. Thank you. Kim, thank you. And thanks for the example that certainly brought it home. Thank you. I don't know what it's like where you live but I imagine you have the same problems. Absolutely. All right, well, thank you very much. I will move next to Tom Laefolt. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm actually, I had an impact on public access and public access television has had an impact on me. I started out as a volunteer in the Rutland cable system in 1993 and today I am the executive director of that station. So for many years I have understood the impact and the need for a place for people to come in and be able to speak their mind. It's been a place where you can convey information. And most recently we've improved ourselves extremely important through the pandemic. We did six live Collins with Rutland Regional Medical Center. We teamed up with Catamount Radio so they put the audio of those programs on the air at the same time we were live on Peg Access. And it really stressed our role where people could actually call in from the community live and speak directly to a doctor and have questions answered. And we have always been in a position to serve nonprofits and to be there in situations where the newspapers are just spread too thin. We've partnered many times with the Rutland Herald. They've been very gracious with us and they love to come in and watch select board meetings and school board meetings because they don't have the resources to send a reporter to every single public meeting. So we've been very valuable. I won't go into too much detail and rehash what Lauren Glenn and Christopher have already said. But just in my decades of working in public access I feel it's a great asset and we really need to protect that in any way that we can funding-wise. The Berkshire Telecom Study was very productive. There's a lot of good ideas in that that we should just keep an eye on. Steve Pappas from the Rutland Herald had a nice editorial a few days ago about being careful not to eliminate places where people can have free speech. So I just, I'm here to represent public access and I support it fully with every grain of my existence. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. I appreciate it. We'll move next to Core Trowbridge. We can now. Yeah. Great. Hi. I couldn't get on using the normal way. So I apologize for my mishandling of all the buttons but I've got two comments. One on the peg access and one on broadband. I was on the call last night but I just, I'm just gonna make two separate comments right in a row. All good. Fine. My name is Core Trowbridge. I'm the executive director of Brattleboro Community Television. BCTV was founded in 1976 while a long time ago and is the designated community center, community media center for eight towns in Southern Wyndham County. Our membership structure allows anyone who lives, works, volunteers or attends school in Wyndham County to join BCTV and create or submit local programming. And since the pandemic started as Tom noted, demand for BCTV services has been higher than ever especially for recording and archiving municipal meetings, live streaming sports events, performances and helping residents share views and vital information on our cable and YouTube channels. BCTV is part of a statewide network of public access station known as the Vermont Access Network or VAN. As VAN members, we recognize and appreciate Vermont's long history of support for public educational and government access media which is recognized in years of certificates of public good decisions. VAN members pool resources and share programming through the Vermont media exchange and on the recently launched HD Vermont Community Television channel which Lauren Glenn was mentioning. We are actively partnering to find new revenue alternatives to replace rapidly declining cable funding and maintain our level of service to the community. For the purposes of the 10 year telecommunications plan, I'm speaking in support of the PEG study. This assessment of PEG funding alternatives was recently completed for the Vermont legislature in January 2021 and was funded in 2020 by the legislature and can be incorporated as findings of the 10 year communications plan. The PEG study recommends a way for the Vermont legislature to modernize its telecommunications taxes and describes the authority of the state to rationalize its public benefit structure including PEG E911 and universal service. The report recommends revenue solutions to address the steady decline of cable franchise fees which is the primary source of funding for Vermont's 25 community media centers. We understand that the future will require a more diversified approach to funding and the study is an important step in that direction. So thank you. That's the end of my first comment on the telecommunications plan. And the second comment, I'm wearing a different hat to speak on broadband policy. And as a resident of Putney, I'm a volunteer governing board member of the 21-town Deerfield Valley Communications Union District. The reason I'm volunteering for this project is that the values of the CUD reflect my values and those of the public interest. The pandemic revealed in stark terms the cruel inequity of one neighbor being able to stay home and rely on their internet connection to safely and effectively work and attend school while a mile down the road another neighbor's poor connectivity created a very real barrier to employment or education and ultimately to their safety. The UDs are designed for and committed to providing what private firms have not been able to or willing to do to offer a future-proof product to every last address. Even those consumers fortunate enough to get decent speeds from one cable provider at whatever price is charged will benefit from having more than one choice as competition improves affordability. Due to the rural nature of the state, we can't rely on the private sector alone to solve our connectivity problems. It must be a public-private partnership. Nine CUDs have been formed for this reason. Telecommunications policies should favor and support CUDs as a key component in bridging the digital divide. Thank you. Thank you very much, Cor. Thank you, Cor. Did I submit those also in writing? Yeah, I'd like to reiterate that comments are being accepted in writing. We like comments in writing because we can read them and think about them and read them again. So they are always welcome. And if you have written comments that you read today and would like to submit those, please do. You can send them to psd.telecom at vermont.gov. It's written out, vermont.gov. We also, on our telecom plan webpage, we are collecting written comments through a survey monkey link too. So you can enter comments that way. Okay, no, you're reading really fast, but thank you very much for listening. No problem, thank you. And I guess one other thing I'd like to say is please don't put comments in the chat because I don't think we'll necessarily preserve the chat. It's not a good place for us to take the substantive comment. If you'd like to give substantive comment, tell us or send it in writing to our email. And we are recording this session just to be clear. And so I think they're just spoken here. We'll also get considered as part of the planning process. Yep. Let's move next to Deb M. Hi, excuse me. So I gave some comments yesterday on broadband and my main point yesterday was to try to hope that there would be some distinction between wireless and fiber, which actually for the internet, it would be about 5G. I didn't mention that, the development of 5G versus the development of fiber optics. And so I just like to sort of repeat that again, that that is just a distinction that must be made. And I never hear that. So I just think anytime there's a news article or anything, if we're talking about fiber optics, then that needs to be said as opposed to any 5G development. But today, well, it's sort of a similar thing I'd like to talk about. So I think that any development of telecommunication services must be done, the awareness of and concern about safe ways to do this, meaning an awareness of the negative health effects that wireless systems absolutely do convey to people. So again, there's never any discussion about this anywhere. And it just really has to be part of the discussion. And there's so much that can and needs to be said about it. I mean, so we're talking about, you know, cell service and we're talking about public safety. And I believe the public safety that is being implied here is not the same kind of public safety that I'm talking about. I think it's very much a public safety issue if we're, you know, putting cell towers next to people's houses or, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, it just, it's very much a public safety issue. In terms of cell service and wireless, I mean, telephone service, I just think, you know, I know that landlines are going the way of the dinosaurs, but really there are so many people that could have better reception, better security, better safety from landlines. And I think they're still available. I have a landline. I love my landline. Why can't people do that anymore? If they wanna have cell phones also for when they're traveling, that's why not, you know? But at home, it's really not necessary to have a cell phone. It's the same thing, you can wire anything. You can wire anything in your house and have a better outcome, better reception, and it's certainly a whole lot more safety that way. So I'm just very frustrated that I never, ever see any of this discussed anywhere. And I, you know, I mentioned yesterday, the FCC is fighting a lawsuit because they ignored. They totally ignored just so much evidence. I mean, thousands and thousands of, you know, peer-reviewed studies that show the very harmful effects of, well, of wireless, of EMFs and all that comes with that and 5G everything. And they're probably gonna have to change some things because they are, the FCC has just, sorry, it's been captured, it's a captured agency and gotten away with, I think, literal murder that way. So anyway, I think that's gonna come down. Hopefully that'll put it on the front pages, I hope, when they lose that battle, which I think is probably gonna happen. So I don't know, that's, I'm just reiterating what I said. I hope there's other people on this call who will, who will, you know, agree with me. So thank you, that's all. Just for clarity, we certainly welcome any of those types of input. When we were talking about public safety in this context, it was for the kinds of issues that Kim was relating to in terms of the infrastructure allow those connections. All of the comments that you've provided are absolutely, you know, helpful to the process. And we have gotten a number of comments already on the written form related to those issues. Good, glad to hear it, thanks. Thank you, let's move next to Martha Serging. Can you hear me? We can hear you now, yep. Okay, thank you. Well, thank you, Matt, for saying those sorts of comments are welcome because that's where my comments come into. I also have concerns and I don't know where they get voiced and how they fit into the 10 year telecom plan, but I would like, in case you didn't know, for you to know about the state of New Hampshire's report on 5G, I realize it's coming down the road and there's not a whole lot we can probably do about that. I see it as very much a secondhand smoke and PFOA issue because it can't be contained like secondhand smoke and PFOAs. So I'm gonna just outline a couple of things. So this was a 13 member commission issued by the state legislature there. And it was a year long study, they have almost 400 pages. I think there's a lot to be learned from it. And there were a few questions, they were charged to find answers to eight different questions. And a couple of their questions just really jumped out at me. One was, why are the FCC radio frequency exposure limits set for the United States 100 times higher than other countries like Russia, China, Italy, Switzerland and most of Eastern Europe? Another one was, why have more than 220 of the world's leading scientists signed an appeal to who and the United Nations to protect public health from wireless radiation, yet nothing is being done? I would, here's another one. Why does the insurance industry recognize wireless radiation as the leading risk and has placed exclusions on their policies not covering damages? So, those seem like pretty damning questions and to Judith's, or not Judith, it was Deborah's comment just a minute ago about the FCC being captured. The FCC didn't really comment on this other than to point them to places, this is the 13 member commission, other than to point them to places at their website. And one of the things that the New Hampshire panel came down with as a decision was that, yes, the FCC is captured. So, I'm gonna move on to some of their recommendations that perhaps can fit into the 10 year telecom plan. And pardon me for rushing, I know I have a limit of three minutes. So, recommendation 11 was to promote and adopt a statewide position that would strongly encourage moving in forward with the development of fiber optic cable connectivity. Internal wire connections and optical wireless serve all commercial and public properties statewide. When compared with radio frequency, wireless transmission, fiber optic has better speed, security, signal reliability and avoids biological effects on humans and the environment. So, I encourage that as much as we can. Recommendation number five says signal strength measurements must be collected at all facilities as part of the commissioning process and mandated by state or municipal ordinances. Their recommendation number three speaks to people who are sensitive health wise and trying to find homes or rental properties. And it says that the state of New Hampshire should begin an effort to measure radio frequency intensities throughout the state with an aim of developing and refining a continually updated map of exposure levels across the state using data submitted by trained in-home inspectors. This data needs to be collected in a way to identify geographic areas of notably high radio frequency exposures. Recommendation number seven, and I think this is really key too, is to require that any new wireless antennas that are located on state or municipal rights of way or on private property get set back from residences, businesses and schools. The commission believes that it is important to prioritize citizen safety, particularly as 5G is an upgrade rather than the provision of wireless service to underserved areas. So those are my comments. I don't know what you can do with them, but as always, I'm concerned about the health and safety of people in my community and the state at large. Thank you very much. Thank you, Martha, appreciate it. Hey, one more thing. So someone who also wanted to comment but couldn't get in has driven over here and would like an opportunity to comment as well. All right, well, since you were last on the list, if that person is with you, he or she may comment now. Okay, thank you so much. Shall I begin now? Yes, please. Can you say your name? My name is Dick Brigham, and I'm from Cuttingsville, Vermont, and I'm giving my comment because a number of us have tried, usually, to get through by phone, and we couldn't get through with the number or with the PIN number. So that's the first comment I am speaking on behalf of myself, of course, my family and many friends who obviously aren't standing right here with me. It is our firm belief in the truth of the Nobel Prize recipient, Dr. Devra Davis. I'm sure who you are familiar with rather than go through intimate by intimate, it would be easier just to use her name so that you know what I'm referring to. This issue is really more vast than the issue of secondhand smoke and many other things that we have legislated against. And if this isn't more serious, I'll eat my hat for starters. It is our firm belief that the fiber optics are infinitely more safe and better in the long run for many reasons. And I really appreciate you allowing me for myself and others to give this comment at this time and I am finished now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Looks like we've run through the list of folks online. So we'll now open it up to folks on the phone. Looks like we have two or three people on the phone. How does one raise one's hand on the phone? Well, you can't. So you have to say something and you have. So I would ask that you introduce yourself and provide a comment. Yeah, my name is Judith Ruskin from Hardwick. And I was excited to hear the last couple of people sharing because I'm very concerned as well about the competition in the telecommunications industry. But there's not just New Hampshire report, but there's also New York state Congress doing investigation of the, I'm sorry, I'm not a public speaker, of whether showing that wireless radiation is extremely harmful to humans and to the environment. And I think all I really want to say, I'm going to write in more thoughtfully, is that we need to be studying fiber optics and there's been studies of what we're doing to children in the schools with more and more Wi-Fi. And so I don't have the statistics, but I'm going to write you. And I just wanted to put my voice out there too. I was very excited to hear two other people. It's very, very serious what's going on now. And it's not just the FCC that's captured. You know, things are really strange in the world. The WHO is also, so I'm not going to get into all that stuff, but it's not just really crazies who are spouting this. There's just a lot going on. And I will write something to you. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much for your comment. Do we have anyone else on the phone who'd like to provide a comment? I'm not on the phone. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Steve, what would you get a minute? Well, we'll run to Steve and then Victor will go to you a second and we'll ask for any last comments after that. All right, Steve, and take it away. I'm going to draw on a couple of the prior speakers. Kim Cheney, who's chair of the board of Central Vermont Public Safety Authority, is wrestling with the challenge of the migration from LMR radio, which is the land mobile radio, the environment and police and all use towards eventual first net style LTE with broadband capabilities. But that network across Vermont has even more holes than the LMR canopy. It's high time for the department under existing directives and statutory authority to complete a statewide mobile wireless mapping project. It could be done with both cellular and LTE, LMR. LTE and LMR measured by the same vehicle driving every road. Conversely, a much less expensive strategy would be to use the Pinpoint app that Tel Aviv developed and used under the contract with the Department of Public Safety, which measures signal strength and data throughput, but it requires unlimited data and gaps phones to be useful. But if the state were able to negotiate a time limited contract for six months or a dozen or two dozen phones from each carrier that could be passed around to local fire departments to drive every road in their jurisdiction, that's a way to capture the LTE coverage and they would know where the gaps are. The primary emphasis for public safety should be where the power goes out, and I know Martha Serjane could relate to this. The power goes out frequently, it's slow to be restored and there's no cell coverage. Representative Sabilia has spoken to this issue as well. It's kind of a triple whammy. And those are the areas where we would seek to accelerate the deployment of even a single strand of fiber to host a small cell out there. A small cell operator, we have a Vermont operator that has roaming agreements with AT&T, T-Mobile Sprint already and hopefully we could get Verizon onto the roaming agreement there too. But to have the ability of any municipality who feels this danger of no connectivity, frequent power outages, which disable VoIP phones over fiber to have a small cell that is powered for a week at a time is worth doing. But mapping the statewide coverage is something that hasn't been done since I believe 2010 or 2013 by Perical under the ARRA money. And this is consistent with the governor's assertion that we should do, this is information as capital infrastructure, information as infrastructure, a map of our current state, accurate of every road in the state, what our cell coverage is and even what our LMR coverage is so that public safety first responders would know where it's most cost effective to install a small LTE cell rather than try to put in more LMR towers. I know I'm using a lot of jargon for the people who don't. Public safety and police are all LMR and mobile radio, whereas that's slowly migrating to LTE which is cellular technology. That's integrating the public access stations in the public safety first response communications strategy would be valuable and important. It would give reason, a rationale for hardening those facilities so that they have generators and can keep a signal up even during a regional power outage to inform folks possibly even putting small FM radio stations in co-located with these similar to like Goddard or something. These connecting the public access stations with fiber to enable that statewide, the most cost effective and versatile network architecture that could be used for the statewide channel would be a 10 gigabit ethernet connecting all the AMOs which would allow for simultaneous background file transfers, live broadcast from any connected point of origination as well as for monoreactive television 2.0 that was referenced. So those are some key points. Well, I'm sure I've missed a lot but I know you're trying to keep me in the frame. Thank you, Stephen, I appreciate it. And we are coming to the end of our time. I did want to get to Martine before we end the sessions and there's just such a good to speak. So let's turn it over to her. Okay, great. Hello, everybody. My name's Martine Victor. I live in Manchester, Vermont. And like the last several callers, I too am concerned about the health effects from the wireless radiation. Given the current, I guess, laws or the guidelines provided by the FCC are grossly outdated. They're 25 years old. And if you think back to the type of technology that was available then, it's a far cry from what is in use now, not to mention just the overlap of all of this technology and the various generation, 2G, 3G, 4G, and now, in some areas, the advent of 5G. And I think a concern is that we have this opportunity to do something that can be long-term and really provide permanent, reliable, safe from hacking, safe from hacking. You know, safety-wise, like with fiber optic versus the planned obsolescence that we see with so much wireless gear. And there's so much hype over many types of wireless that, and what I find interesting actually is that Tom Wheeler, who was the former, I believe, president of the CTIA and former chairman of the FCC, actually believes that 5G is not gonna accomplish the national connectivity goals that we aim for. So I think it's an opportunity to really choose something that will work in the long-term that will be safe because as other people mentioned, yes, we need emergency connections for ambulance and what have you, fire. But there's safety issues that are critical with wireless and particularly with schools and young children, that exposure is very, it's unhealthy and it's pretty unprecedented to have children in that heavy-duty wireless environment throughout the school day. So I just think there are better ways to do things than many other countries are really examining this, the wireless issues and choosing to do things in a safer manner. And I just think we have this opportunity now because broadband is a critical issue and connectivity is very important for many, many reasons. So I think we wanna do it in a safe way. So that's it, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we're coming to the end of our time, actually a little over, but I just wanna ask if there's anyone else who may wanna give a quick one-minute comment before we go, just to make sure we cover everyone who wanted to speak. Well, this is Deb Moore. I would like to just say a very quick thing after what Martha was talking about, about the New Hampshire Commission, I think it was implied in what she was saying, but wouldn't it be a really wonderful thing if Vermont could do a similar thing unless they would just adopt the conclusions of the New Hampshire Commission. They don't have to do their own, but if they're not satisfied with the New Hampshire Commission, maybe they can do their own. And I think it would be prudent to do that. That's all I wanna say. Thanks. Great, thank you so much. I wanna thank everyone. 60 seconds, Stephen. Brad. Okay, one point I wanted to make about the Southern Vermont. There was mention of competition, but yet we have not been taking seriously the statutory goals and policy of competitive choice and open access. Any contracts that any of the CUDs is gonna enter into with consolidated must require an established open access to the fiber and allow competitive providers to use that infrastructure, or we will be further just migrating to a new type of monopoly, which everybody's been complaining about for years with Comcast. So competitive choice and open access, I have been in the statutes for over a decade and now we're at a time where the rubber really meets the road and we need to make sure that monopoly contracts not be signed by CUDs to grant monopolies using public money. And then one more clarification on all the wireless concerns. I don't discount those concerns, but I think it would be very useful for the department to differentiate the 4G from the 5G technologies. Most people in Vermont are not gonna need gigabit per second wireless, even in downtown Burlington. If we were just to create a ubiquitous 4G canopy and have everything else on fiber and low power Wi-Fi, we would be addressing most of the concerns you're hearing from the Wi-Fi concerns populace. The 5G is most of the concern is in the 20 and 30 gigahertz range, rather than the three to five gigahertz range. So those are a couple of points that y'all could make some progress on, thanks. Great. Excuse me, this is Judith again. Could you repeat the address where we can write into, I was just looking and there's just this little form you have, but you had mentioned an email address. Can you repeat that? I can repeat that and we'll also include it in the chat here. It's psd.telicon.vermont.gov. Oh, slower, .telicon.vermont.gov. Psd.telicon.vermont.gov. dot p is in Paul Essence and service public service department. There you go. There you go. Okay. Telecom at Vermont dot gov. Thank you. And to, to whose attention or. You can write it to my attention or to Matt or to whom we may concern. However you'd like to do it and we will consider your comment. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you everyone for attending. Really appreciate the input that we've received tonight and. The attendance, which is fairly high for government public meeting. So we very much appreciate that. And like I said at the beginning of the meeting, if you have additional comments you'd like to submit, please do so in writing. For us, I just gave BSD dot telecom at Vermont dot gov. Or there's a survey monkey link on our web page where you can submit comments. And I'd also like to just point out that we are going to have more hearings once we have a final draft. So we will be scheduling those for times in the month of June. All right. Well, thank you very much and have a good night.