 Okay, as you can tell today we are happy to have you at this event. We are going to talk about how mobile speaking hotspots can boost your library and how to create everything associated with that. And today we do have guest speakers involved, three from libraries and one from mobile beacon site in addition to the TechSoup staff that's on. If you have any questions, drop them in the chat, we'll go from there. Just a little bit of housekeeping. Again, questions, you're already using it, dropping into the chat. In that way, we'll answer it as we go. If you have specific questions that you don't want to get buried in the chat, feel free to use the Q&A function. That's how those two different. And if you need captions, there is a setting in Zoom to turn that on. So you'll probably have to go like Zoom settings and turn on the caption. Also two, within three working business days, we should be sending the supporting, the slides, and any other resources that we share to you. So again, that'll be coming over within three business days to your email, to you and to everyone that's registered. As you can see here too, I just wanted to give you some more information. TechSoup is starting a peer to peer community group called Quad. And within Quad, you'll have access to exclusive events, technical support, exclusive technical support. And you'll also get to know other like nonprofits. You'll be able to resource share with them. And it is just a great initiative to come and join us at. Also too, the membership will include memberships for up to 10 users from your organization. So if you have more questions, feel free to ask us. And we'll be happy to have you learn more about Quad. And also too, Vanessa has kindly dropped the Join Quad link. So you can check it out in the chat. All right. And here is today's agenda. Today, we are going to be going over introductions, which we've already done, favorite book. We're going to talk about the benefits. TechSoup benefits for libraries from there. We're also going to have a mobile beacon overview. We'll be talking about the bulk ordering process for those that have multiple sites that we like to order. And we'll also talk about different testimonial use cases from libraries that have an internet lending program. And then after that, we'll just have it open for questions. So you can interact with us, the panelists, and everything else that's going on. So we look forward to you joining us today. We're going just going to go through it. Okay. Also, these are your speakers today, which is me, Shamira McNeil. I'm a customer success manager at TechSoup. I help out with multi-site branches, sorry, nonprofits, like libraries, and other nonprofits. We will also have Shasta Keating. She may appear. And if she does not, then Joe Garcia will be doing her part. He's a program manager for mobile beacon here at TechSoup and other hardware programs. And then we'll also have Thomas Tepfer. Sorry if I said that wrong, but he is the business development for libraries education from the mobile beacon side. And so a lot of this is available with his help. And we also will have three library speakers that we will talk more about later on in this presentation. So like I said, we're excited to share all this information with you and I'll be passing it over to you, Joe. Thank you so much, Shamira. Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're very excited to be here. And, you know, we just wanted to take a couple of minutes to, you know, just to review TechSoup and how we serve libraries. Many libraries out there, this might be your first time interacting with TechSoup. And some of you, this might be a recurring relationship that, you know, that we've come to foster. But TechSoup's mission is to build a dynamic grid that leverages technology to enable connections and innovative solutions for a more equitable planet. And that's really what we're here for. I've been with TechSoup for about 10 years. I started working with the client services team. So I've really seen how we are giving back to nonprofits and how we're bridging that digital divide. Next slide, please. So what is TechSoup's approach? TechSoup's approach is to connect, activate, and transform. We connect by connecting nonprofits through technology tools, services, and knowledge that supports their operations. We activate the use of technology via digital skills courses, community building, digital literacy education, and we transform, supporting organizations through their digital transformation journeys in various ways. Next slide. And TechSoup has been supporting libraries since 2002. We recently did a look into what libraries were purchasing from TechSoup over the last few years. And from these products here on the screen, these are examples of the most requested product by libraries since 2020. So in the first vertical, we have software. So that's the Windows operating system upgrade. And then also office standards. So if you needed to update your office system, then that was there as well. Services, the top, and I believe the only service that was used by libraries since 2020 was the QuickBooks data migration support. This is a new vertical for us. But it's growing really rapidly for us. And, you know, we're trying to offer the different services, IT services, support that nonprofits and libraries are using. And then hardware here. So hardware, the top hardware for libraries was Mobile Begin, who we're going to hear a little bit more about today. And then also TechSoup refurbished hardware. So desktop, monitors, laptops, the sky's the limit. We've really been working with a handful of different refurbishers to really keep that catalog full, diverse, and, you know, relevant to nonprofits and libraries' technical needs. Next slide. So now I'd like to go ahead and welcome our guest speaker today. Actually, not yet. I'm just kidding. I'm going to go ahead and pass my back to Tamara. Tamara is actually on her major market development team, customer success team. And then I'm going to share a little bit about what they do. Yeah, as Joe just said, yes, I am on the major market development team, which handles multi-site nonprofits. And that is also a part of the customer success team, which deals with a specific set of customers. So you'll definitely know if you have one of us assigned to you. We basically, it's from the mobile, sorry, from the MND side, we handle major functions like bulk ordering or bulk registering of sites and changing anything on set sites, so account management. But we basically help multi-site branches that have 10 locations or more just help with their TechSoup account and anything they need, be it invoicing, ordering, all of that stuff. We also internally, we let TechSoup know, hey, these are specific needs that multi-site nonprofits need because they are a little different from say like an enterprise nonprofit or like a nonprofit that's on the smaller side with less than like 10 people. So again, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the MND email that is listed there, which is MND at TechSoup.org. You'll probably hear from me or some of my co-workers such as Jonathan Mules or Ashley Henderson. And then we are the team that simply deals with multi-site nonprofits. Okay, and I will slide it back to, I think it's you, Joe, again. Oh, not a problem. It's actually Tom, sorry. It is Tom. I'll introduce Tom, not a problem. Tamara, can you make me an event host, please? A co-host. Sure. Thank you. Yeah, so now we're going to hear from our very special guest, Tom. Hey, everybody. My name is Tom Tepper. I work for Mobile Beacon and I come from you from the Great State of New Hampshire where it's 23 degrees and it was 60 the other day. So a fun time of the year for us up here. But yeah, Mobile Beacon. Who is Mobile Beacon? Well, we are a nonprofit. We're based out of Rhode Island, but we're also a national nonprofit. And our mission is to provide high-speed and low-cost mobile internet access to our anchors of the communities. And being that most of you are all libraries, you are a very important anchor to our communities. So through the unlimited broadband service that we have, I like to summarize it even shorter by saying, spend less, help and connect more. Through our unlimited service, we're able to basically help organizations maximize their efforts, be it through their philanthropic efforts, organizationally be able to save money on their budgets and reach more people and help more in the communities. So we can go on to the next slide. All right. So why do we do this? Obviously, many of you all are here in the hot button topic out there with digital equity and inclusion. That's our primary mission is to really assist with that. The digital divide is huge, especially we all noticed it during the pandemic. We're in four years removed from it. And especially more so, there was a lot of households that didn't have access to a proper broadband connection. It was estimated that over 28 million households don't have a lack of proper access to broadband. And being that you're all from the libraries, we've found that only about 22 percent of libraries actually check out hot spots for lending programs to be able to provide to their community. So that's why we do that, to be able to provide that access and how we've done it over the years. What we've done it equivalent of more than that of 7.25 million through our various resources through the anchor institutions. We've helped out over 14,000 organizations. We've also given over 41,000 mobile hotspots delivered to low income individuals and families. And we also have various programs throughout the years for grants and whatnot. And we've been able to donate over 64,000 devices. Next slide. All right. So the reason why you're all here is our partnership with TechSoup and what that looks like. So we've worked with TechSoup for quite a while now. We're able to have a donation program for the hotspots. It saves the cost of access for you. And we can give you a little bit of inside information for all of you joining today. It's not out there, but we are working on. We traditionally have had 4G, but we're excited to talk about that. We're also going to be have a 5G offer come soon. We've had a lot of requests for that. So I know many of you that worked with us before. You asked for about 5G. Well, good news. It's coming because we've also lowered the cost of 5G to be 120 for the year as well. So very good news. So who's eligible to get the donation program at TechSoup? All nonprofits with a 501C3 designation and obviously public libraries. And if you're a public library, you do have to be in the IMLS database or be listed as a 501C3 nonprofit with the IRS. And also, if you have branch libraries, those are eligible as well. We just ask that all branch and libraries are TechSoup members. When you talk about how many you can get through this donation program, the great news is that this runs for a fiscal year. So it runs from July 1st to June 30th. So if it's 2024 and you've used your allotted already, it refreshes every July 1st. And with that, you're able to get, on the 4G side, 11 donated. And like I said, top secret news. 5G, we're going to have a program with three donated and we'll go over the pricing here shortly. And then there's going to be 11 discounted. And these are all on top of. So it's not just limited to only 11 4G. You can get 11 4G plus the 5G as well. And again, those run from July 1st to June 30th. And what's the benefit of a hotspot? Well, we've talked about it. You can run a lending program, which is a lot of the library's primary use of these hotspots. But the other thing is, you may need it for facility support. I know up here in the Northeast, we get power failures all year from windstorms, ice, bad rain, you name it, power can go out, and you may need access to the internet. It's a good resource for that internally in your organization. And the other thing I like to highlight is that any staff member can also take advantage of getting a hotspot through us to be able to use for your personal or professional development. You're continuing education and you get any access maybe outside of work and outside of home. You're sitting at a cafe and their Wi-Fi's not that good, and you have a hotspot in your bag, power it up, and as long as you got cell coverage, you'll have an internet connection. All right, so next slide. Okay, so here are the devices available, and we talked about some of the costs. So our 4G hotspot is a frequent T10, and through that, through TechSoup, the $15 admin fee per device, you get 11 of those. Now we'll haul off the presses, our 5G option. Again, through TechSoup, there will be a $30 admin fee for up to free, and then they'll have discounted $155 admin fee, and you get 11 of those, and that's a normal cost on those are $190. Now for the service, the service will be given for 4G and 5G is $120 for the year, and that's unlimited. So the way it typically works is you have the process as you order through TechSoup, you'll get codes, and then you go to mobile beacon and place your order, and you basically pay for the service to us. We do also charge shipping and handling based on the number of devices you order. So when you talk about speed, what can you expect? I do know on 4G, you'll be able to watch Netflix and do Zoom calls, help with homework, any of the standard stuff you can normally do, and the big difference between 4G to 5G is that speed and bandwidth. So for those that are game maybe, 5G will be a big advantage, and also if you need to have more people connected, you'll see the less degradation in the speed, as you have big household or group of people using it, it won't be as degraded. And another good use for libraries that I forgot to mention that I have a few reach out recently on, is if you have a bookmobile, a hotspot is perfect for you to be able to reduce system support, even be able to provide access to the community throughout in a park when people are hanging out and they want to get that connection, just another service you can provide. So when it comes to coverage, what can you expect? Well, all of our hotspots use T-Mobile's coverage, so whenever you get coverage with the standard T-Mobile service, you'll also get coverage with us. So we'll actually have our coverage on our website, and you can also use T-Mobile's as well, to guide you through whether you get coverage in your area or not. And then lastly, I'd like to highlight a few features that we also offer. We also can have SIPA filters, which is like the adult content filtering if you're not familiar with it. That's optional. We can also give you usage reports to be able to see if your hotspots aren't being fact used. And we also have a block and allow portal, which allows you to manage your devices, be it for rent, when you're leasing or lending out and they're not being returned, you can shut off the data and or if they get to become missing, so you can manage that. All right, so next slide. Now, how do you get your donation? Well, I'll hand this back to Joe. Not a problem. I got you, Tom. Thank you. That was very, that's very, very insightful. Thank you. So steps to request your donation. And this is just basic. This is for a single location that is looking to make a, you know, a purchase through TechSoup, or a mobile beacon purchase. So the first thing that you want to do is you want to check your network coverage. You want to make sure that these devices are going to be feasible in your area. So you always want to check the coverage. You're going to place the order for a single location and you're going to pay the admin fee. Now, the supplement email, it's going to come, it's going to be sent to you, and there's going to be additional steps. These additional steps would be to contact mobile beacons to make payment for shipping and handling, and also for the annual service fee. It's quite the process. I mean, especially if you have six, seven branches that you're looking to order multiple devices for. So we really refine this process. We work with mobile beacons to, you know, formulate a bulk order process that would serve larger nonprofits and also libraries with a single purchasing department. Next slide, please. So bulk orders for hotspots. So just as I mentioned, this is popular among nonprofits, public library systems that have single purchasing departments that may want to purchase multiple devices for multiple branches. One thing to note about ordering hotspots in bulk order is that you need to have at least a total of 55 devices. So that's going to be at least an order of five orders with 11 hotspots. And it can go any which way. I mean, you can have 10 with five or six devices for each brand. And as long as we hit that 55 total, we should be good to go ahead and process the bulk order for your branches. Now, the benefit of placing a bulk order with TechSoup and Mobile Beacon is there's going to be a single payment. There's going to be a single payment for multiple purchases for multiple branches. Another benefit is TechSoup's major market development team will register, they will update TechSoup membership for each brand. TechSoup will then place a bulk order and bulk payment for the entire order. So that takes off the time that it would take to go in and place payment and process each and every order. We'll go ahead and do a big bulk manual processing for you. And then from there, once everything's all paid and good, then we'll go ahead and send Mobile Beacon the thumbs up. Mobile Beacon will then go ahead and place the bulk fulfillment. They will bulk process your order and they will process the order fulfillment. Another benefit of bulk orders is lower shipping and handling costs. And at nonprofits and as libraries, it adds up, especially every little dollar. So if we can help alleviate that for you with the bulk order process, by all means we will. Next slide. So this is a flow chart that we put together. This is for new and old returning Mobile Beacon customers. And I just really wanted to lay out the process for everyone about what a bulk order or what the bulk order process looks like. So I want to talk about the first few steps because those are the most important. Well, the first step is to prepare your bulk order form. And just as Tamara mentioned earlier in this presentation, this presentation, this slide deck will be sent to you after this presentation. So you'll be have access to this URL that we've embedded in the presentation, which is to the bulk order customer information form. And you basically want to just fill that out with all the relevant information. And once that is filled out, you want to go ahead and contact TechSoup. You can do that by either opening a support ticket. URL is embedded in this ticket as well or in this slide deck. Or you can email them at mnd at techsoup.org. And from there, we will go ahead and walk you through the rest of the process. It's quite the process. But once again, we want to make it a nice easy list for everyone. And this is what we came up with to help support bulk orders in the Mobile Beacon program. All right. Next slide. So now we're going to talk a little bit about hotspot lending and community services. So this slide here, this is a visual school, hold on a second. Oh, here we go. This is a resource guide that was created by Mobile Beacon with some very, very helpful information around creating an internet lending program. It takes you from start to finish, just things to keep in mind when setting up an internet program and things of that nature. And once again, we've embedded it in the link through this PDF in the slide deck. So you'll have access to this after the presentation. But just a lot of really good information to think about when you are first initiating this type of program. All right. And with that being said, now we would like to go ahead and move into some hotspot lending programs and cases. As the program manager here for Mobile Beacon on TechSoupsend, one thing that I've noticed is libraries all have their own things going on. You know, they're all managing these different programs. And one thing that I wanted to kind of see is I wanted to share some information, like what's working for us, what's not working for us. So we've invited three very special guests today who have very robust internet lending programs in their community to come and speak to you about what's working for them, what's not working for them, and how they're managing their programs. So please let's welcome our first speaker to the platform. Please welcome Sarah Harvickson, the manager of collection management services at Santa Cruz Public Library. Thank you, Joe. And hi everyone. Thanks for being here today. I'm going to share just a little bit about our experience with lending hotspots here at Santa Cruz Public Libraries. I thought I'd share just some of the lessons that we've learned along the way and then some of our success stories as well. Like many libraries, we did not have a hotspot lending program until we had to close our physical branches in March of 2020. And we quickly realized, you know, we kept our Wi-Fi on so that patrons could come to the buildings or, you know, at least the parking lots and access Wi-Fi. But we realized quickly there's a real need out there and we need to get a hotspot lending program started. So we first started with offering some AT&T hotspots and it wasn't the best experience. We did not work with Mobile Beacon through that process. We found they were really expensive and there was no block allow portal. So a lot of them went missing really quickly and we weren't able to turn the data off. So we quickly realized, oh, we need to work with TechSoup and Mobile Beacon and bring some more hotspots on. So we started out, I can't remember, it was a smaller number like maybe in the 30 to 40 range of hotspots that we brought on. And so we knew that we had learned some lessons from the initial offerings of those AT&T hotspots and realized we needed a secure way to circulate them. So we found some little small plastic boxes with latching lids and we put labels right on those boxes and then labeled the hotspot itself and the charging cable. So we found that was a really secure way to keep that hotspot safe and then keep everything together. We also realized the need was there, but a lot of people didn't know what a hotspot was. So there was a lot of working with staff to explain what a hotspot is and why it would be useful if you don't have internet access at home. And we also created a quick start guide and it's double-sided English and Spanish. And so that's been really helpful and it includes pictures as well. So like an arrow showing where the power button is. So for someone who's brand new to hotspots, they can get started on their own without having to call library staff for help. So we've kept the circulation policies the same as other materials in our collection. It's the 21-day checkout. They're renewable as long as no one else is waiting. For the most part, we haven't had any that have been able to renew. We've had really lengthy holds lists. We were in this past year able to order another 110 hotspots to add. So we're up to 140 now. And they for like maybe two weeks, we didn't have a holds list, which was amazing that we would just have them available when people would walk in. But now we've got a lengthy holds list again. So we're looking forward to July 1st when we can bring some more hotspots on board. An important thing that we learned is to keep a spreadsheet to record all the data about these hotspots. So make sure we've got the serial number recorded, the call number that we've given the hotspot. And then we've got a column for if we have used that block allow portal to turn the data off. So we can all go to one place to see what's going on with one hotspot. A couple of things we're keeping in mind is missing pieces. We have had a couple hotspots returned without the SIM card. And so we didn't anticipate that we thought we'll charge from the missing hotspot. But we don't charge for a hotspot missing the SIM card, which is actually of course the most important piece. So yeah, we're still learning as we go. I want to be mindful of my time here. So I want to just mention a couple of the additional use cases outside of our traditional lending program. We partner with a working farm called the Homeless Garden Project. And so we have staff who goes there and they work with those people who are working at the Homeless Garden Project who are experiencing homelessness and they bring a hotspot with them and they bring resources with them and it's been really helpful for outreach events such as that. And we have a library bike mobile, which is a bike with a trailer that we take to events such as farmer's markets where there might not be Wi-Fi. And so then we can help people with their information needs right then and there. And then we've also we go to a place called Janus, which is an addiction treatment center. And then we bring the hotspot with us when we go. And we actually use that hotspot to provide internet access in order to check materials out to people there without having to rely on their really weak Wi-Fi that they have on site. So we're really happy about that. Just some success stories we have heard from patrons just overwhelmingly positive feedback on these. We've heard that people have used the hotspots to participate in online job interviews, which they wouldn't have otherwise been able to do a lot of education attending classes and webinars that way. And then also another success story is someone who needed to leave home for a little bit and they had families staying with their kids and they wanted to set their family up to be able to allow internet access so they borrowed a hotspot and we're just so grateful to have Wi-Fi for their family and their kids. So yeah, I think I'm probably close to time, but I'm happy to take questions as time allows later. Thanks, Saul. Thank you, Sarah. That was so insightful and yeah, very, very nice. And just a little insight for everybody. Sarah actually presented at our last webinar and they just did such a wonderful job. So I wanted to invite them back again to share with with their fellow librarians and library staff. All right, next we're going to have Karen Moore. They have a supervisor of digital inclusion at the Indianapolis Public Library. Thank you, Joseph. And thanks for having me present today. So I'm from the Indianapolis Public Library, which as you can see on our screen, we currently have 270 hotspots. Along with that, we have the option for Chromebooks as well. Out of that, our 16 branches are our lending branches where we only have or that just lend hotspots only so they don't have Chromebooks available. So I'll start with why that is because one, our loss rate is really high. But going through this program and how it's set up, which is very similar to what Sarah said, we do our current 21 day loans. Devices do have to be borrowed and returned from the same location. Upon checking out a device, they get a walkthrough. We also have videos prepared as well. So people that need something to watch also while listening. We have that as an accessibility concern. We also provide options for where else they can check out. So for example, if they want to check out a Chromebook, but there's not a hotspot available, they are allowed to go to an additional branch and check out the alternative device. So we use air table actually as a maintenance for that. So we have links to the block allow. We've run it through our air table spreadsheet and just basically correlated with what things need to be, you know, past due or what things that need to be awaiting a reset request from Mobile Weekend. I will say it has been a complete turnaround from when we first started. Mobile Weekend has been really great and I'm knocking on wood that it maintains that way. But we have had really good experience with them. Previously, we were with AT&T and there was a lot more steps to manage. And that's not downing AT&T, but it was just a lot more steps in the transition with Mobile Weekend. Now that we're solely Mobile Weekend has been a really good experience and process of getting things, you know, turned off when they're overdue or back on and back in service for patron use. So we also do a survey when we lend out devices when they come back. And a common thing we learn is that education was a popular use. So with that, we picked one of our quotes from a patron from a survey. And this was just to indicate that it's not just one person that's potentially using the device, but it's multiple. So in this case, we have someone who was graduating high school, they were using it for education, their classes, their partner were using it to play their game, and then their stepdaughter was able to watch Puppapig. And that was her little heart emoji added to the survey as well. So we were really happy that we're able to explore this, especially now with the ACP program ending, you know, hotspots and having access to the internet is just essential for everything that we need to do from, you know, doing school, making an appointment, IRS, social services, you know, we are in a hub in the central part of Indianapolis. And my particular branch that we work out of is the central library downtown Indianapolis, but we serve 25 different locations. So all of that, we thought, you know, how can we expand and how can we increase? And we just see the need for it because a lot of the hubs for Wi Fi is going to be, you know, local neighborhood spots or the library, where often people do come. But this is something that they can take with them. We see this with a lot of our unhoused population, you know, this is something that they can have on their person. And whether they're, you know, watching a movie, they're staying safe, they're secure, you know, they can be in the comforts and confines of where they are placed at the moment. And then you have people, you know, even myself, my children, they are in school, they all have tutoring and sessions and Girl Scouts. And, you know, we use hotspots when we're on the go because they're all doing something at a different time. So having the device and bridging that technical divide, this has been a game changer, because, you know, we just need access. And then also in rural areas, I work with United Way with the Digital Equity Coalition. And, you know, we are noticing that it's always a topic of what is the access, where is the access point, and then the infrastructure that comes to that. So I was kind of excited with the 4G, the 5G options, because that is going to broaden and expand this out even further. So I have great things to say. The most negative thing, of course, is our loss rate. But we see that turn around. We have blocks in place. When a charge is added to a patron's account, we'd still give them a year to return the device when a charge is reversed. So long as they're bringing it back and it's in good condition, we just want to be able to lend it again, ultimately. So we work with our patrons directly. It's not perfect by no means, which is why I'm here today to just kind of hear everybody's questions, thoughts, and I just think overall around, you know, for all different libraries or all different types of systems that are going to be offering this as a service, it's just really good that we can find some common ground for that. So any questions, please feel free to send me any. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much, Karen, for sharing your program. If there are any questions, we do have a running list going of questions to put them in the chat room, and then we're going to ask our panelists at the end of our presentation. All right. So thank you again, Karen. Next, we're going to hear from Benjamin Heat, he's the Access Service Manager from Evanston Public Library. Okay, thank you. I'm representing Evanston Public Library. We are a two-branched library in Evanston outside of Chicago, Illinois. We serve a population of roughly 75,000 people, and we have 120 hotspots in our program right now, 30 of them circulate with laptops. Our devices are all holdable. We're generally around a 20-person wait list for our holds queue, for our devices. They all lend for a month, for four weeks. No renewals because they are so popular. And we are also asking a first-time borrower to sign a little agreement, just kind of letting them know that these are higher-cost items. Treat them well. Here's how to use them because you will be charged for loss if you don't take them back. In 2022, we actually had 200 devices. We were previously with T-Mobile directly, and all of our devices were 5G devices. The donation program with Mobile Beacon was what actually first drew our attention to start accounting for loss and buying some new ones. I love the devices that we've gotten where all of our devices are with Mobile Beacon now. They're all Franklin T10 4G devices. That transition happened throughout 2023 and has drastically reduced the cost of our hotspot program. Previously, with our 5G devices, we were running at build monthly, $30,000 a month per device, $5,000 a month. So without loss, right, our program was approaching $70,000 a year, pretty high cost. Moving to the Mobile Beacon devices was very helpful for us. Build annually that $120 payment for 4G. And so a few key findings for us that I thought valuable to share was, yes, we did move entirely from a program of 5G devices to 4G devices. We found working with our patrons that high-speed 5G home internet wasn't the goal. The goal was broadband in your home when you don't have it. And we felt, and our patrons reported back to us, that that need was met with the 4G devices. So we're all 4G. We appreciate the lower cost. It's still capable of doing a lot of things. You can take the device home. Like Tom said, one person streaming Netflix, broadcasting to their TV, somebody else is doing homework. If somebody else is on social media, those devices are still high enough broadband to support most use cases. Again, we already shared some points on loss. Karen said a bit about this as well. This is a high-loss program. Devices break. Devices are misused. You bring them home. They're plugged in 24-7. So not devices that have fans in them. So they're going to heat. They're going to get hot. They're going to age really fast. The devices that we did have, and here's one of the things that I particularly like, Franklin T10 device, 4G device, very little glass, very small screen, almost all plastic. Drop that thing. It's not going to break. The devices we had before, the whole front of the device, the whole top, large screen, all glass, constant cracks, constant scratches, constant drops. So much loss happened from that, that I think about the construction of the device. Know that it's going to be knocked around. It's going to be dropped. It's going to be broken. How many people are going to have that in their hands? So the device construction matters. One of the things that we did not do initially with the 5G devices was truly lock them down. So patrons couldn't get them in their hands and modify the device settings. One of the things we do with the 4G devices is disable the factory reset. Do you think that's important? Lock patrons out from that device so that they can't get in there and kind of make it their own. Still doesn't mean they're not going to take SIM cards or bring it back without the SIM card. But really our loss isn't theft. Our loss generally isn't loss. I lost the item. Our loss is generally that device no longer works. Something happened with that device. And then something that we found valuable for us and that this is kind of something for us to think about for the future of our program is we have a big power user population. So if we take all of the total days that all of our hotspots were checked out in a given year and we looked at 2022 data, how many days in total were all of our devices checked out? 50% of our total use, our total check out, was from 18% of our user group. So we have a core group of users who are checking out these devices four, five, six times a year. They're waiting in that hold skew for that next device to come because they need internet in their home. And so we've got this dueling competition between folks who are need a device long term. They're always in a hold skew. And that means we don't really have a program for somebody to come in and say, I need a device now. Like I have this instant need. Can I get my hands on a device? I were thinking about if we've got a dedicated group of people who need that device long term, they're constantly in the hold skew. They're constantly competing against people who have short term use cases. Should we actually start a program that is a longer checkout period, six months, 12 months, to those users who are coming back frequently, take them out of the hold skew of competing with folks who have short term use cases and kind of diversify our program. But overall, we've been very happy. The move to mobile beacon devices has been great for us, greatly reduced the cost of ownership over the program. And we've been really happy with that move to 4G devices as really our sweet for our hotspot program. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. That was awesome. All right, before we jump into our Q&A slide, I would like to just pass the baton over to our director of hardware, Dastakini. Hi, Shasta. You're muted. Thank you. That took me a minute. First of all, I just really am very grateful to Joseph Garcia, Shamira, and the TechSoup team because they have worked so hard to bring together Karen and Ben and Sarah. And I'm so proud of this program because I have been a lifelong volunteer for public schools. And for us, I remember doing research with Arlington Public Schools on a project for the summer gap in learning with the libraries and how to get students, underserved students, underprivileged students to books, right? It's essential to who we are as Americans. And digital inclusion is why we're here. It's so important. Sometimes we talk about digital inclusion in international terms, and that's critical and must have our attention and does have our attention through the UN Sustainable Development Goals. But here at home, there is such incredible need. And I feel that in terms of underserved kids and underserved families, Mobile Weekend really is game changing as Ben, Sarah, and Karen have highlighted for us today. So I just want to thank you all for being here. We're a nonprofit. And so it's wonderful that we can work with Mobile Weekend, who is also a nonprofit. And so we are really here for those who need us most. And we're looking for partnerships. We're looking to make things easier. I'm seeing in the chat lots of input and feedback. And I'm going to have our team pull some of these things together so that we can continue our conversation to make this the best possible opportunity and service to get broadband to where it's needed. And I love that you talked about use cases, right? Whether it's homework, whether it's social media, whether it's trying to get a job, whether it's we really will leave a lot of people behind if we don't get broadband in the hands of those who need us most. So thank you for all the work that you're doing, all the attendees. I know that you're here because you're trying to make lives better. So I'm just very grateful to be here with you and hope we can help. Thank you, Shasta. All right. We have about seven minutes left. We're going to go ahead and dive into the Q&A panelist. If I read out a question that you have the answer to, by all means, jump right in. So the first question comes from John. So are the 5G donations free to libraries? You want to answer that one? Sure. So the program which should be coming soon, there'll be three 5Gs that you can get through the admin fee with TechSoup and there'll be 11 that are discounted. The lowest price for us right now, if you go directly through us would be 190. So even with those discounted devices that's coming, it's still a better deal with TechSoup. And then you can always reach out if you need to order more. You can always reach out to us directly. Thank you. So the administrative fee for the donated 5G is going to be $30. And for the discounted 5G is going to be $155. So there's a little discount on the discounted. The biggest thing for your buck is going to be on the donated item. And one thing that I want to mention is you can order that annually. So you get three devices, one fiscal year, the next fiscal year, you can come back and order another three devices. So if you're looking to build a program in that sense, that also works. Thank you. Thank you, John, for the question and thank you, Tom, for the answer. Heather P. They have a question. What is the difference? Okay, we just answered that one, which was the admin fee for the 5G. And Marie, you had a question that says, does Mobile Beacon have larger hot spots that could be mounted on an outreach plan? Tom, do you want to take that one? We can take a look and see what specifically you're looking for on that. I'd say reach out to me independently. And we can have a conversation and take a look at what exactly you need. And if we're getting anything like that in the future, I know that's something we would like the cradle point that we're, we'd love to be able to offer them. I think that's something that we're working on, but no ETA or anything like that. But I would suggest reach out to me directly offline and we can take a look and see what we have if it matches up to what you're needing dimension-wise. Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you, Ann Marie. Heather P. You had a question about pricing for individuals. So I'll go ahead and take this one. So Heather, you would want to actually purchase the devices through your 501c3 non-profit library. And then ultimately that account would need to be managed by the organization. We cannot link the hot spot to an individual. So that's one way to think about it as well, is like, you know, if you do have remote workers or remote employees, this might be a good solution to keep your staff on track. Thank you, Heather. And then what is the, Tom, what's the model of the 5G donated device? It's a JEC stream. Give me a second. Let me bring it up to Zach. That's the model. I don't know if it has a number to it or anything. But it's called the JEC stream. I think Franklin makes it. Yeah, RG 2100. And you can find the specs to this device, John, on the Mobile Beacon website. Just check out their website and look under 5G devices and you'll see the specs for that particular model there. Thank you, John, for that question. Thank you, Tom, for the answer. Actually, this one we answered, Heather asked a very similar question. Can you purchase hot spots as a staff member from the library? It would have to be managed through the library through the 501c3 entity. But once again, like, we would encourage, you know, employees, like if it is a need for you to do your day to day work, definitely get a hot spot through your organization so that you can be connected. And again, Joe, you can always reach out to us as well. And we can work on that through you as well if you wanted to set up either through the organization or we could just add you onto the library's account and just buy directly through us. And I would just like to jump in, Joe, for one second. Tom, I have heard so many absolutely wonderful things about you. I am dying to work more closely with you. And Mobile Beacon, you know, last but not least, I think you're doing amazing work to close the digital divide. And we're so grateful to have you as a partner and to be able to work together to take this not only to libraries, which is our real focus for today, but friends of closing the gap. So please, one other thing that you can do on behalf of, and I know, Tom, you would agree on behalf of Mobile Beacon and TechSoup is just really spread the word about this device. We want to work together to help those who need us most. Yes. We have a few more questions. What we're going to do is I'll work with Mobile Beacon on just formulating these answers for everyone and we'll send it out with the recording of this webinar and also with the PowerPoint presentation. So thank you, everybody, for the engagement. Thank you for participating in this webinar. Go back one slide, Tamara. If you do need to contact us, please, if you have technical questions, reach out to Mobile Beacon. Tom would be more than happy to help you. His email address will be in the deck. And then also if you are looking to make a bulk order or think about different options and buying options for your library, contact the major markets development team. They'll be more than happy to help you see what types of bulk orders we can put together, whether it's hardware, software, or services, we can definitely help you to make sure all your technical needs are covered. Next slide. And then thank you. Thank you to everybody. Thank you, Mobile Beacon. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Benjamin. And most importantly, thank you to all of the attendees today. And remember, everybody, February is Library Lovers Month, so let's celebrate. Thank you, everybody.