 Good evening or good afternoon everybody. I think it's they still this still qualifies as afternoon Welcome This is the the final in our Series of introductory briefings. We've got a few a students I think there are at least two of you who have perfect attendance. Maybe maybe a few more We really appreciate you turning out I want to thank Orca media for Recording and broadcasting all of these presentations. It's another opportunity for the information that we're sharing with legislators to be communicated To the public to folks in our communities through their community access stations. My name is Jason Gibbs I'm Governor Scott's chief of staff. I'm just going to lay out a few very brief ground rules Those of you who have attended a number of these know them already We are going to start and end on time. So we'll get you out of here right at least by 515 If you have any questions along the way, please feel free to ask them We'll do our best to stop periodically and make sure any questions that you have can be addressed if you ask a question that requires a Very detailed in-depth response will make a note and be sure that we follow up with you If at any point you think of something after You've left the briefing that you you want to follow up on just grab one of the members of our staff or Christine or someone who works with the the community Broadband board and I know any one of us would be happy to track down additional information for you. These presentations are introductory Wavetop highlight presentations where we really try to focus on giving legislators Who are not going to receive the baseline information in their communities of jurisdiction the opportunity to learn about the work that's being done in each of these areas and So far the feedback that we've received from a number of you has been very positive So this is something we'll take with us into the future. Maybe we'll do some more of these as the session goes on certainly Probably again next year when we all come back to to pursue round two There are members of the media who are listening to the presentation through the the live stream And also on our teams link If any members of the media have questions We ask that you let us know offline. We'd be happy to get you those answers this dialogue is primarily for Legislators the same is true of members of the public We'd be happy to connect with you offline after the briefing and follow up on any questions that you have again the Q&A And the dialogue is reserved at least for the next hour for members of the legislature. Those are the ground rules Thank you for coming. It's my pleasure to introduce Christine Hallquist the executive director of the board Thank you, and thank you for coming and for those watching virtually. Thank you for paying attention as well You know that when we talk about broadband, I know we've talked Some of us have been at it for a long time But like any other big problem Stay at it and someday you'll come to a solution I'm very proud to be standing up in front of here you today to say that we we will get every Vermont address connected to fiber optic broadband We we we have the the communication union districts that were set up by act 71 in order to accomplish that goal. It's a It's a very robust and resilient solution There are many states that are now trying to follow what we're trying to do It's nice being in front Because we have the you know, we're able to get that labor resources to to accomplish the goals So we have the plans. I'm going to talk about our mission And our mission, this is right out of act 71 essentially is to provide Universal access to affordable broadband, but we translate that mission into three components first component is to get everybody connected and Rob beats gay. He's the he's the person who's responsible for the Vermont communication union districts He will talk to you about how that's going to happen But I'm here to tell you that we have the business plans the finances and the ability to do that So we will get everybody connected the challenge, of course is affordability and that's really What our budget adjustment request is for is for is to address that challenge of affordability, you know these areas that are not served today, they're not served today because they're expensive to serve and you know, there's a there's kind of a rock in a hard place about that being expensive to serve because The people who are not served today are typically Represent a high percentage of low-income folks, you know think about the 55 communities in Northeast Kingdom Northeast Kingdom CUD and so their ability to pay is Challenging so affordability becomes very important and our goal Is to try to make this affordable for the world for monitors and it is is for people in Jitton County This is about equal opportunity for all So the way we're going to achieve this is through grant funding Grant funding helps us achieve the mission You know, if you look at the cost today the monthly cost to a subscriber to a subscriber Over half of that is for debt service So the more grant funding we can get the more it drives down the cost for the the end for the end consumer Now most of our funding is coming from federal grants But some of these are grants grants do require a state match as we move forward So so for example, I'm sorry. I'm not oh, oh, I'm sorry Sorry to confuse everybody. All right, so here's a couple of examples for you That specific will be talking a bit in a moment about the middle mile grant opportunity We filed for the middle mile grant opportunity is a hundred and fourteen million dollar grant That we've applied for with the federal government that requires a 30% match That's that's we we have a hundred and fourteen million dollars that comes from sixteen million dollars in In-kind contributions and then another thirty million dollar from state grants Another example is the broadband access broadband Equity and access and deployment program the bead program part of the Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act that requires a 25% match so we can take state money that 30 million and leverage a hundred and twenty million and Today, you know, we're actually really taking a deep dive on all of our business plans with the communication union districts Because as you all know, there's been significant changes in the last six months And that is the federal interest rates, you know The feds are trying to slow down the economy through raising those interest rates And if we look at the 40% of the cost that we have to go borrow that has a big impact on The on the consumer and of course inflation is Hitting this market pretty hard, you know, you you all know what's happening with the price of eggs the same things happening in terms of the The equipment needed to build this network and what's happening, you know We've got forty two and a half billion dollars being invested across the country in infrastructure Now we're fortunate that we're ahead of the curve and we were able to pre-purchase material last year. We saved Not two million dollars on a nine million dollar purchase, so we are using the collective borrowing power of the state We have that advantage that advantage is not going to Be with us for long because of the rest of the country coming on board and starting to build that infrastructure So the way our business plans are working We're using grant funding To get things stood up. Our whole goal has been to provide 60% of the capital costs needed with grants That was based on last year's plan So we looked at the total cost of the network to be built for the state and said, okay We need to get the grant funding for 60% and thanks to the legislature and the governor You know, we have two hundred forty five million dollars in ARPA funds We expect another hundred million dollar minimum from the broadband equity and access and deployment program That 60% has now dropped So we are aggressively seeking additional grant funds So traditional borrowing just like your mortgage if you know if you look what's happening in the real estate market I think we could all understand what happens in this market identical to your home So you go out buy a two hundred thousand dollar home with a three percent interest rate You pay X dollars a month you go out a brow at a seven percent interest rate. You're playing paying X times Y and that and that's where we are That's what we're facing today higher interest rates higher costs for labor higher costs for material We are still going to get it done one way or another This is all about affordability what we're talking about today so this was the this was the the language that came out of the budget adjustment act We're looking for 30 million dollars to be used as a state match for the national telecommunications and information Administration middle mile program That as a direct match to leverage this program, I'll talk about more in a minute about what that program is Now I want to make up one point here. There's a bit of change since we submitted this application there's been a little change in schedule because the NTIA is as so backed up with applications not just here, but with all with the many other programs we're now looking at a Likely two-month delay. We're originally going to hear back in March now. It looks like it's going to be a lot more like May So when we talk about this program We if we if we do not get the middle mile Grant we want to be able to leverage other programs. It's it's all about affordability because we're going to build the middle mile network It's it's going to cost money either way So to explain what middle mile is if you think about our highways today I'll use the highways as example of what a middle mile network is So if you think about we have interstates interstates are limited access highways, you know Few places to get on and off those feed our state highways and Then those state highways feed our town feed our town roads when we're talking about middle mile We're talking about the state highways We're talking about a network that covers the entire state and it hooks up with Canada Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York This redundant. This is all about redundancy so that we have first of all of extremely reliable network Many of you have may have been Part of understanding the 9-1-1 failures the 9-1-1 failures occur because they're only fed from one direction When you have a Jeep these geo direct geographically redundant rings if a tree falls on one One place it can be fed from another so it doesn't interrupt service And I'm going to tell you Telecommunications today is even more important than electricity. I was the former CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative You know we went I'll never forget the meeting when we were meeting with the federal federal government because there was a bomb cycle coming up the coast and They told us that we might lose our telecommunications. I looked around the table and We all faces turn white because we rely so heavily on telecommunications to restore power We went out and bought three satellite phones But I couldn't imagine what would have happened if we lost our telecommunication because with all the automation We've done over the years We could we could restore power four times as fast as we did decades ago We couldn't imagine we started the contingency plan, but we couldn't imagine if we had to execute that plan Thankfully, you know, thankfully We had still one fiber that we actually had our one of our IT posts Folks standing by a stream watching the fiber laying in the stream because it was our last connection. Thank God that didn't break So this is all about redundancy and it's also about driving the data costs down when we get greater connections We'll we can reduce the cost of data. We want to be as competitive as some of our urban areas So when you talk about the mobile, I talked a lot about this it stretches our ARPA funds it provides us resiliency and reliability and This network I'm going to tell you the story about this network back in February of last year. We were down in Washington The folks that that NTIA said there's going to be a billion dollars available for a competitive middle Middle-mile network grant. There will be 10 to 15 grants available We looked at that and said there's no way we're going to compete with some of the biggest bigger states When we back went back to their next meeting in June The NTIA asked us why we weren't applying because they said we could have a very powerful application Because we are the only state that has a goal to set Every to get every single address connected to fiber optic cable and they great even greater challenges if we could get our telecom Providers to be part of that network with their existing fiber. It would be even more powerful and It it's not only a challenge in the state of Vermont It's challenge across the rest of the nation to try to get some of these telecom providers to play together But we were successful. We got the telecom for major telecom providers to be to be involved with the application We have the Velco and we're going to use existing fiber Wherever it is so that we so that we maximize the return on the on the taxpayer investment. This is a 1163 mile network and and Thought 500 miles of that is going to be existing fiber This is the language that we added to to the request in yellow We want to be able to leverage federal dollars in programs In case we don't get the middle-mile network because I showed you before for example the broadband equity access and employment program We can use these funds to leverage 120 million if we don't get that funds every hundred million dollars adds 10 every 50 million dollars adds ten dollars to the cost of the consumer So this would this is really about a twenty dollar cost savings We're looking at for the consumer at the end of the day So we we're looking to leverage other funds. We do we're very appreciative of the fact that the house Appropriations has approved the grant with its original language But we would we would like the opportunity to come back if we don't get the middle-mile grant Yeah, sure question. Yes It's likely not that's it. I thank you for that question. I I I do want to explain the difference between copper DSL fiber and cable as And satellites, so I thank you for that opportunity answer that question I'm going to start by making the statement of it's not fiber. It's not broadband You know if we look if we look at so if you have cable today You're probably you're probably you're likely to get rebuilt With fiber in the future. We know that the larger providers are coming to replace the cable network We're focusing on the underserved and unserved communities Because we know the providers aren't going to get there Fiber is the least cost alternative for all the technologies. So as things get upgraded All all of the communication companies are going to turn to fiber because if you look at the life cycle cost of fiber It's significantly less than any other technology. Now Cape, you know One's one fiber Size of a human hair can carry 3000 times what a cable can and I and I know some people have talked to me about Satellite Starlink. I've been running Starlink for two years at home Starlink is uses Radio signals to communicate with the satellite because they use radio signals. It's limited in its bandwidth So two years ago when I installed it, I was getting 300 megabits download today We only get 30 during the day. That's because all these users have come on So Starlink follows like any other technology as you add users The bandwidth goes down Cable the same way the nice thing about fiber. It's really future-proof When I was in the electric utility, we're using fiber that was built in the 70s still work perfectly today And if you look at fiber in terms of bandwidth, it the technology continues to split the light into smaller and smaller wavelengths So you you know, they're actually for those who are really nerds in the crowd You know, we're there you get you can get terabytes of information on a fiber Yes, you know, I don't I I don't know your exact design. It depends where you are in terms of it You know the night if when we talk about fiber will building a I call it the 40-year network You know, we're going to build it so it lasts forever In the competitive world, of course You know the the return and investment was made decisions So if you're on it what they call a a single feeder, you're likely only get it from one direction But if you're in the middle of a more urban area, you do get it in two directions likely Other questions. Yes, I Would say I'm going to say yes, we are there and then I'll give you some details on that You know that this did I'll give it, you know coming from the you know When I was the CEO of the Ron electric, I had this picture of my wall It was the first pole that was set need and mills for about that was in 1939 The last electric state town to get was victory to get connected with electricity. I was 1964 So, you know, you're building it takes a long time to build these networks We are compressing it into five years there will you know when when you ask Krista when's the last person They connected she's gonna that you're talking about some of the roughest areas in the state We also have other areas. They're going to get all connected in two years So for the most part we're going to get it done in five years. There may be some stragglers Yes, we have the money to do it. It's all a question of affordability. That's why we that's why we're seeking more grant funds We want to make it affordable at this point, you know, it's it's expensive We will get it connected, but it's but it costs money And I say that I say that because I think we need to think about those people in those rural areas and their ability to pay Okay, well, we could talk more afterwards Yes, yeah, so I'll give you a hypothetical example It's pretty I ran the numbers and the average for the state the average for the state is you've got to get a little over $90 per paying customer If if we got it 100% grant funding we could drive that down to $50 Month $50 a month. Thank you $90 a month over $90 a month With with the with the current grant funding the the money we have today But if we get more we can every $50 million drives that cost down by 10 So it's really important. We focus on whatever grant funding we can which is why we're making this match request I think it was a question in the back. Yes Yes About 124 million has been obligated at this point so we Yeah, and we intend our goal is to get the rest of it obligated by the summer that the the key there is to make sure We've got five of our 10 seed is actually Rob will might don't want to steal from Rob Rob v Thunder here Rob v skate, but we've got CUDs are actually in construction today. So it's really important We keep the cash flow going and that's why we're we're pushing that the CUDs to make sure they obligate all these funds Because once you get your cruise going, you don't want to interrupt. It's a rhythm and that rhythm, you know That's how you do it most effectively if you stop You'll lose those crews and you might not get them back and with the pressures that are happening across the rest of Country. We're really worried about workforce So that 245 million is a good infusion That our plan is for that to carry us over until we get the bead funds Now the delays that the federal government are causing us some a little concern here because the federal government's overloaded and If any delays in that could could interrupt our cash flow We're working on contingency contingency plans for that such as short-term borrowing lines and credit But that is a concern of ours It a suit Yeah, the hot the remaining hundred twenty plus million The plant if without without delays in the federal government, we should be okay But we're concerned about the delays in the federal government and this program here the the middle mile program that money comes early You know that money could be here by this summer if we got that cushion that that would take away some of our fears about the interruptions in construction Oh, yeah, thank you Rob Rob fish is a deputy director. He's he's mentioned. I'll repeat what he said important point These grants that are coming require non federal matches, so we can't use federal funds to match them That's why these state monies are important. I think we're just I think we've let's see Another point to make this slide is really just what I haven't touched on is remember these CUDs are not for profits So any Savings they get goes directly to the consumer So here's some example of some other federal programs that we can leverage These these these are all in your presentation. We're just making a point that It's this even if we don't get the middle mile grant. We are going to try to leverage other programs So so that's you know, it's it's about leveraging the grants so that we can reduce the cost of the consumer at this point If I'll pause for any more questions and I'll turn over to Rob Vitzke to talk about what the CUDs are doing with this money Yes Okay, so this button makes it go forward Joining us today and I would actually put my slides in different order now Based on some of the questions and certainly would welcome your questions. So One of the slides is like the third slide talks about the 10 communications union districts in Vermont And I want to give you a little background on how we got here In terms of building municipal entities to go and deliver broadband to these unserved and underserved Addresses my colleagues have been doing this in Vermont for a lot longer than I have tell a 15-year story of unserved addresses meeting solutions and in fact Central Vermont telecommunications district EC fiber started 15 years ago with a combination of private funding and contributions from members in their district In an interlocal agreement to build broadband to reach the unserved addresses and Over time as they built up a little bit of revenue They were able to go to the municipal bond market and borrow revenue bonds To expand that network 15 years later They are about to complete the first 24 towns that joined that district Along the way the legislature has done some really helpful things it passed an act that allowed Town meeting to vote to create a communications union district and to appoint representatives to govern it It passed a piece of legislation that created the Vermont Community Broadband Fund and create a mechanism through which the state could support the development of These communications union districts and there are a couple things if you for those of you They'd like to go back and look at old legislation as opposed to the reams of registration You probably have to look at today The findings in act 71 from 2021 right at the start of the pandemic are really helpful They talk about you know the fact that through numerous programs over many years Attempts were made to solve the unserved and underserved Problem and in fact the nonprofit municipal approach was really one that had proven itself because it's really focused on the mission Getting to those unserved and underserved addresses so You know a little bit about how these CUDs are organized Each see you organ is organized By members at town meeting coming together and say we'd like to form a CUD if two or more town Towns do that a CUD can be formed then other towns can join by town meeting or our select board Votes right now. There are ten of these We each town also Appoints a representative to the board of the CUD and an alternate and they become the governing body that gets to decide Which contracts get signed how the money spent? Interresponsible for the oversight and the representation back to the towns for the district the district owns the assets They are committed by by the legislation to universal service What is universal sir service mean means every on-grid address in the district must have Service at a hundred hundred. Okay, so to the question about cable Some of those addresses are already deemed served So we are not spending any of this federal money or state match money for that matter on reaching Served addresses we're spending every penny focused on getting to the farthest location That's not had service before and so, you know some of the fun right now Actually is addresses that have never had internet before are starting to get turned up as these initial districts get going As we go we can go back and backfill and offer more competition and other things in the districts But the money is being spent on unserved addresses and underserved addresses where current services don't meet the demands of the people living there Let's see what else accountable and transparent. Look, these are public entities. We follow public meeting rules All of our meetings are noticed. They're available to the public to join Of course documentation is available and the people in these organizations as grassroots organizers and volunteers take that very seriously Public ownership the assets that are developed are owned by these municipal entities And so, you know, there's some protection that the district has the ability to Leverage that asset over time. They're also public-private partnerships And so you kind of have to separate the two the assets are owned by the district our Municipality owned but we do operating agreements with commercial companies for scale for economies of scale And for expertise in terms of how you run a broadband ever Correct Yep, so so that's in the public interest and that you know that you the public owns the fiber that's being developed these Locations that have never been served before right? correct That is correct Yeah, absolutely and because there's so much federal funding actually there's really strong Uniform guidance that comes with the grant funds in terms of managing the assets and tracking them and such things Absolutely, they'll have to accrue depreciation fund for moves add changes in repairs over time Absolutely I Should probably repeat the questions. I don't know if they can hear a moment camera. Okay. Thank you. Feel free to remind me So private partnerships, you know again There are there are companies that do this and are have the expertise in the scale to operate these networks But those contracts are being let through RFPs if that operator doesn't do a good job We can move to another one over time So, you know, there's a good model here of strong public control, but Leveraging private partners to get the work done Okay Some variations on how that does but the principles are consistent. There are ten of these districts today There are only a couple places in the state where for instance in Burlington Burlington telecom has had a fiber network for a while Vermont telecom Telephone had received a large grant ten years ago replaced their copper with fiber So there's some places where CDs have not developed, but I believe it's over 75% of the addresses In Vermont that are unserved are covered by a CD Okay, I'm community-based. I think it's really important. You know, I am one person But for each one of the representatives and senators in the room There's someone in your district or in your town who's volunteering in some cases hundreds of hours over the last couple years to help Build these programs we benefit from former telecommunications executives lawyers accountants communications experts and everything else you can imagine who have come together to get this done I know that in Maple Broadband in Addison County They logged I believe over 2,000 volunteer hours in the six months between July and December From within their community helping to stand up the organization and the last one is Christine slide What about where there are existing Achieving a lot of last night and they're very close to me They did reach out to me and I went in and spoke to them and they said with the CUDs Didn't want to work with them And they were almost there They partnered over in Jeffersonville as well They were a little frustrated because they spent millions almost there and the CUDs existed For quite a while it doesn't have a plan, it doesn't have a project You and I here, there are private partnerships How do we encourage the collaboration where to achieve those goals arguably deeper and quicker? Great, thank you It's a great question. I heard two questions I'm going to add one on the front end of your question One was there's a lot of investment in upgrades to polls and kind of the shared infrastructure And they'll talk to take that And the second one is the partnerships and how the CUDs are working with providers that are already in their service areas So the first one and it goes to a question that was asked earlier about could we go faster in the Northeast Kingdom There are some externalities to what the CUDs are doing For instance poll ownership And attaching the polls Getting crews into Vermont NEK actually has done a great job Most of the crews they're using are from within the NEK which is really exciting But there are some externalities for instance The speed at which the poll utility owners can make room on the polls for new cable That do lend to that issue of how fast we can go and could we get done sooner Everyone would love to get done sooner The second question about partnerships and some of the other providers So the process that the CUD goes through in applying for funds from the state Does try to deconflict and encourage collaboration And you know there is a competitive aspect here of course And there are service areas and there are business expectations that some of the incumbents have And so a couple things that just have to get sorted out I don't have an answer to you and we can get someone to sit down with you and answer that specifically But a couple things that are factors One is the CUDs have an obligation to universal service So they're not building from the densest, most populous places out They're doing the opposite They're going to the least dense places and building in And so one of the things that I would just say that you always want to ask When someone asks this question about you know why aren't we just going with an investment in an existing provider Is are they making that commitment to universal service It's a great answer if they say yes But that's really important for the state program here Is to get to that every address in these districts right And then of course you know they're a little I don't think they've done it yet Because they're in an early stage But they'll be issuing an RFP for partners And they'll be looking for a commercial partner to help operate that network Those folks should bid on that And they should put in a great proposal So you know I think there are lots of pieces to this I don't know the specifics of that one I'm sorry But I'd be happy to follow up and get some people together on it So I have been working with LaMoyle Fiber They are in an RFP process and they are finalists You know so they are considering all of this You know the private providers wish we would move faster But you know we have these formal processes we have to go through with federal funds And I'll also tell you that the investments we're making are in fiber not cable You know so we have to get a commitment And I'm not saying this is what Stowe Cable is doing But the X71 requires us to do 100 over 100 It's called synchronous which only fiber can do So you have to get a provider that agrees they're going to do a universal service with fiber So Stowe Cable has you know I know that conversation has been going on And I'm somewhat familiar with what the RFP is They're making a decision by March 9th so stay tuned on that one Yeah and anyway I just wanted to finish with this The third I talked about our goal of getting everybody connected The second goal is make it affordable A third goal most important is to maximize positive social impact And if you look at all the things that broadband can do for our role Vermonters That they aren't you know if you're on the wrong side of the digital divide today You're also on the wrong side of the economic divide And so this is about providing the opportunity to partake in all these different programs So if we talk about climate resiliency for example You know that's getting reliable, broad fiber connection to every home and business It's going to be critical for increasing the amount of renewables in our grid And I can talk over a beer on that for hours so I'll be happy to You know telehealth, the whole workforce and the growth of the workforce We've built a workforce plan that's using Vermonters Giving them new career opportunities to go into things like IT and even engineering from these And you know because we're short on time I won't go through all this But I do want to make a plug for agriculture Agriculture is an emerging area for the benefits of broadband And this is you know we've talked about phosphorus runoff for years in Vermont Broadband when you get to this what they call submeter accuracy that's available When you get a well connected network you can target your nutrient application And you get reductions greater than 30% of nutrient applications I've been working with the farm 900 acre farms that feeds Jasper cheese And the young woman there she's like the she'd be like the poster child of what we want in Vermont She's a master's degree from UVM running this farm can't wait for broadband She says she drives 100 miles a day just to check the moisture content in her fields You think about not only the carbon savings from not driving But the ability to use her brain for higher value added functions right We can you know drive so there's the opportunities are endless And that's what excites me the most about the future of Vermont You know we when we talk about our economic future you know we don't have a great road infrastructure 60% of our roads are dirt so we're not necessarily going to be able to keep heat manufacturing We don't have a lot of tax revenue to compete with some of these other states to bring in the big businesses But we do have a beautiful state and we do have beautiful people and our government works And so that's going to attract people but the first question they ask is do you have broadband And when we get broadband to these rural areas we'll be able to attract those high margin high intellectual margin businesses Which that's the way we can support our tax base in the future So that's our presentation any other questions yes no no wherever this fiber today we are not going to We're not going to over build fiber with fiber that's for sure that's right unless we have to go through that fiber to get to an underserved area But for the most part you can be assured we're not there this money is not going to be used to compete in the fiber network So the question being the drop how is the drop being handled it's not the same with every CUD That's you know one of the things I like about you know one you know LaMoyle is really pushing the envelope on that one Because they have because they have so much underground between Stowe and Cambridge and other areas That's you know some of the CUDs are following the standard telecom which is first 400 feet But others have gone to 500 feet Stowe's LaMoyle's pushing the envelope further That's an important issue that we're continuing to work on What a drop is what a drop okay Is a drop a drop is what it's you think about your electric feed from your pole to your house that's considered a drop This is the fiber that takes it from the from that that last mile to your home And it goes to a modem and what they call an optical network device in your home Yes Yeah thank you that's a that's the point we struggle with there So the point is that there's a lot of money in drops You know we don't when I talk about having the money to build a network we're assuming an average of 400 feet That's really up to each individual CUD to build their business plans the first goal is to get everybody connected And if we can you know if they can afford to extend drops of course we want them to do that And then of course you even get you know you've got some people who are on the lower income scale Who are at the end of a long drop that are being considered as well that's a part we're struggling with right now Are you also are you reconnecting the telephone that exists in your home Through the operas and on the A's into that fiber? Yes Yeah what's happening you know as things move people are moving more and more to cell phones And of course cell phones work on wifi networks But you will have the ability to keep your traditional existing landline And guess what it's going to be even more reliable because it's going to be on fiber But yes if you look at some of the major telecom carriers they're replacing their copper networks with fiber And still providing people with phones and that's what we intend to do as well for those that I assume that people have to request the fiber from you You know I mean how are you going door to door and saying to you you want the fiber connection Well we are going door to door and asking if they want the fiber connection Not everybody's going to want it so we're not forcing it on anybody Any other final questions? Looks like we're out of time, thank you This is fantastic Just one point of privilege here I want to thank all of you for participating in these particularly those of you who have attended All or almost all of them it is greatly appreciated We hope that you have found them useful as you embark on this new biennium If you have any questions about any of the material that we've covered Or anything that we haven't covered we are always happy to work with you to get those questions answered We've had a number of really impressive subject matter experts come in through this series You should continue to tap into that expertise over the course of the legislative session And then when you're back home full time and the legislature's not meeting You know how to reach them as well The last thing I'll say is that if you might sometime in the next few days Think a little bit about the combination of presentations that you've seen over the last couple of weeks Plus all the new things that you're or in some cases old things that you're talking about In the legislature right now And try to view the scope of work from a project management perspective That is as close to an understanding of how we are looking at it as an administration as you're going to get We have major absolutely mind-blowingly large areas of operation in housing construction Broadband and telecommunications infrastructure Community revitalization Clean water to include point source phosphorus reduction efforts plus storm water wastewater infrastructure Climate resiliency which is principally weatherization and electrification of both transportation and our thermal Infrastructure we've got significant systemic instability in our education system in our healthcare system Though those aren't capital infrastructure projects per se they are going to require a lot of work And in the case of the education system a pretty serious conversation about infrastructure needs We are trying as an administration to approach all of this on an enterprise wide basis Where we're not myopic where we're able to see the entire field all these areas of operation in combination to I mean to summarize it in the most simple terms to avoid looking really stupid Right to avoid putting down a bunch of fiber one place and then having transportation come along Have to tear it up to put in something else or put in or put in fiber and then water And then you know like we work really hard to build internal systems across our enterprise across the executive branch Which we view as a single enterprise to avoid those type of mistakes But having said that having been involved in some large construction projects in my previous experiences I can tell you that those types of things are going to happen but our objective here is to minimize them So that we're maximizing deployment speed efficiency of the dollar and ultimately the impact that we're able to deliver to your communities So just some food for thought to try to weave together all the things that we've introduced over the last couple of weeks We really do view all of this as a transformative the governor said this is a once in a lifetime transformative opportunity It is as big it has the potential to from a transformational perspective to be bigger than And I actually believe I've got some economists some academics actually doing this calculation right now Pro bono at our request because it's kind of a geeky fun conversation calculation to do I actually think that as a share of gross domestic product the total amount of infrastructure investment that we are about to make As a state is going to exceed the new deal And so if you think I mean don't take that to the bank there's smart people actually doing that math right now But if nothing else it's almost as big and it's certainly the biggest since the new deal from its transformational impact potential And so we're really trying to get it right and that's where you all come in asking all these great questions Keeping your eye on the ball making sure we're staying focused on the fundamentals Because it's really easy to get you know into like we got a you know I think about aura from way back when we were like Oh we got all this broadband money and we we applied it in the best way we could And you know we've got places like Springfield and Hancock and Grandville with some of the fastest internet in the world But it wasn't a silver bullet it wasn't magic dust we still have housing needs we still have social service needs we still have education needs So it's incredibly important that we not only manage the project but also stay relentlessly focused on the fundamentals Because they ask about broadband but they need good housing they need good jobs they need affordable places to live all that sort of stuff So trying to weave it all together if you have any other questions we would be happy to answer them thank you very much for coming Thank you for doing it