 Thank you for tuning in to our JSA virtual roundtable shaking down the digital divide, rural broadband access across North America. A couple of housekeeping notes before we begin. Our first 100 registrants today have now received lunch delivered to their door or a gift card, so please go ahead and enjoy. We have well over 330 registrants today, our big roundtable, so very exciting. Go ahead and emoji that. So if you weren't one of our first, that's okay, and that's about two thirds of y'all. So hopefully next time, make sure our hint, these are monthly, check out jsa.net for future topics and register early so we can feed you. I'm an Italian mom, I want to feed you all. So go ahead and register early and we'll get some lunches sent to your door. Also, as you probably noticed, our JSA virtual roundtables got a bit of a facelift this 2021, includes a first in the industry virtual networking lounge before and after our panel discussion. So please stick around once this roundtable concludes to join the tables for a unique opportunity to talk face to face with other event attendees and speakers. And go ahead, table hop, you know, go ahead and keep that conversation going. We really want to see you here from you face to face. Also, during this panel, we also want to hear from you make this experience interactive as possible. So please go ahead and add any questions that you may have for our panelists into the chat, or you can request the mic to come on camera and ask your question to the panelists. So feel free. All right. So let's go ahead and get started. You're not here to hear me talk here to hear the gentlemen that we have lined up here, our topic today incredibly timely, shaking down the digital divide rural broadband access across North America. To introduce our speakers and to please welcome my good friend, my love him, Rob Powell, founder and chief editor of telecom ramblings, the blog you must be reading every morning like I am. Rob, thanks for joining us today, my friend, Laura is yours. Thank you, Jamie. And thank you for the invitation to moderate today's panel. It's no secret that urban and suburban areas get most of our industry's infrastructure love, and it's always been kind of a struggle to balance broadband access needs of rural areas against the cost of deployment. The FCC's rural digital opportunity fund is directing up to 30 billion dollars over 10 years on infrastructure projects that will go through a formal bidding process. These projects must be meticulously planned as they are expected to begin immediately upon approval without delay. So how do you ensure that you have all that you need and ready at a moment's notice? Our panel of experts here will share their valuable expertise and insights as to how you can prepare. But first, let's quickly meet our panelists. We have all introduced each one and give them a chance to tell where they come from and what their point of view is going to be from. We have Rob Custer, the Senior Vice President of Product Management at Consolidated. Rob, tell us a bit about yourself. Hey Rob, thanks for having me today. So work for Consolidated Communications. We're a multi-services telecom operator with 23 states, 23 state service area, residential, commercial enterprise, and carrier space. So Art Doff and Broadband Expansion is kind of in our DNA and what we do. So look at the conversation today. Thanks. We have Scott Bergs, President and CEO of EXquared Technology. Scott. Hi, thanks again for having me on board and welcome to everybody who's joined the panel as well as the audience here. Really excited to hear again Scott Bergs, I'm the CEO of Vavacity in our operating company EXquared Technology and we design, build, operate, and maintain carrier-neutral wholesale access fiber facilities and related assets to help enable the expansion of Broadband in urban and in rural markets. And I've spent the better part of the last embarrassingly 30 plus years building out in those areas, much of that specifically in those tier two and tier three markets that the 96 Communication Act had envisioned would come into parallel with service offered in the metro areas. So excited about this and in the panel here today. Thanks. We have Frank DeJoy, Vice President of Network Development at Render Networks. Frank. Thank you, Rob, and welcome to all the participants and panelists. Again, I'm Frank DeJoy, Vice President Network Deployment at Render Networks. We're a construction management company and our platform streamlines the construction process for major fiber and wireless network deployments. We use digital transformation, automation, geospatial data, and mobile technology for deployment projects, including programs like ARDOF, CAF2, other rural broadband programs. We've been operating for close to nine years in Australia, the United States, now the UK. I've been in the industry 30 years at Executive Network Roles, AT&T, Bellbs, General Dynamics, DICOM, and Quanta. And at Render, I'm responsible for North American Market Development and Deployments. Thank you. Thanks. We have Isak Mian, VP of Sales and Ford Engineering at Redline Communications. Isak. Hi. So thanks for having me and welcome everyone for joining this session. So I'm the VP here at Redline Communication. We're a North American manufacturer of wireless communication systems. Multiple technologies includes private LTE as well as fixed wireless and Zoom 5G. I've been with Redline for about a year or so, but the company has been around for more than two decades, providing reliable low latency communication, wireless communication systems to various industries across the globe. And we do manufacture our products here in North America. I personally come from a telecom background, but providing the service to critical industries have been in the industry for about close to 27, 28 years, 20 years of which has been underground corporations. So working with regulatory bodies and doing that extra due diligence to plan projects like these is a particular four-day of mine. I'm all doctorate candidate at the George Washington University, where the focus of my research is project planning, specifically managing risks in infrastructure projects like these, which is the topic of today. So looking forward to this roundtable discussion. Thanks. And finally, we have Steve Levitt, Vice President of Global Ecosystem Development Connected to Fiber. Steve? Rob, I appreciate the chance to be here. So Connected to Fiber has built the connected world, which is the industry SaaS built specifically for the connectivity engine and has one goal. It's how do we transform the planning, buying, and selling of network amongst a very active ecosystem. So I appreciate the chance to be here and participating in the topic. So let's get into it here. Let's start off with the basics here. What are rural access projects like? Are they all similar? Is there a wide spectrum? What types of opportunities does a program like RDOF enable for you? Can you give us a, if you can, and it's at a specific example of what such a project looks for you? Let's start off with Rob over at Consolidated. Rob? Yeah, Rob, I think in some respects the projects are really similar, but they're also really diverse. So you use our example. I think it's fairly representative for some of the larger operators. We use your 23 states. So the needs of the individual communities and the geographies kind of vary pretty broadly. We see, we saw RDOF really as a jumping off point. We had identified thousands of locations that we would be able to build to and drop fiber off to as we went after specific RDOF census blocks. One example of that, Stonington, Maine. The city of Stonington, Maine is a pretty rural location. It's about a thousand locations to serve the entire town, not only the city core, but also the more rural locations. So we're able to use RDOF to fill in gaps that we can then use to jump off to build the rest of the network. So between public private partnership, private investment, and RDOF all combined, we're going to cover 100% of the locations. And that's one example of many. So as we approached RDOF, it really was, how do we use that to accelerate our larger fiber overbuild plan and as an adjunct to our larger fiber overbuild program to drive more into the rural locations, which again just expands opportunity for us. We've done a lot of public private partnerships over the last two years and we have many, many more of those coming. So we really, even though we look at RDOF as fiber is fiber is fiber, it also gives us the ability to accelerate discussions about public private partnerships to pick up other areas where RDOF is covered. So the more granular we could get in our RDOF planning, the better off we knew we could be at the end of this as we start into the builds. Interesting. Frank, you got something? Yeah, I'd like to, I guess I agree that there are a lot of similarities as well as well as differences. I mean, there's a wide spectrum of broadband funded projects that have a common theme rather of providing connectivity to unserved or underserved communities. RDOF is a rural program paid over 10 years based on census blocks, but other rural programs are more targeted or with even broader objectives. You have, for example, the American Rescue Plan, which allocated $7 billion for schools and libraries through the e-rate program for broadband infrastructure during the pandemic. And then you have the 2020 CARES Act that had billions that states and local and tribal governments could use, including a portion of that for telecom, but those were targeted for completion within the calendar year. So of course, state and the states have many different programs and the hundreds of millions over various time horizons. And there's new legislation in Congress as part of President Biden's multi-trillion dollar American Jobs Plan. So a lot of different programs all with the goal of advancing rural broadband. Of course, RDOF being center stage with a census block proliferation goal for underserved communities. And just that if I look at the winners, such as consolidated, the main goal, what they have in common is getting broadband and future-proof broadband to the communities, but there are different sorts of operators providing that broadband. You've got incumbent telcos or co-ops, fixed wireless operators, and even a new entrant of satellite providers getting into the game. So a different, a diverse mix of operators while providing broadband one way or another, but with a fiber backbone as sort of a common denominator. Ishaq, do you have anything over at Redline? What are you guys working on? Yeah, sure. So as I mentioned, we are a wireless communication system manufacturer. So our engagement in bridging the sort of rural digital divide has been based on that technology. But I, you know, answering this question, I agree with the panel that there are similarities, but that is if we look at it from a needs perspective, you know, so the bridging the digital divide. Yes, each project is similar because that is the end goal. But if you look at it from a project management perspective, or a technology perspective, then each project is unique. You know, we know from a project management perspective that each project has its own budget, its own schedule, you know, and each organization is different, each county, each municipality, any, every stakeholder is going to be different, their capabilities are going to be different. The communication needs are going to be different, and the communication ability available is going to be different. So each project is going to be different from that perspective. Even from technology perspective, you know, we have digital divide in New York City, and then we have digital divide in Tennessee or Missouri or, you know, places like these where topology, the geography is completely different, the population density is completely different. So, you know, I know when it comes to, for example, bandwidth or latency, you know, fiber is the way to go. But then, you know, these are public funds. So we have to do our due diligence and cost effectiveness is a key criteria where, you know, in some cases, a specific technology can become really cost prohibitive, which is where wireless comes into play. And then even in wireless, you know, in some cases, depending on the organization capability and the geography, you know, a private LTE system might make sense, versus in other cases, where to fix wireless system might make sense. So each project is going to be unique. And, you know, I'll sum it up by saying that there is no one solution that is best to bridge digital divide. There's always a best fit solution that is going to bridge this divide for your, for any community out there. Scott, where does the X squared fit in? You're still muted. I just got off. You'd think after nine months, we'd, or a year, we'd be able to figure out the mute button on these. Sorry about that. So I very much want to echo a lot of the things that have been said already, but I won't repeat them. I think the key is we try to take an approach that does look at what's best for individual market and the individual project that we're working on. And that generally speaks to what is the goal. And if the goal on ARDOF specifically is to provide the bandwidth at the minimum speeds available or articulated for the specific census blocks as it has been, the thing that we try to do is do that in the most efficient way possible. So if we're divided, if we're focused on a fiber network, for example, then we might put in a solution that isn't the most efficient for a particular community. So I'll echo what Isak said. I think in the long run, you want to get the most future-proofed facility put into place that you possibly can with the timeline and the budget that's available. And as a result, you've got to be a little bit flexible and you've got to be a little bit specific to each different market. But having the expertise from the design and engineering perspective involved in the planning process that gives you options to be able to pick from that, then I'd say the last piece, you've got to break it down into the different components for each different market. One is the last mile and you might have one technology that's the best technology for last mile. Then you've got to have the durability for the local market connectivity, whether that's a localized ring or a wholesale transport facility. And then ultimately, you've got to have the interconnection to the content. Because without that combination of interconnection and the actual content that's going to be uploaded and downloaded to the end facility, you can have the best facilities at the end that you probably want and they won't be able to be served. So thinking about the specific technology application and the costs required to be able to deploy within the timeline articulated at each of those three layers is just critically important and we hope to help to do that with all the folks that we're working with and partnering with. Okay. So how does one go about winning an ARDOF award to make one of these projects happen? Who do you have to bring into the process? How much effort does it take? Is it like a shotgun approach or a rifle shot at a specific opportunity? How does one go about this? Let's start off with Steve. Sure. So connect to the fibers role in ARDOF is really it's about enablement. How do we deal our carrier partners with a combination of data and technology to inject into that planning process up front? And when you think about technology platforms like the world, you're talking about the elimination of manual processes, data silos, it brings all the information together so that all the different constituents across the organization that are participating in this have the right data elements at their disposal to create, one, identify the right locations to bid on, but two, as you put that bid together, put yourselves in a position to bid on the deals where you have the most opportunity to win. When I think about stack ranking of different markets, being able to do that at scale so you can parallel process multiple markets at the same time, looking at the market opportunity with potential challenges in terms of what may come up of the building process like things like right of way and things, and also triangulating that with your cost basis in terms of per foot cost, the ability to build not only to bid but bid to win. And to me, that gives you the rifle like precision with a shotgun type scale at the same time. Interesting. Issa, you're on mute. Yeah, I apologize for that. Yeah, again, I, you know, from my perspective, the recommendation is always going to be take that very specific, you know, the rifle approach, as you mentioned, you know, look at your specific capabilities needs, as I mentioned earlier, your geography, and then based on that, you go and bid for specific opportunities and you go and, you know, approach it that way. The key thing to remember is, you know, you have to invest in planning upfront. We know that, you know, these are ICT projects, so information and communication technology projects, you know, the failure in these projects is higher than other types of infrastructure projects. So planning, again, research has suggested that planning, specifically planning for this management, for example, improves the channel of success in these projects. So bring in those experts early on, as early as possible, talk to potential vendors, you know, early on, do your due diligence and plan as much as you can early as you can to make sure you plan for that risk management and you have sort of a robust project plan in place when you go after such opportunities. Rob, how about you? What do you guys do? Yeah, I echo a lot of the things that everybody said before. You know, from our perspective, we already had pretty significant fiber projects underway and everything that we that we won in Ardolf was all cyber to the home one gig. So it really was an extension of the existing strategy. It was a really targeted approach on Ardolf specifically because we already had a pretty significant fiber build happening. So we were really focused on where we could go with Ardolf to maximum the total number of passings and get as many rural subscribers turned up as possible. The one thing I would probably add is, you know, you can't underestimate the supplier perspective of this. Anybody that's trying to deploy fiber right now is dealing with delays and enclosures and fiber, you know, all of the pieces and parts that go with that COVID related and also just volume related as the industry, the manufacturing industry tries to catch up with the massive demand. So one of the things that we started early on in our larger fiber builds and just extended the pattern with Ardolf was working with the suppliers early on to give them five, seven, 10 year views into what these build plans look like and, you know, talking about millions of feet of fiber per month. So that's one of the real keys is getting the suppliers and the boat as early as possible, giving them full transparency to the build plan so they can start ramping up production, not just now. We're already ordering fiber in 2022 and 2023 in order to make sure we have those have those facilities for us when they're ready to be used. Scott? Yeah, the thing I'd add is don't be afraid to say this market is not a market where we are designed to be the best or positioned to be the best. There's nothing worse than being the dog that caught the bus and then get wrapped around the axle. And there are certainly opportunities in Ardolf as we've seen in earlier government funded projects like the BTOP projects where someone found a strategy to win the bid, but once they actually put that into execution and went out and either in the construction process found that the project wasn't as well crafted or designed through the engineering and the design process up front, or they missed a piece of either operations, execution cost or expense, or even just market assumptions about what revenue is going to be able to generate from those markets. So once you get the government dollars, you find, oh shoot, I got something and it isn't quite as attractive as I wanted. And then the worst case scenario is you've got sort of half built or underutilized infrastructure that's stranded out in one of these more rural markets. And now we've wasted time, we've wasted money, and ultimately we haven't achieved the underlying expansion of broadband into those markets that we hoped that we would with those valuable combination of private and public. What about Frank? Yeah, I agree with the focused approach and also especially Rob's comments about thinking about delivery and materials and the team up front. I mean, it's a very competitive and involved process and it's not something to be taken lightly, involves a lot of resources, want to be very, very prepared before the application window opens and have confidence in your solution up front. When you're submitting your bid and be able to prove its viability and your team's ability to deliver, the RDOF program had two stages, short form, long form, each requiring deeper levels of diligence about experience, solvency, capabilities. And even after the second phase, there are challenges happening in the industry about some of the long form winners. So I'd say sort of the keys to success are the focus on preparation, understanding the process and requirements and detail to get through them properly and not missing in on any technicalities, ensuring you have the confidence in your solution ability to deliver, including your team and partners and ability and tools to monitor progress and manage risk and be self-aware, understand what you can and can't do and be able to fill those gaps with the right partners and tools. Great. So once you've won one of these awards or one part of one or whatever, in what ways is the implementation of a project different from the normal course of business? And how do you prepare to hit the ground running and keep things on schedule once you do? Let's try Scott first. Yeah, I mean, obviously we've got RDOF as well as earlier programs that are like it in the CAP2 and before that the BTAP have deployment objectives. And a similar background is in the wireless space. And when you acquire wireless licenses, there's build up requirements. And those are with a good purpose intended to ensure that people aren't just squatting on these dollars and or these rights, and they're ultimately achieving the expansion of the broadband facilities in a timely basis. But at the same time, they're not how you would ordinarily plan them absent that kind of arbitrary outside pressure, where in those cases you might be looking to deploy first on an organic based within a cluster to ensure that you're edging out as opposed to jumping to a location to get things deployed to meet an underlying coverage deadline. And so you have to manage that deployment process to ensure that you live within the deployment requirements of RDOF while at the same time achieving a commercial progression of the network expansion that allows you to get some of those interim returns along the way. The worst thing that can happen again is you get these federal dollars and you think you're off and running and then you find out midstream that you're short because you didn't achieve the commercial scale that you needed to make the project successful long term. And so you just have to balance those up front. They're well-intentioned headlines and deployment requirements, but they just need to be put into more practical. Thanks. Steve, how do you see the implementation of these things? Yeah, just to kind of second one of Scott's, you know, I think being able to try to predict the commercial feasibility of the buildout upfront by looking at, you know, passes in terms of residential versus commercial versus tower infrastructure, etc., is a real key component to pulling the right data together. And that's ultimately how you bid on projects that you have a palatable, you know, amount of risk associated with it because, you know, with the government contribution, you know, you've got less margin for error, you know, missed times are not necessarily acceptable, you know, but it's really, you know, it's getting in front of it with the right elements of data to make the right calls so that you can at least, you're never going to, you know, eliminate it, but at least get in front of the risk as much as humanly possible. And to do that down to the location level, understanding the rule of census block, but ultimately, it's the people in the homes and the buildings that are in the structures that are actually going to be consuming this network. And being able to triangulate that with any potential obstacle, getting into the actual structure and building into the structure, you know, those are the types of level of details. If you can homogenize that data into a single repository, it gives you this system of record to not only manage the planning piece, but the ongoing and building it out to manage any of the lefts and rights that may present themselves throughout the process. Then ultimately, once it's done, how do you present that to the market and really start to monetize it? Isaac, what about you? Any sanitation? So a couple of ways that I, you know, see it differently. Number one, you know, this is about bridging the rural divide, you know, something that we should never forget. So there's an obligation on every stakeholder to remember that this is about public service. You know, what that does then is sort of take that cost effective, things like cost effectiveness. When we talk about due tins, when we talk about, you know, caring about caring about the people who actually will be using this networks, you know, at the end of the day, public funds, it's all about cost effectiveness. And when I say cost effectiveness, that does not mean low cost. That does not mean cheap. No, it's achieving a balance between system effectiveness, which is the function that we expect the system, whether it's fiber based or wireless communication or whatever connectivity platform we use. It's ensuring that that system performs desired function, you know, the achieving the bandwidth and the latency requirements that have been defined and balancing that against the life cycle cost. And it's important to remember that that's the life cycle cost. This is about initial cost of procurement. It is about the cost of that system across its life cycle. So that includes the planning piece, that includes the network building piece, that includes the network operations, please. And, you know, they're then, you know, thinking about, okay, who's going to maintain this infrastructure? Who has the capability to do it? What kind of investment is needed? Or what kind of technologies should be solid up front to minimize the impact on the operations organizations? These are kinds of the decisions that, you know, take precedence when it comes to planning for these projects. So, you know, that is one way that I'd say it's different than other. The other is, of course, as I alluded to it earlier, is risk management. You know, as I mentioned, when it comes to public private, you know, infrastructure projects, you know, the success rate has been mixed. And what research has shown that, you know, planning for managing risk in these kind of projects significantly improves, improves project success, chances of project success. So that is another area where there needs to be some, you know, thought that need to go into it at the early stages of the project. Interesting. Rob, what about you guys? How do you go about implementing these and, you know, how does it differ? Yeah, you know, for us, the implementation really actually began during the Vidsys. So, I think I referenced before, we've got a pretty significant fiber overbuild that's been going on for a while now, and will go on for the next five or six years. By 2025-ish, we're going to have more than 70% of our 2.8 million passings, fiber to the home one, get capable. So when we bid ARDOF, it really was centered around that specific strategy. So we intentionally picked areas that were the long existing fiber route. So in practice, what that really means for our engineering and planning teams is if I'm laying fiber across this road already, and, you know, in a lot of cases, we're blessed to have a pretty robust and dense fiber network. Backbone fiber network, particularly in our Northern New England markets and in the other markets as well. So cost per passing is relatively pretty low. So what we're able to do is over that overlay ARDOF to that existing plan, and know we're already going down this road and we're going to drop off PON, XGS PON, to each one of the homes and businesses and facilitate cell towers that are there already. Now we have an ARDOF census block. We're going to ladder all out and go build to that ARDOF census block. So for us, it really was, in a lot of cases, business as usual, just extending out the existing fiber build plan. Yeah. And Frank, I'm hearing preparation as everything. Is it for you guys too? Can you see that? Yeah. I mean, as I have said, I mean, I'm thinking about implementation and schedule with ARDOF differences with ARDOF, for example, are there are specific requirements for getting the number of locations in the census block deployed within certain periods of time, 40% of the locations in three years, for example, than 20% in successive years. So those need to be important fundamental milestones in the build plan that would be balanced against an operator's other deployment milestones. That objective may not be balancing, may not be driving a build plan in other densely populated areas where you're looking to get maximum return on investment. ARDOF also has very specific and comprehensive reporting requirements in the hub tool about different milestones and dashboard data that's needed both during and after the build. And failure to meet these requirements could result in even increased reporting obligation and possible withholding of support. So my takeaways are, you know, ensuring your deployment tools give you the right visibility so that you can see your progress against your delivery, have the right leading indicators to manage risk, and the right levers to adjust and mitigate that risk. Consider your reporting requirements upfront so that you can automate as much as possible and focus on your deployment and operation and streamline and automate as much the construction management as you can with a digital deployment approach with tools such as that which Render could provide, and I'd be glad to discuss that offline. Great. All right. For all the panel, what are the pitfalls that you see companies fall into on this type of project? When things go wrong, what goes wrong? Let's start with Rob. Where to start the list? I'm reminded that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm sure that if there are operators that are listening in this, we all get the same questions. I got one earlier today at a customer saying, hey, I have fiber. Your fiber is running in my backyard. How do I get fiber to the home? Well, it's not that simple. And I think that the masses don't understand that building fiber networks is really hard, and it's terribly expensive, and maintaining them to the previous comment is just as hard and just as expensive. I think there are all kinds of pitfalls. Number one is planning. You've heard that word over and over and over and over again. We've got seven to 10 years with the milestones to build these projects, but if you haven't started already, you need to start now. Like today, it is not too late to start planning all of your art off builds from suppliers and getting fiber in, getting enclosures to in home, right? CPE to get ONTs and gateways. There are so many pieces and parts, and that completely is separate from construction planning, permitting right away. There is not too early of a time to start. So again, I think it kind of goes down to planning eliminates a lot of the risk. It's impossible to completely de-risk fiber builds of these natures or of this nature. The pitfalls are out there, but it's all about planning. If you know your network and you know your geography, you're really, you have a big leg up, but it still does not obviate the need to have all of the plan in place now. Issa, what problems do you see people running to? I'll start with saying exactly the same. Even though the technology that we deal with is different, wireless communication as opposed to wireline or fiber, but it's exactly the same in Western planning. If you haven't started already, start today. I'll give you a couple of specific examples. We've had projects strictly to bridge to divide in US and even here in Canada as well. Where one common theme when it comes to that lack of planning comes, that is evident. Things like RF design, so radio frequency design, radio frequency or wireless communication. Of course, just the physics of the technology is such that every single tree, every single building, anything in that geography makes a difference. It impacts the design. What we've seen a lot of times is our clients coming to us with this understanding that it's just a matter of just like at home, I buy a Wi-Fi router and I install it and that's it. It's plug-and-play. Well, modern technology is plug-and-play, but if you've planned properly for it. The specific example would be that of not thinking about investing in RF planning, which has a cost associated to it. You need to invest in it. At times, depending on the geography, high-resolution data might be required and there is a cost associated. These costs needs to be budgeted for or whatever budget you have available. You have to allocate a part of it to these services. Another is at times we've seen this reluctance of investing in project management and coordination. There has to be a specific individual who needs to own the project and the team and identifying the need for expertise. Overall, when it comes to pitfalls, things like these, I'd say a good place to look at is the program. There was a program Smart Grid Investment Ground funded by the DOE, the Department of Energy under Obama Administration. That program finished I think around 2016-2017 and there were a number of reports that were provided. In the final report, the DOE has actually accumulated the lessons and categorized them into eight different categories. The pitfalls that the various stakeholders fell into when they were doing these projects. I'd say that's a good place to start because it's very similar infrastructure. A lot of it was smart metering, so building these communication infrastructure, a very similar concept. That I believe is a very good start. The final report is available on DOE's website. If you want the link, approach me and I'll share the link with you. That report has a very detailed, sort of over the seven years, there were a hundred projects, 238 utilities and all the pitfalls that they experience in those projects are listed there. It's a good place to start with when you're doing your planning for these projects. It sounds like a good resource. Steve, what do you see as pitfalls that people run into? I don't want to keep hammering the planning thing, but planning is really, really important. It seems to be the theme. The additive piece that I would bring to the table is don't be afraid to invest in technology and automation to help manage the ongoing process. Not only to determine or identify the right data upfront, but think about looking at things like a place to store and have a system of record for a line of site data for parcel and building level boundary layers. All this information is going to be super important for you to manage, but it's not a one-time thing. You need to have the ongoing persistence in terms of how you're managing that asset. That would say don't be afraid to invest in the technology and automation to support it. Frank? Reflecting on the broadband projects over the last decades, some things that jump out at me and that were sort of mentioned by the panel. Again, Phil, I think one is to make sure you understand any gaps that you might have in your technical or operational model, especially if your core business is not telecom deployment or operations. Bring in partners who can fill gaps. Another thing is be sure to focus on engineering and permitting in your project upfront. One or two missed permits can cause significant cost or milestone delays, especially for example if you're building a fiber extension or ring out to a rural area that's going to be served with a wireless distribution and then similar to the more recent comments about automation and technology. Begin with the end in mind. Have the right tools, processes, and for to measure progress in a timely fashion. Don't wait a month before your SOC hub reports do to understand you might have some risks and deployment challenges. Have as much of that automated with leading indicators and risk management programs in place as ahead of time so that you're well ahead of schedule and managing risk along the way. Scott, your questions. Yeah, thanks. I think obviously the planning and the execution risks that have been identified here are clearly important, but there's a couple of things that I'd like to point out that I think are even bigger risks when you have this wonderful government funding available. And I'll start with saying we as folks who live and work in the United States should be very, very thankful that our office, we should also be thankful that the proposed programs and the existing programs through the American Recovery Act and the American Jobs Act are potential additional public funding dollars to support and partner with those private funding dollars that are available out there to meet the demand for that broadband infrastructure. But at the same time, if we look back at historical projects and those similar government funding sources, they can create other problems. You can build in an area that isn't built purely because it just didn't have the commercial demand to justify an individual infrastructure expenditure. And while the government funding can help that, it doesn't change the math. And in fact, it can create the opportunity to make the math worse by raising the cost of raw materials, as Rob pointed out, at least in the short term as you increase demand for, you know, right now just getting the core materials to put in duct is getting more expensive and it's getting more delayed. The cost of labor continues to go up. There's a good side to that, right? We're increasing the overall payable jobs out there, but there's a difficulty because you can't deploy if you can't find affordable labor to be able to deploy in those markets. And so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But one of the solutions to that, and the reason that we at Vibati and EX Square are so focused on shared infrastructure and open access model is historically, we have built similar infrastructure along the exact same corridors to fill the needs of two different parallel customers that just weren't willing or able to work together. And we think in it, in particular, as you started to get into these Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, what using that shared infrastructure makes it more cost-effective, it makes it more time-effective, it preserves the scarce resource of the right away that's available, it reduces operating costs and ultimately provides a better solution for everybody involved, both today and through the entire operational life of the facilities that's being deployed. So I think the coordination of those and being willing to partner with others is a way to avoid that fall that can unintentionally be created by the influx of incremental federal dollars. All right. Well, thank you. And I think we are out of time here. So I'm going to turn it over to Jamie. Jamie. We are. We are so much love them inside of great, great words of wisdom there. Thank you gentlemen. Big thank you of course to my friend, our guest moderator, Rob Powell, founder and chief editor of Telecom Ramblings, keeping us on point as huge. And again, our insightful speaker, Rob Custer, Consolidated Communications, Scott Burgs, EXQR Technology, Frank DeJoyd, Render Networks, Eshaq Mian, Redline Communications, and Steve Levitt, connected to Fiverr. Really great tips and insight. Also, I noticed some of it's my friendly on Markham from Highland. We see your great questions. We will get them in front of our speakers and get you responses by email. Thank you for writing those in. And if you were one of our first 100 registrants, we hope you enjoyed your lunch. Make sure you visit us at jsa.net to register for more upcoming JSA virtual roundtables, including our next one, which is on May 20th, where leaders in our industry were going to talk about disaster recovery and network resiliency right in time for hurricane season. So that is a wrap here. Look out for the playback of today's roundtable coming soon to JSA TV and JSA podcast on YouTube, iHeart, iTunes, Spotify, many more. In the meantime, see you back in the networking lounge. As always, stay safe and happy networking.