 Welcome to Community Matters. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Filling in for Jay Fidel today. Our topic is long-term broadband access in Hawaii. How well are we doing? My host is Bert Lum, the Broadband Strategy Officer for the Hawaii Broadband and Digital Equity Office. Welcome, Bert. Thanks, Catherine. Good to be here. All right, so I think that there's a fundamental question that we kind of think we know, but we may not really know. What is broadband? Well, that's a good question to start off with. I think everybody is used to the idea of having some form of internet access. And broadly speaking, broadband is your internet access. Now, the quality of that internet connection could vary between what kind of service you might have gotten. Now, I remember in the olden days, we would have a dial-up and we would have a subscription that might have included some kind of, I don't know, 24-bot connection. But the speeds have obviously increased since then. But there's a pretty great disparity on what kind of speeds people have. And even if they have an internet connection. So, from a functional standpoint, the Federal Communications Commission has set a bar for 25 megabits download and three megabits upload. And that bar has been grossly sort of overpassed or passed by the kinds of applications that we all are very much used to. So if you think about whether you're at home during a Zoom call or doing some kind of work at home or education at home or even doing some kind of a telehealth consultation. And imagine if you had multiple people doing that from your home. 25-3 service would probably be far underperforming. So, lately the discussion has been around upping that low benchmark to 100 megabits down and 20 megabits up. And I've also seen some of the FCC projects at the level of, or having to meet the level of 100 down and 100 up. That's 100 megabits symmetric. So, to ask your question, the broadband has definitely improved in its definition of what is broadband. The question now becomes, who is perhaps being left behind in getting an internet connection? And what I think we realized during the pandemic, and this is a result of perhaps having to be sort of sheltered at home. Many people didn't have internet access at home. And so, if you kind of look at some of the census numbers on how many people were not even connected, we're looking at something like 55,000 households in Hawaii that aren't connected. So, it's not just a matter of what is the speed of broadband. And I think there's probably a lot of people that are kind of at a sub par level of what kind of subscription they might have. It's also a matter of how many people even can afford to get a broadband connection. So, there's a whole slew of issues that need to be addressed from access to affordability to the actual ability to use the technology once you get it. Sure. So, I remember having a modem way back when I was in law school and I had an apple to see. And now, years and years later, all of a sudden our lives revolve around broadband. They were, you know, we've suddenly with COVID, we've entered into this world where much of our lives are on Zoom or on another meeting platform. So, one issue that comes to mind when we talk about this is most of the world has mobile phones. However, not all of the world has PCs and laptops. And does broadband impact the use of our mobile phones as well? That's a good question. So, when we start to talk about the different devices that might be connected to that internet subscription, you have your typical landline connection, which would be provided by the Hawaiian telecom or like a charter spectrum. And that would be bringing a physical line to your home and that you could then connect your, whether it's a desktop computer or a laptop computer. And then of course, with the advancements in the wireless industry, we saw, I remember these huge Motorola brick phones that people were using and, you know, at the time, you know, it was kind of the state of the art, but that evolved to the sort of the flip phone. And I thought, oh, wow, these flip phones, they look pretty cool because they remind me of the Star Trek communicator. But the ability for that phone to really do a lot of functional things was limited by the service. And we're talking back when, you know, it was like a 2G kind of a service or even like a 3G service. What really transformed the whole mobile experience was 4G and 4G enabled more bandwidth. And the protocol enabled, you know, a much richer experience by the user being able to access websites. And of course, we all remember what happened with the iPhone and the fact that the iPhone was a really a game changer in terms of how you interact online for all the online resources, you know, that are available. So that's the kind of evolution of the wireless. And then you have now the introduction of 5G, which is the next level of protocol that is being unfolding in front of us as a result of carriers like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. So that is going to be a continued, I think, enabler of more applications being able to be delivered on the mobile device. Now, I think your question really sort of begs the issue of, you know, what devices are we talking about when talking about broadband? And so we're talking about both the landline connected, could be a laptop, could be a desktop. And we're also talking about tablets. And that could be a mobile connection or it could be at home on your Wi-Fi or it could be a smartphone that you now have that is with you all the time. It's your mobile device. And that's why the federal government, for many of these projects that are kind of rolling out to get funded, they are looking at something called the sort of technology neutral and it could be fiber-based, it could be wireless. But again, it depends on the program and how, I guess, from a cost standpoint, how economical it is to deliver the service to a wide swath of geography. And sometimes, you know, running fiber to every home might not be the most cost effective. And that's why wireless solutions are also part of the technological mix that could be proposed. Now, so, you know, what's interesting to me is that this idea of the importance of broadband, is it, you know, before I used to think of the internet as sort of a luxury that if you have extra money that you would have good internet access, you would have a laptop, a PC, a mobile phone. But as our society has progressed, it seems to me that broadband and the access to the internet is actually more important in our daily functioning. What are your thoughts on our actual needs versus wants in relation to broadband? Well, of course, you're talking to the Broadband Strategy Officer, so I'm gonna be a little biased, but there have been others that have been really promoting the idea of broadband and internet as a human right, because we have gotten to the point where the ability for us to do a lot of what we currently do in our daily lives are already dependent on the internet. And if you look at Hawaii, and I'll kind of look at it from a, first from a kind of a statewide standpoint, you know, we're in the middle of the Pacific and a lot of what our comrades and sort of business activity revolves around is our ability to connect not only in the state, but across, you know, the Pacific Ocean. So, you know, there's, you can always, you can always think of, well, maybe I'll just fly there, or maybe I'll just send a snail mail letter to whoever I wanna send something to, or maybe I'll catch a boat to the West Coast to get to the West Coast. If commerce were limited by that sort of physical need to jump on a plane or jump on a boat, you would be at a great disadvantage in Hawaii. And I think that's true across the entire globe. And when you start to look at, you know, if you're in a location and you're, let's say just an example, you're at home and you're, because of the pandemic, you're sheltered at home, but you still need to conduct the variety of things that you need to do, whether it's education, whether it's doing remote work or working from home, whether it's doing a health consultation. And, you know, if you were to, let's say there's a program that was rolled out last year called the Emergency Broadband Benefit and you wanted to access this benefit. One of the, you know, one of the ways that you could do that is through your internet connection. And so how do you get access to some of these government services? Now, you know, in the case of the EBB, you know, the Emergency Broadband Benefit, I mean, they did recognize that people may not be connected and this might be a way to get them connected. So you could actually, you know, get material sent to you and then you could fill it out on a physical form and then mail it in and then go through that qualification process. But you can start to see how disadvantaged you might be if you're not connected and you're limited to some of the physical means of communications. And then you start to look at also the, you know, what is the economy and what are the sort of the tech drivers and what is this digital economy that we oftentimes talk about? If Hawaii wants to diversify its economy, you know, it's not a hard argument to make, to understand that broadband and things like digital equity are foundational upon which whether it's our students or even kupuna and everybody in between would need to have as a foundational skill and tool in order to, you know, not only participate but perhaps create new applications, perhaps create new companies, come up with new ideas that would really spark perhaps a new business or a new industry. And any industry that you might think of that is already kind of a existing traditional legacy business from agriculture to tourism all depend on some form of connectivity. So if you were to say, oh, you know, I'm a farmer, I don't need the internet, but how do you start now looking at the supply chain that you are high to to get your produce out to the marketplace, right? And then if Hawaii wants to go beyond just selling to the local market, it has to look at being able to create product that could perhaps get sold through mainland markets or Asian markets and what better way to do that than have a distribution system that includes a website and some e-commerce and some ability to do some transactions and fulfill orders. That's all gonna be as a result of your ability to leverage the internet and the technology that comes along with that. You know, it's really interesting. My show on Wednesdays is the wide world of e-sports. And before the pandemic, one of the big issues was latency in relation to competitive video gaming. And surprisingly enough, the Overwatch League came to Hawaii last summer and the reason why they did is in order to make it, you know, get the people from US mainland closer to Japan and they ran a line in order to have better broadband and less paying. And so what are your thoughts about that? Well, if it wasn't for the pandemic, they would have perhaps chosen another place to do the Overwatch League tournament. What really happened, and it really gave Hawaii an opportunity to show what it is that we're capable of doing. Sometimes you would think, wow, from the middle of the Pacific, in the case of Overwatch, they were looking at latencies and their primary communication was between the US and Asia. And I think the actual Overwatch servers were someplace in, I think Japan or could have been in China. There were players that were from China. There were players from Korea and there were players from the US. And when Overwatch was looking for a place to actually do this, they were thinking, well, you know, it is physically challenging for us to actually all go to China, where I think some of the tournament took place. Oh, there was one aspect of the physical location. And then there was the aspect of, you know, what location in the US had the best latency to get to a place like China. And what happened is that in the case of the Overwatch League, they were able to connect with the folks over at the University of Hawaii, which actually has a direct connection into Japan from the trans-specific fiber system called the Japan-US fiber. And if you think about it, you know, between Japan and US or Japan and Hawaii, if your fiber connection is pretty straight run, you know, between the two countries, your latency is somewhat due to the, not only the speed of light, but maybe the number of hops that you have to go from router to router to get to your final destination. And Hawaii had the benefit of having this direct route right to Japan. So our latencies were really already well, well within the expectations of the Overwatch, you know, organizers. So they said, wow, you know, we don't have to go to China. We don't have to go to Asia. We can all go to Hawaii. Hawaii is a COVID safe place, you know. And this is pre-Delta, I think. And what happened was they had the tournament held over at the University iLab. They had this great connection, you know, through the JUS cable. And I think it really put Hawaii on the map to have, you know, this eSports competition take place right here on US ground and be as competitive with these players in Asia. Do you think that opens the door for more opportunities for Hawaii in light of that direct connection to Japan? Yeah, you know, absolutely. I think the fact that Overwatch took place in Hawaii not only brought attention to Hawaii from an organizing committee that was based on the continent, but it also brought an awareness of, you know, the program that Sky has over at UH, as well as the fact that, you know, there's a great eSports arena over at the Hawaii Pacific University. And so there's already a, you know, a presence here to have eSports tournaments as well as the eSports curriculum, getting students more aware of what it's like to be kind of an, you know, in the eSports field. And so the combination of all that, I think, you know, was good for Hawaii. Now it's a question of whether or not that can be continued to sustain itself. And Catherine, you know, because of your program as well as, you know, Sky's program and the folks over at HPU, you know, there's ongoing activity in all of this area, which I think continues to kind of maintain that momentum. And I think that's really important. Sure. And, you know, there's also UH West, Oahu, that has a new creative media center that's going to be in the mix very soon. So let's move back to your mention of the 55,000 people who don't have broadband. What about outer islands? Is there a disparity between their access to broadband versus Oahu's access and the quality? So what has happened over the course of time and what has become so evident during the pandemic is the fact that if you leave it strictly to the private sector, what the private sector will want to do is they will want to put money into a place where they can get a quick return on the investment. So obviously, you know, if you're on Oahu and you're part of an urban, you know, urban center, the private sector and the private sector are typically the cable company, which is Charter and the telephone company, which is Hawaiian Telcom, they will evaluate, you know, their investment, their money and look at where can they get their best return. So as they go through their kind of business modeling and budgeting and implementation schedule, the rural communities on the neighbor islands tend to be not as quick a return on the investment. So, you know, there's a lot of areas that are very much lacking in getting any kind of physical infrastructure like fiber. So if you're talking about areas like Ouna or Ka'u or, you know, Ocean View or, you know, we had a call with some of the community over in Milolei and looking at how do we enable, you know, their connectivity and even on Maui, you know, the folks over in Hana have been regular participants in our broadband hui. So the question becomes, what is gonna change in the, you know, sort of new programs that are being rolled out by the federal government? Oh, the federal government has recognized that, you know, the private sector can do so much because they're basically driven by some of this ROI and stakeholder or shareholder commitments to make a profit. So the federal government has several programs that will fund this kind of broadband deployment. And I'll speak to three fairly large-sized programs that are gonna be kind of rolled out. The first one is coming out of the Consulate, well, it's coming out of the American Rescue Plan. It's called the Capital Projects Fund. And the Capital Projects Fund is something to the tune of about $115 million. And so that is the first large, what I call a tranche of money that we, Hawaii, will need to apply for. We will get the 115, but we have to go through an application process. And that process includes something called the Grant Plan. And then within the Grant Plan, there are specific projects that constitute what that Grant Plan is and that those projects need to be identified to the detail that they, in essence, roll up to the $115 million. So that's one tranche of money. The next one that is gonna be kind of rolling out is, actually, it should be any day soon now is about $90 million that will go to the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. And the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, with this $90 million, could use it for a wide range of offerings from everything from telehealth to digital literacy, to affordability programs, to even doing cable landings on Hawaiian homelands. So there's a wide range of opportunity. I think Hawaiian homelands will also be using some of that money to leverage the 2.5 gigahertz spectrum that we were able to get the FCC to, you know, allocate and make available to Department of Hawaiian Homelands. This 2.5 gigahertz, let me look, quick little background. They made it available to Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and in Hawaii, since there's no federal recognition of Native Hawaiian people, we petitioned the FCC to consider Department of Hawaiian Homelands as the representative because the FCC, or the federal government, recognizes Department of Hawaiian Homelands and the homelands that they administer. So there's a 2.5 gigahertz spectrum that will be used for connectivity as well. So that's the second tranche of money. The third tranche of money is coming from the, what they call the IIJA, which is the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, which was recently signed. And there's a category within it called the BEED, B-E-A-D. And the BEED stands for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment, and that's another 100 million. And that 100 million needs to be used primarily for unserved and underserved areas. And so there's a pretty clear definition of what unserved and underserved is. So our ask, once the details of how they're gonna roll out the BEED program is to determine what areas are qualified for this BEED money that is consistent with the definition of what the, and this is a, this is a NTIA, which is NTIA is the National Telecommunication Information Administration, and they will administer the use of that money for those unserved underserved areas. Well, that's terrific Bert. We have run out of time, and thanks to our excellent Broadband today, we were able to bring this program to you. Thank you so much, Bert, appreciate it. Thank you, Catherine, and of course, thank Jay for keeping the lights on for the Think Tech. It's a great, great program. Absolutely, and thank you to our viewers for watching today, and please tune in for my show, The Wide World of eSports tomorrow at noon Hawaii time. See you then. The Wide World of eSports