 So, we had you on our schedule this morning to speak with us about H-94 and H-145, which we definitely want to hear your comments on. I would just say generally speaking, excuse me, we're in the process of accelerating the committee to work into a piece of legislation brought to end initiative. And there's a number that we're looking at. So, we really appreciate you joining us to talk about H-94 and H-145. You also shouldn't feel you're so constrained in talking about those things, because we're going to be looking at a number of different issues that may affect the way it feels championing telecom. But anyway, I just wanted to, as a precursor to that, we're kind of looking at a lot of issues. And, you know, members may have questions for you on some of those things as well. Thank you for joining us. And if you could introduce yourself for the record, that's where we're recording these. Thank you for the welcome. Yeah. For the record, my name's Roger Nishi, and I'm the Vice President of the Industry Relations at Watesfield and Champlain Valley Telecom. And I also come here on behalf of the independence of Vermont, independent telecoms, which really goes without saying now. We're really not telecoms anymore. We're really broadband companies. And so, we still have telecom in our name, but we're truly broadband companies. We were at a discussion just recently, and the discussion went on for several minutes before someone pointed out, well, yeah, we're not just voice telecommunication companies anymore. Our focus is broadband, and that's where we've been transitioning over the past few years. To speak on H94, we are all for the additional revenues being raised. As always, we wish the state had the capacity or the will to actually possibly charge more, to build a bigger fund to help invest in the broadband networks. But I realize there's only so much that can get moved through the various intricacies over here. That being said, I want to talk a little bit about the building of broadband networks and some of the things that we've encountered. And it really comes down to there's some emotional sets and there's some of what we refer to as intellectual sets. I would have a handout, but I'm working off of a discussion that others have brought up in various sessions, and I didn't really get their complete approval to use their documents. But in terms of the emotions, everyone thinks that their incumbent carriers don't care. We do care. We want to build broadband networks, but it's a time and money function. You can only build so much with the limited budgets that are out there. Of course, if there's more funding, then we can do more. There's also the emotional concept of everyone says that they want competition in these areas. Yes, everyone wants competition, but everyone needs to think about the consequences of competition. Does it make it easy to build in areas where the environment could possibly or should probably only support one line into the home? So yes, people want choice, but they need to think about is it really viable in some areas? I mean, we've all seen it. There are companies that say it may not be viable for me even to build into these two or three homes that are up on the top of mountains. Just be from the cost standpoint. And I know no one likes to hear that, whether it's the customer or you here when the constituent calls you. But there are some realities there that we need to look at it in some areas that are too costly to serve. So, Roger, when you're talking about the consequences of competition, it may be that there are areas where competition is not. Do you have policy recommendations for us in that regard? I'm going to have to think on that a little bit because anytime you say, I don't think there can ever be any policy anymore where you say there can't be competition. Just because of the nature of the industry anymore. Anyone who has the financial wherewithal in the backing can pretty much build for you. They would like to build. It's just the policy may be that the state doesn't want to support competing types of providers. And what I mean by that is for us, I'm a big proponent of our companies as you all are aware. But it's understood that the upgrading and extension of existing networks is better money spent than creating new networks. So, we're there, we're established and it's just building upon what we've done over these 100 years. So, what I just said sounds really anti-competitive and there are probably people here that are going to say, no way you can't do that, but you should take a look at funding the existing carriers that are there and that have been there all these years because they've done the job in the past and it has been found cheaper for them to build and extend their networks. Can I ask you a question? I don't have the depth of technological knowledge to maybe ask the most precise question. But a question, a concern I have on that, I'll characterize it as, is it possible that the existing infrastructure is being lapped by new technology and so upgrading, making incremental upgrades to existing technology is an incremental approach that is going to be lapped by what some in this summer year chair have called a future-proof technology that putting money into incremental solutions is really no solution. So, there are two sides to that. Yeah, I know, this is what we're wrestling with. And that's actually an emotional thing. Everyone says, I want the next network to be built. I want it to be future-proofed. And we at Watesfield and Champlain Valley tell, and I think all of the other companies would say, yes, we want a future-proof. We would love to be able to jump to fiber immediately because that does allow us to provide the customers with the speeds into the future that we think they're going to want. But at the same time, we have the reality of there's a lot of dollars to do that and if we can get more bang for a buck by using the copper DSL technology, which you've seen ads all of lately that say this technology is inadequate and it's not cost-effective, or I think one ad actually said this, it sucks. Is that a technical change? We're the first person that's used that for this session. Excuse me if that affected anyone, because I know back in the office that our people would be saying, I can't believe you said that. For a surprise, I said it too. But it allows us, and this is what the majority of us done. We've continued to push the electronics farther out in the field to get the higher copper speeds of customers in the networks that we serve today. So to answer your question, though, we would all love to jump to the fiber. It's just a matter of that trade-off of getting customers, vast majority of customers, better speeds and better services in a quicker amount of time than if we just went all fiber. So, Rondra, we took testimony yesterday from CV Fiber who suggested to us that we're going to get what we asked for and that we need to change the definitions of what funds, what speeds qualify for high cost and other dollars. The suggestion was made 100, 100. What would you say to that? 100, 100. It takes us immediately to fiber networks. So what would your response be if we said we're going to change it to 100 and 100 in order for it to qualify for high cost dollars? I think we would all go out there and find ways to bid on it. It's actually the end game we all want to get to and that's the network we want to get to. That company down in the south that has 100% fiber in their area, they're set for the future in terms of their network, in terms of getting the customers the speeds they want. At Waitsfield, we still have 70% that aren't fiber. Everyone has pretty good speeds or the vast majority do and we're close with our technologies in our network but we didn't build fiber everywhere. What's your lowest speed that you have in your network? There are some people. Now, we have saturated our market with the electronics in the field to show everyone's loops but there are these ones. These entusian customers all over and they probably have less than four one. So we say 100, 100, where do you start? Where do we start? You start at the four one people or you start at the 25 three people? Well, you need to build the network to get out to these people first and some of the customers along the way that are close to the nodes, they probably already have the 25 three. The ones that are less than four one, somehow or another we need to figure out how to get to them but we need to get the fiber out to them in that area first. That being said, those aren't the easy ones to build too so those are the ones that we would be looking to if there's a way to identify them as underserved, is there a way that we can do some type of partnership grant with the government to get the bill out to those customers? Thank you. Do you own your own pulse or do you? We do own some. So it's a mix. It is a mix. So I've heard that the make ready work, the applications, the moving wires, all that can be 70 to 80% of the cost of running fiber. Is that accurate? I do not know the answer to that. I just know that as a poll owning utility, we see both sides and as a poll owning utility we see the demands that are upon us and oftentimes we're waiting for other people to do their work first which slows down the process. On the flip side, we pace the amount where you just make ready charges and the work doesn't get done in the time we fashion so we do see it from both sides. As to the cost, I would have to go back and check that out. And when you run fiber, do you always run it in its own space or do you never lash it right to your existing copper? We try to run it in its own space. I mean just the... I mean it's obviously a lot more expensive to do that or I'm assuming it's a lot more expensive to do that. In many instances, there's a copper that's there that we're retiring once the fiber is there and we just don't want to have that on the pole so we try to take it off and just use the existing space that we use. At least that's been our approach. I won't say that we haven't lashed in the past but there are times when you do lash where we did continue to use some of the copper and then when that copper goes bad and you have to decouple the fiber from the copper it's just a nightmare and it's very costly. Roger is one of your customers. I've got to say I'm very satisfied with the service. Thank you. But landlines traditionally have territories and are regulated. Broadband is not and that's because of the Federal Communication Commission regulations. Vermont can't be the only state to stay with this problem with getting broadband out to rural areas. So anything being done at the national level by an organization of telecoms that are trying to change the regulations so that perhaps maybe territories can be assigned for broadband build-up in rural areas? So I don't think there's going to be any additional regulation but the FCC through its broadband funding and its latest orders they do break the areas into blocks and census blocks and those areas where there could be a... if there's one person that provides a competitive type of service in that area then they look at those areas and say then maybe we don't need to fund those and build to those but then there are those without that. So is there someone doing something? The FCC at the request of Congress and pressure from Congress they finally opened up the budget so there are more dollars coming up of all the companies out there that do build broadband in terms of those that have been telecom carriers in the past. So it sounds like it's more difficult to get funding if there is somebody already there and even if they're in your territory, for instance, a cable company that's in Waysfield, Champlain Valley, telecom territory, the FCC or the FTC, whoever's doing it, Department of Agriculture will look at that and say, oh, they already have access so we're not going to put any money there. Is that the way it works? It has worked that way in the past and some of the grants and the broadband funding, they do look at that. But this is where there's disagreement within the industry on the looking of services within census blocks. If one customer has the ability to get better speed, that doesn't mean that whoever's built everyone in that area. So at the federal level we say there needs to be if someone claims that they serve an area and that there shouldn't be funding, there needs to be a robust challenge process where companies can actually challenge the maps that are out there because they're working off of maps and reporting that's as you're well aware, mapping isn't easy and the maps they're referring to right now are a couple of years old. So there does need to be that given that you need to look at areas in a more precise manner than some of the analysis that's been done in the past. And assuming that that challenge opportunity exists, who would be responsible for doing the challenging? Would it be the telephone companies or would it be like the Department of Public Service or what? So in this instance and the way it was written in the past, it's always been that the telephone needs to bring it up and then the person or the company that claims to have the service there needs to prove that they do. And then of course it would go back through the whole process of the FNC or RUS where it was doing the funding. So I'm going to continue on with a few other items. This comes to as we start talking about other networks and looking at towns and so on, everyone feels like they need to own the investment, own their own investment in their town or wherever. That may not always be the best case. It may be better to own it. If they do own it, they may not be the best one to run it. It may be something where we need to look at partnerships with the towns and others because it's not easy. And I'll use the contrast which I'm talking to some power company people about. The customer calls up and calls the power company. I don't have power. The power company reports back. Well, it's going to be back on at such and such time or look at the maps or there's already an automated system saying when will it be back on. They call up and say, well, my stove isn't working. Well, they say at that point in time, we'll call your local appliance store or call your electrician. Move forward to broadband. And this is why some electric utilities have shied away from this. Another calling is, my service isn't working. Well, what do you mean by service? I'm not getting the speeds that I'm paying for. And then at that point in time, well, where's your router? Where's your Wi-Fi located? Do you have Wi-Fi repeaters? So there's a whole lot of additional steps that we look at in terms of servicing the customer. And that's why when I say, everyone may not want to go into the depth of detail in providing the services that customers do on demand today. I'm going to move on to the next point because I sort of lost my thought as to where I was going to go with that. This is one that everyone says, and it's true, but everyone does say this, is without high-speed broadband, my community will fail. Everyone can make that claim. And it's something that's emotional, but I think we need to step back and look at the facts once again. How are they defining high-speed? Does it need to be everywhere? Does everyone, even if they have the high-speed, do they subscribe to that? And this is something I think I brought up before, is oftentimes when you upgrade networks, and if you jump from, say, a speed of 10 over 1 to 25 over 25 or 25 over 3, there's often an additional charge. Customers don't often want to pay for that additional charge, even though they're getting a higher speed and a higher level of service. So what we found in some instances where we actually put in the fiber is we're using fiber as a delivery mechanism in the home. The customer has had 10 over 1, and we give them a free trial of 25 over 25 for a certain period of time. And then at the end, they don't want to subscribe to service because what they've had is found. So there is some education that needs to go on about speeds that are delivered and the medians that are delivered and the cost differentials. And what I mean by that is customers, they get a lot of demands, and I don't know what percentage of the companies is at most, but it's probably the vocal 2% or 3%. They yell and they demand that they need fiber. And you already have copper plant there in which they can get very good speeds because they have very short loops, and they're not even subscribing to higher speed service, but they want the fiber. So those are some of the instances where I think we do need to do the education of the customers and the communities. I won't say that fibers are needed in some instances because if I'm an architect or a doctor and I need to upload high volumes and very large files, I want the additional speed to do so. And with the copper plant, sometimes we just can't get enough speed for them to do so. So, Roger, it seems to me that technological advances that are happening faster and faster, and consumer needs are changing. The more technology improves and the speed of all of that seems to be increasing. Now, it's the same for decreasing. And so, when we think about what people need for modern life, can you talk about your the incumbents ability to adjust to how quickly you're able to... So, you understand what I'm saying? So, technology is rapidly changing. How do you find that you all are able to adjust to meet that need? And to all of your people or some of your people? So, speaking for the majority of us, I mean, as small companies, we're pretty nimble in that if changes are coming about, and I'll use Kim for an example here. If she gets a call, she knows what she's going to have to install. She knows that she's going to have to go learn the technology and she'll do so just to meet the continuing needs of customers. So, as an industry, we've always been at the forefront of delivering whatever the best technology was at the time. I'll take our DSL network. In some instances, we're on the third or fourth generation of various types of DSL in some offices just because of what we've installed over the years to continue to upgrade the service to the end users. Now, today, all those upgrades, we want them to be fiber, and that continues to be our focus, is to just invest as much fiber as we can each and every year. So, I mean, I just ask the question because your networks, thankfully, they were only at 4.1. Now, I mean, there are networks where we're not even there. So, just wondering about how quickly, you know, where we're going. At the federal level, it's part of the funding. And I know this has been a complaint to everyone all along. With their first levels of funding, it was like they defined broadband as 4.1. And that was because based on the amount of budgets out there, that's what they could fund. And then they increased it to 10 over 1, 25 over 3, now that they've increased the size of the budget. So, they're saying that build a 25-3. And you're saying, oh, the FCC is telling people to build a 25-3 in the audience. That's still a copper network. So, they haven't even made the jump yet to future-proof our networks. Yeah. Thank you. A few other things. Go ahead. I'd like to let you finish right here and then we'll take as much time as we can with questions. I'd just like to say that these are some of the things that people are starting to see more and more. It's that deploying broadband in rural areas, it's just not economic in many instances. And that's why it takes longer to get there because it costs more. And then when you get there, if you continue to sell the same level of services we've always served, it just doesn't pay for itself. So, that's just a reality that we need to live with and that will always come into play as people are looking at networks. I'll leave it that way on, that any funding that comes from the state or local, it does help in the building of networks. And we're looking and we're talking to towns more and more and other, and even groups of neighborhoods about are there ways in which we can get to you faster with some contribution from those that live in those areas? All right. So, my understanding with Fiber is that once you've installed the cable itself, the potential is essentially unlimited and that's the hardware on either end, the switching on either end, that is the limitation. And is there, so that like the difference between the equipment that we'll provide for 25 over 25 versus 100 over 100, is that, I mean is it twice as expensive when you're budgeting this? Obviously it makes sense to afford the best that you can or the highest speeds you can. Are we looking at double the cost for that upgrade or is it a four times the cost? It's not really four times the cost. It's often just the modem or whatever piece of equipment we put in the customer's home and in many instances it's the difference of programming the customer from 25 over 25 to a gig. So it could just be a programming? Yes. And is it something you do in every house or has that been central? So, it's done individually through speaking to whatever piece of equipment that they do have in their home. Yeah. Have any towns in your territory approached by your company to kind of contribute to helping build out the broadband in certain areas? Towns themselves? Yeah, towns themselves. We've talked about it, but when it always comes back to, it always then comes back to where's the money going to come from? And so then it sort of stalls at that point in time. It's been a discussion, but number happens. I can just imagine the select board deciding to put money toward one neighborhood broadband in their house. Your answer is the questions I have, maybe anecdotal or maybe there's some specific statistics that you have. In your footprint, how many of your customers are served by, you know, have multiple options? You know, where they've got cable line going by their house. You guys going by their house. Maybe they've got a wireless access. How competitive is your territory? Well, let me start with the wireless for first. Supposedly everyone, based on the maps, has wireless and access within the state. Even though that's behind, you know, sort of smart out of that with what's going on in the state. But in terms of that, I'll say in the Champlain Valley area, probably 70% have an option. The two options that are wired. Yes. And that may be a bit much. I haven't looked at those numbers as of late. In the Watesfield area, we're cable company and the broadband company. And that's probably closer to the town centers. But as you get away from the town centers, it's probably just you guys. Well, in Watesfield, since we do both, it's us everywhere we serve in the Mad River Valley. Yeah. But not cable presumably. Cable presumably is on paved roads kind of going through. Actually, because they took the telecom approach when the cable network was built, cable went everywhere. Okay. So it does go everywhere in the Watesfield area, except a little section up on a mountain which was very costly to get to. Yeah. Telecom approach. But I think Laura was saying, what does that mean, telecom approach, cable to the telecom approach? Oh, the telecom approach of universal services. We built everyone on our network because the more people that are connected to the network, the more valuable and everyone deserves the right to be able to communicate. So you're a cable company that did that in Watesfield? So as Watesfield cable, which was owned by the telecom, they took that approach. Yeah. And so it sounds like a relatively competitive territory where you are vying with another potential broadband solution for customers. Yeah. Very much so. The cable competition is very formidable. The speeds that they're able to deliver and with the bundling of their services with their video, they have very competitive packages. Yeah. And that is a worry for all the telcos out there. Can we invest in the areas where there's competition quickly enough to offer the services that would compete and at the same time, improve the services in the areas where there isn't competition because we don't want anyone to be left behind? So does this settle on such that people who want very high speeds are probably going to go with the cable solution and people who are satisfied with 10-1? 10-1 gets it done for them or 25-3 may choose the telco approach. I'm curious how the market kind of aligns itself. I won't go that far yet because many people are still staying at the lower level of the speeds because that's what they've found that they can get away with. So in a lot of the areas where there has been the overbuild and there's the competition, it's close to where our central offices are so we've been able to provide pretty good speeds at 25-3 and so on to compete. It comes down to pricing and the ability to compete with some of the short-term pricing offers that are out there by the competitors. One thing I didn't mention when I was talking about the networks that we build and a lot of that is we're the carrier of last resort. There are areas where there hasn't been anyone and there isn't going to be anyone and we'll continue to serve in those areas and so when I talk about the more competitive areas, I'll use VTEL as an example. Springfield for us, it's the Hinesburg, Richmond and Bristol areas but you get in the areas of Addison, Pan and Runway Bridge and those are the areas we wish cows could be connected and we could connect all the cows because then we would have a lot of customers and bring down our costs. So in terms of build out and I guess you have, you said you have cable going, I mean fiber running by most places but not necessarily a drop to each house or a low take rate. So in terms of looking for money from municipalities or any other source and whether it's for connecting copper that's already, I mean connecting copper that's already there or upgrading a copper plant, what kind of money is useful? If you're looking at a neighborhood is $15,000 useful or do you need $250,000? It really depends on the size of the neighborhood and the number of homes. We always figure that and I'm going to have to check on this. A lot of the drops we estimate first thing out it's going to be $1,000 to $1,500 from the main line into their home to get that done and to get the main line out there isn't out there that can vary and it varies based on the pole attachments the right of ways and so on. I'm just wondering, you said, I thought you said that that Watesfield County also has a cable subsidiary and the cable subsidiary ran cable to almost every address. So all those addresses couldn't have access to higher speed than 25-3 by cable, is that right? If we upgraded our cable network to the more current levels of service we're sitting on an existing RF network that doesn't have the capacity to deliver a lot of speeds. And there are other cable companies that are competing with Watesfield cable in portions of your territory also? Competing with Watesfield and Champlain Valley-Tell in the Champlain Valley area. So it's really delineated by the mountain. Thanks, I was just trying to clarify that. To follow up on that, I think what I'm hearing you say is that the Med River Valley is only served by Watesfield-Tell for both cable and phone. Yes. And the Watesfield area, I think in terms of unserved the numbers aren't there, and I won't say unserved that definition is always moving and I'm not sure, I can't remember what we defined it as here but in terms of building networks the challenges do really sit in the sparsely populated areas of Addison County. Thank you, Roger. So... Yeah, you're ready? I don't have anything to put up there yet because I have to quit the spelling before I do it. No, really. So thank you very much for the opportunity to testify on H-160. And I think interestingly, it's such a conversation that's tied into all these other things that are going on in this building, economic development, the active 50 discussion, all kinds of things. We're working very hard with the agency of Commerce and Community Development to foster a size investment in our towns and cities, which is we're hosting an economic development forum on March 27th and I thought I would just pass around the brochures. It's going to be up at Burke Mountain but really we're talking about ways to take advantage of what's unique in your community and build on that and that's what we really need in Vermont. But you've heard about the difficulties in growing the economy without adequate broadband and cell service yesterday from local officials who are here for local government day. Both, including I think maintaining the status quo is unlikely in areas that don't have broadband or cell infrastructure. We believe that the infrastructure should be treated much the same way other infrastructure is and by that we mean wastewater, stormwater management, water supply, electricity, landline telephones back in the day and that broadband and cell service is a necessary component of keeping our monitors connected, engaged in the economy and safe in emergencies. So we support the direction of H-160, H-145 and H-94 and I know you've got other bills in here but we didn't really look at them in any great detail. Yeah, yeah. So just going through H-160, based on conversations we've had with local officials since the idea arose, we doubt that most municipalities would actually use general obligation bonds to fund broadband deployment if that were made available to them. The municipal bond bank, having said that, the municipal bond bank has funded renewable energy projects, streetscapes, public facilities, wastewater treatment, water supply, parklands, bridges, municipal vehicles and school construction. So they have a pretty wide variety of things that you can bond for. The key is that most of those, I think all of them really are owned by the municipalities and operated and maintained by the municipalities. So that's something that would need to be figured out if a town was thinking about having someone other than a municipal entity, own or operate or run a community utility district or something like that. In addition, I just note that you'd need to convince not only this lifeboard the advantage of using general obligation bonds, but there is a vote of the town required to give this lifeboard permission to actually bond. So that's an additional step with respect to those kinds of financial instruments. We do believe that a broadband expansion loan program would be very helpful. Public Works projects, especially water and wastewater are funded with revolving loan funds. And so substantial shares, I would just note that substantial shares of those dollars come from federal sources. And we think part of any program to finance broadband expansion or a cell service expansion might be well served to look for federal dollars to apply to those kinds of projects. And I know that the Northern Quarters Regional Commission eligibility has been extended statewide now, and that might be a potential source for dollars for those kinds of projects at the local level. A source for... Building, planning. I think I'm not an expert in Northern Quarters regional commission, but they are providing some funding for wastewater treatment in Lisburg. They don't have provided funds, I think, from planning and other kinds of things. I think their criteria are pretty broad. And this is the first time it's been extended statewide, so we're pretty happy about that. And I don't have the dollar amount that's available. It's not in significant order. Yes. So are you suggesting that we kind of steer away from general obligation bonds? Well, so to tell the truth, yesterday I was thinking that. I'm not so convinced today, having looked at the kinds of things that have been funded with general obligation bonds. For instance, vehicles, fire trucks. You know, what's the useful life of a fire truck? It's not actually all that long. It's not 20 years. So I think it bears more discussion, I would say. And possibly, I know you had the municipal bank in here, but I don't know if they discussed the particular issue of general obligation bonds for these kinds of projects. I think they'd be better qualified to talk about it than me. The paragraph backed off my no-don't-do-that, that I was walking around with a few days ago. So just for the record, we do oppose Section 2 of the bill, which would make permanent exemptions from local review that's now enjoyed by telecommunication companies when they're trying to locate self-towers. We don't think the position is in any way counter to our need to provide coverage or self-coverage throughout the state, but there are towers proposed in places. They're not appropriate. And if you decide to pursue that section of the bill, I would really ask that you don't care from the town of Waterbury. They just run a case before the Public Utility Commission against Verizon and their proposal to put a tower on North Hill, which was a forest block very close to downtown Waterbury. What was the issue there? Well, it was a 93-foot tower and it was in a forest block and it was the forest block or the forest area was host to a wildlife quarter, a significant wildlife quarter. The Public Utility Commission, as I understand it, was pretty clear that they were being specific in talking about that particular parcel and didn't want that decision to be a precedent with respect to forest parcels generally. But the town of Waterbury did spend a pretty significant amount of money and quite a lot of time finding that particular proposal. And they would love to talk about it to you. Did or did not give them a significant public good? It did not. It did not, okay. But if the Sunset provisions of 248A but if the Sunset provisions were eliminated wouldn't somebody want to put up a tower still not have to go before the PUC? So how would that... So it's complicated because of the way it's written in the law but if the... Right now, a telecommunications company goes to the Public Utility Commission for their permit to put up a tower. We think it's appropriate that municipalities have a regulatory authority over that as well. And the fact that this Sunset provision has been extended I don't know six or seven times by now is because every time there's a proposal to do away with it local officials come in and fight about it. But again, I'm trying to understand what would be different about a particular case that you just cited. They would have had to go before the Waterbury Development New Board or Zoning Board, I think it's a Development New Board and Waterbury and they would have had to get a permit from that town of Waterbury. In addition to the PUC? Probably, yeah. If the provision had Sunset? No, so the... Yes, yes, I'm sorry. If the provision had Sunset. So if you make the provision permanent municipalities will have no... Except the PUC? Yes, I'm sorry. So you just clarify it. You would like to see that Sunset or not? I would like to see it. We would like the law to say that you have to go to the municipal board for a permit or a cell tower. As was the... So before, I mean I don't want to get tied up in this and make sure how likely it is to go forward but before that law was enacted if a municipality had a telecom ordinance any company that was proposing a facility in that community had to get a permit from that town. It was generally part of the Zoning By-law and not all towns had that provision by a long shot but some did. I also agree with I think a lot of your discussions that municipalities need technical assistance in order to plan, finance and implement community broadband projects and we think the... We think that... think Vermont Innovation Fund could help secure that assistance. We also think it would be very helpful to have staff who could at a state agency who could help towns work through issues that arise in the course of trying to plan the utility district and implement and build out broadband projects in their community. We think that the Agency of Commerce and Community Development might be a good place to lodge that kind of staff capacity because two reasons because they do have a history of helping municipalities through a variety of different programs and they also have spearhead economic development efforts in the state and so those two issues I think would naturally be entwined if they were in the same agency and that would probably be helpful to economic development efforts and to broadband employment efforts but that's just a suggestion. So I have a question that I was asked to ask you and it's the concept of the Communication Union Districts or the Reddys all of which are tied to a place. Yes. The concept and they are municipalities. Yes. The concept of a free-floating municipality. Right. Which it wouldn't be tied to a grand plus so it wouldn't have taxing authority. Right. But it would have democratically elected borrowers. So we've talked about that a little bit because I've been asked a lot about a virtual district and we wouldn't dismiss it out of hand but I think that there's a lot of pieces that we need to be resolved before you could actually do that. I do think that in conversations with local select board members that if there was that kind of a district and it applied to that municipality to people in that municipality that the select board would want to have some say in how the district works. I mean even if you think about I think all of our districts now we have about 20 different kinds of districts. They're all tied to geography but even if you think about something like a solid waste district where most almost all I would say of the administrative functions of that district are given away out of town and the district does it all there's still some representation on the board from those member municipalities and there is some capacity to vote up and down up or down on a budget that's being proposed by the district so I think there's some issues that need to be resolved. I'm thinking in terms of a communications union district we've been talking about the difficulties in standing up one of those and I think so what if it could be stood up and apply here and here and here rather than here. I guess the question is the question that concerns people is like who's in charge? What does this thing look like? No worries then. Good question. I think it's an interesting approach to throw on the table. I mean actually I'm not that familiar with co-ops but co-ops might be a similar model I don't know. Like they're not tied to a specific municipality. No, it's a consumer co-op it's owned by the consumers they're different co-ops that are owned by businesses and others as well. It's not usually not in its organizational structure that it still has a geographic limit although let's say a food co-op is obviously going to attract people from a geographic area but for the union it's going to attract people from the same place. We do think that it makes sense that the universal service leads to prepaid telecommunications and other kinds of telecommunications. We just do how to get care of them. We do think one of your bills is each 145 which would require retail sellers of prepaid wireless telecom services to collect the universal service charge and we think that would be helpful and the land lines are fewer and fewer I'd get reminded like that. So it already applies this just changes how it's collected instead of having each piece of it it would be the retail issue. But we do have a bill that's looking to increase the universal service by 2% to 2.5% That's H94 which would raise money to go into to support that also. I think that would be helpful. The question is where are you going to find the revenues to implement these broke standards? That's really the entire question. So that question where are we going to find the revenues and how we are working on proposals that largely say municipalities like here's an opportunity for you to have more control to finance some of this. That's right now where we're seeing. Right. Towns do assess fees for different purposes. You get a fee on your wastewater use you get all kinds of things stormwater management fees in a bunch of towns. There are a lot of models out there. But the geo bond question which seems like it's kind of central to this proposal I don't know if you've heard from Paul Giuliani who would completely he would say no it's not a good idea but he does he is the person that's done more municipal bonding than almost anybody else in the state and so I think he would have a really good fix on the details of what might be involved. Paul's going to testify next week as is I'm not sure what's going to be the state treasurer but we're going to hear from him as well and we heard from the bond bank yesterday and they certainly raised actually I would say the testimony with reference to afar on this reservations have been raised not don't do this but hear the potholes you've got to be careful as you're navigating the records and I think one of the things that have been raised is you know a concern and this is directly to your point I think a concern in making sure that municipalities individual municipalities I'm not talking about a CUD but individual municipalities can retain the power to if they don't want to be part of something that is geo-bonding they have the ability to step away from that and then I would say some of the other things we've heard this outside of this formal setting is a circumstance that has moved forward in New Hampshire that we'd like to know which is an instance where an individual municipality is working side-by-side with a private entity using geo-bonding to support infrastructure built up in the future we don't know enough about that case study yet but we're eager to learn so we do we do have a proposal and it's got a bill number now H241 in the House that would set up a pilot program for municipalities could apply to a board for a self-governance authority and it's a 10-year pilot program that's the way it's written in the bill it's based on the West Virginia model that's proven to be quite successful in that state just like outside of Dillon yeah or actually within the confines of Dillon because that's apparently constitutional whatever so if a municipality were to acquire that self-governance authority under the the edges of the board they could then ask for authority for geo-bonding for those kinds of things they could come up with new ideas that we haven't thought of yet for deploying broadband and be able to do it without having to come back and seek permission from the legislature so in some ways and in a lot of arenas that we really might not think about it would unlock potential for municipalities to you know move the ball down the field on a lot of these issues the experimental phase yeah, it was a 10-year pilot so I had four towns who were interested in being one of those pilot towns yeah, we were getting quite a few that were meant to do it probably about 200 no, really not it's interesting that some towns don't want to be first a lot of towns don't want to be first so any other questions for Karen? so please stay in touch with us particularly next two weeks the geo-bonding thing is something that we're going to I think work pretty hard on figuring out trying to figure out that question and I think that's very relevant to your who you represent yes, absolutely, thank you