 We have bill number 289. Great, yes. Maria Royal with legislative counsel. And we are looking at a draft strike all amendment to S289. It's draft 2.0, dated yesterday. And hopefully this incorporates some of the issues that came up last week in the committee's discussion on the net neutrality bill. I'll give you kind of at first just a broad overview of what's in here, a findings section, which reworks the findings to be a little bit more tailored to the proposals in this bill, the specific substantive proposals. Also addresses some of the issues on the findings that you raised. We talked about last week, some tweaks and so on. Then it has a certification process whereby providers can certify compliance with net neutrality. And that certification would be required for government contracts, state contracts. So that proposal is there, as well as the attorney general's disclosure proposal. And we'll go through all of this. And then finally, a report by the AG's office in consultation with Department of Public Service on net neutrality issues generally, a report back to the legislature. So those are the big topics. And we'll just start going through, I think I tried to highlight in yellow where there were changes. And we can talk about them. So for example, the first three findings, there were no changes there. The fourth finding, you'll recall that that lead in language said more than 20 years ago, the FCC, et cetera. And you wanted just to specifically reference the date. So that was the change, the only change in that finding number four. Similarly, in finding number five, the original language said most Vermonters do not have. I think based on the discussion, you were, at least for the time being, I wanted to simply say many Vermonters because you hadn't been prepared to quantify at that time how many Vermonters. Then in section eight, there were questions about the language, the specific kind of terms of art used in the telecommunications industry, specifically the light touch versus utility style. So what I did is to clarify, I left eight alone for now. You can, of course, change it however you want. But then in finding nine, I took a quote directly from the most recent order, which kind of sheds light on their approach and the use of those terms and just directly quoted and cited it. That's a new finding in number nine. So as explained by the FCC, we reversed the commission's abrupt shift two years ago to heavy-handed utility style regulation of broadband internet access service and returned to the light touch framework under which a free and open internet underwent rapid and unprecedented growth for almost two decades. We eliminate burdensome regulation that stifles innovation and deters investment and empower Americans to choose the broadband internet access service that best fits their need. So again, that's just a statement of the shift in policy. And then you can see the language that's used pretty consistently throughout all of the FCC's orders. Then in finding number 10, the original kind of lead-in language, which I think you had some concerns about. I can just get there. Oh, OK. It was finding number nine. But this was the finding that said many analysts have questioned whether the new policy of non-regulation will achieve the results intended. So I think there was concern about, well, who, what analyst, et cetera. So for now, I just put lead-in language that says, and this would be a finding by the General Assembly, it is not likely the FCC's regulatory approach will achieve the intended results in Vermont. And then the rest of that is the same. Policy does little if anything to overcome financial challenges of bringing broadband to hard-to-reach locations. Then I added, for your consideration, because these are the two kind of competing economic theories. One, unfettered growth or unregulated internet service will lead to greater broadband investment and deployment. That's the most recent approach adopted by the FCC. In terms of the prior kind of economic theory that supported the 2015 net neutrality rules, that approach has come to be known as what's called the virtuous circle of innovation. And so I did two things, one referenced that that is the economic theory advanced by the FCC in 2010, the virtuous circle of innovation seems more relevant to the market conditions in Vermont. And then in terms of what that theory is, and for you to decide as a policy matter, as explained in the FCC's 2010 order, the internet's openness enables a virtuous circle of innovation in which new uses of the network, including new content, application services, and devices, lead to increased end-user demand for broadband, which drives network improvements, which in turn lead to further innovative network uses. Novel-improved or lower-cost offerings introduced by content, application service, and device providers spur end-user demand and encourage broadband providers to expand their networks and invest in new broadband technologies. So that was the economic theory that kind of underpinned the original 2015 net neutrality rules, actually the 2010, the very original net neutrality rules, and that was upheld by the federal court of appeals. So those are the two kind of competing policies. In terms of an additional finding added in 2013, as affirmed by the FCC five years later, 2015, the key insight of the virtuous cycle is that broadband providers have both the incentive and the ability to act as gatekeepers, standing between edge providers and consumers. As gatekeepers, they can block access altogether. They can target competitors, including competitors in their own video services, and they can extract unfair tolls. The next finding is the FCC made several attempts before 2015. 2010 issued an order that was struck down by the courts, and then they came back. That's when they reclassified internet service as a telecommunication service. And by doing that, they had greater authority, and that's when they issued the 2015 rule. So there were attempts before then, but the two big orders were the 2010 attempt struck down and then the 2015 order, which has been upheld on appeal. That's the Verizon case, which, however, has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court. So that legal issue is actually still pending as well. So let's see. I think we went through 14 and 15 particular you wanted to hold for now. And I realize some of these might change based on where you ultimately decide to go in the draft. The particular issue in 16, for example, I changed because I think the original language said that the state should enact bright line rules. You're not under this proposal, you're not doing that. You are requiring adherence to the rules in certain circumstances. So you may want to rework that, depending on what actually you'd like the state to do. Then yes? When you said bright line rules, does rules have the meaning of rulemaking there? Well, it's a reference to the rules in the 2015 order there specifically. And I think I did try, as much as possible, try to cite and clarify that those are the specific rules that you've been talking about. So under the order, the 2015 order, there were the three rules, no blocking, no throttling, no pay prioritization. Then there was kind of what's known as the general conduct rule, which was no unreasonable interference or unreasonable or disadvantageing, kind of a very broad, safe, all provision. And then the fifth kind of rule was the disclosure requirement that you have to notify consumers what your practices are. So the bright line rules are the previous FCC rules? Yes, yes. Those were the 2015 net neutrality rules. So the require is actually problematic? It's said enact before, and the question is, do you want to, if you're going to require adherence for purposes of a government contract, maybe just clarifying that you're not requiring. That sounds like probably something we should do. Yeah, seems where you're going, but I didn't want to. Because it's not where the rest of the bill is. So I think we would want to just gather that piece if we keep that in there. Yeah, again, if you even want to keep it. If we keep the contract in the piece in there. Yeah. So then some of the findings that follow, and we can go through them starting on 17, kind of address the legal issues, the legal analysis. In this instance, for example, if you do government contracts, the reason why that might not be preempted is because it falls kind of within the doctrine known as the market participant doctrine, where the state is acting as a consumer, not a regulator, and purchasing a service. And in those instances, the states have been held to be shielded from any preemption, commerce clause preemption. But we'll start reading through those now and make sure they make sense and are consistent with what you like. So in 17, in its most recent order, the FCC preempt states from enacting local net neutrality rules. However, it is not clear that the FCC has such preemption authority. This is one of several legal issues raised in a consolidated lawsuit pending in the United States District Court of Appeals. So that's the lawsuit that the Vermont Attorney General, 21 other state attorney generals, have joined in as well as other groups, trade groups and nonprofit groups, et cetera. And finding 18 in the restoring internet freedom order, the FCC indicates its intention to restore the Federal Trade Commission as the federal regulatory entity with oversight and enforcement authority over broadband internet access service. Again, to start beginning to clarify that this is becoming more of a consumer protection issue to be regulated through the antitrust laws or the Consumer Protection Act, that that's sort of the new regime that's being established now. So to further clarify what that means in finding 19, as explained by the FCC, in the unlikely event that ISPs engage in conduct that harms internet openness, we find that utility-style regulation is unnecessary to address such conduct. Other legal regimes, particularly antitrust law and the FTC's authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to prohibit unfair and deceptive practices provide protections to consumers. So the Attorney General enforces the antitrust laws in the state under the Consumer Protection Act. The FTC does it similar at the federal level. So then, and again, these findings are still for your consideration, but to the extent there still may be preemption issues, and there probably are with almost anything that you do, but less so, depending on the approach that you take. This finding 20 specifies that the consumer protection and net neutrality requirements put forward in this act do not conflict with the FCC's policy of non-regulation. The FCC has chosen to deregulate broadband internet access service to promote broadband investment and deployment. As previously stated, a non-regulation policy is unlikely to advance those goals in Vermont, whereas the state standards proposed in this act will simultaneously protect consumers from unfair and anti-competitive business practices, promote innovation and internet usage, and consistent with the FCC's policy objectives, likely promote broadband investment and deployment in our state. 21, the proposals in this act represent state efforts to address the issue of internet openness in a manner that is consistent with the FCC's preemption of local net neutrality rules. For example, and this is when we get into the whole market participant doctrine, and the state's traditional police powers, finding 22, the requirement that ISPs certify compliance with consumer protection and net neutrality standards in order to obtain a government contract for broadband internet access service falls within the market participant exception to a dormant commerce clause challenge. And then citing the Vermont Supreme Court for what that doctrine stands for in finding 23 is explained by the Vermont Supreme Court when, acting as a market participant, the government should enjoy the unrestricted power to determine those with whom it will deal with respect to government contracts, specifically the court-held procurement laws are for the benefit of the state, not prospective bidders. And therefore, no one has a right to sell to the government that which the government does not wish to buy. So again, when the state is acting as a consumer in the marketplace, not as a regulator, it's given. It's a good sign to round the clock. Yeah. And then with respect to the AG disclosure requirement and finding 24 with respect to the mandated disclosure required by this act wherein an ISP must report to the state whether it is or is not in compliance with net neutrality standards, this requirement and the transparency it affords is a reasonable exercise of the state's traditional police powers. And such disclosures will support the state's efforts to monitor consumer protection and economic factors in Vermont, particularly with regard to competition, business practices, and consumer choice. And then finding 25, a proposal from proposed finding from the Attorney General's office. I think you had wanted to reference the number of Vermonters who commented during the rulemaking process at the federal level. Net neutrality is clearly an important topic for many Vermonters. Nearly 50,000 comments were submitted to the FCC during the rulemaking process regarding the restoring internet freedom order. Thus, transparency with respect to the network management practices of ISPs doing business in Vermont will likely be of great interest to many Vermonters going forward. And then 26 is similar to the last finding that you had in age 860. In short, Vermont, more so than the FCC, is in the best position to decide for itself what the needs of its constituencies are and what policies best serve the public interest. Internet consumer protection and net neutrality standards are needed in Vermont. Any incidental burden on interstate commerce that results from the requirements of this act is far outweighed by the compelling interest the state is advancing here. Were there any other bindings that you wanted to include? And is there anything in here that you want to rework or take out? Have you seen the attorney generals or the tech type of attorney generals? You've got some. I just have some thoughts I'll share with the committee. Right. That's for you all. Would this be a good time to do that? To look at the two? Well, I don't have anything drafted or proposed for you. But I'm wondering who let your legislative counsel work you through the rest of the day, and I'll testify. One. Of course, the committee and the legislature works by majority. I don't. I think we had in a previous version of this that some analysts think that this is going to inhibit the deployment of broadband. And I'm not convinced myself as a minority here that the state jumping in here is going to promote innovation and create more broadband deployment in the state. But it's a hard decision. The vendors are telling us that they would more likely back off, and we're saying the opposite. So that's my take on that one. That they would more likely back off? We're going to start regulating and heavily. That's the take up that I heard from various vendors. So obviously, the general assembly can find whatever they want by a majority. I'm not convinced that that's an accurate state. So your objection is to the use of some analysts think? Well, no. I mean, it would bait more sense. So I would think that some analysts can think whatever they want. But if I'm the general assembly, I'm not signing up to that as in the general assembly. The general assembly finds things by majority. So I'm just saying that statement number 10 is problematic to me as a person that's in the general assembly. Go ahead. I could be in the minority again. If we are moving towards transparency of procurement also as opposed to consumer protection. So 680 was consumer protection. I would say it's all consumer protection. But the transparency is not just for state contracts. For state contracts, you actually have to comply with net neutrality. Right. So we have that aspect, which is centered around just our rights for procurement. States rights, yep. S289 has passed the Senate. And then we're talking about the obligations that currently exist around transparency and public disclosure. There are disclosure requirements, yes, under the 2017 order. You have the AG's office has proposed an additional disclosure requirement to the state on whether or not you're complying with net neutrality standards in the 2015 order. Whether you continue to, even though you don't have to, legally, because that order has been, it's all subject to litigation, but repeals going forward. The disclosure is whether or not you're continuing to adhere to those net neutrality rules or not, whether or not. It's not a requirement. And so the piece is in 680. We are talking about setting aside, have to do with really the build out, accessing our, it's really all of those are accessing the build out of our networks here in Vermont, like being able to build in Vermont. Right. I mean, all of them have to do with permitting, right? So whether or not you're able to do this. Grants, or there are several proposals, right? I'm just trying to think about the, when we're thinking about these findings, if you know what it is that you're actually going to end up doing. So if we pull those out, if we pull those out and we limit what we're talking about to just wearing public disclosures, notification of public disclosure, whatever it is, and the procurement, then we. Right, and I did think. And so then does 10. I'm still really struck by the rationale that FCC put out, which is that this is needed to build out. So it makes, you know. Let's go through to the end, like we were doing, and sort of get a feel for the overalls, I think. OK. So going on to Section 2, and this is largely the version that the Senate sent over to you in S-289 with some tweets, which I'll explain that are highlighted in yellow, but just as a refresher, this is the Secretary of Administration coming up with the process whereby a provider can certify that it does comply with net neutrality rules. And that certification would be required for any government contract. So this is just the process and an articulation of what the rules are. Thank you. Question asked last week, and I think I also, I believe I asked you, and I think I asked Clay as well, whether regulatory agreements are state contracts, like for citing a tower, is that a state contract? So this is Clay Purpose for the record. No, that's a regulatory permit, so it's not a contract. Contract and state government would be the state purchasing products or services for use by state government. Permits that a woman receives under Title 30, such as 248A, those are regulatory permission to proceed on, so that's the distinction. So a contract is not all agreements. For our purposes, all agreements are not contracts. It has to be a purchase of those into a service. I wouldn't consider a permit under 248A to be an agreement or a contract that is in order of the Public Utility Commission. They have a statutory obligation to take petitions and hear cases under 248A. And if the petitioner has met the requirements of the statute and the board makes the findings, that those requirements have been met, they're obligated to issue the permit. So it's not an agreement. It's a contract that is in order of the board granting a certificate of public good. Do you want to go through this word by word? How what's your what makes sense? Probably the permit for abortions, we should at least. What's that? I'm sorry? The permit for abortions, I think we should. OK. OK. This is from 680. Yes? No. 680 and 289 had very similar proposals. 289 is only government contracts. This is essentially that language with some tweaks, which I'll go over, that you had a very similar government contracts proposal as one of your many proposals in age 680. So it will look similar. In your House proposed language, for example, though, you had the Public Utility Commission adopting by rule, right? So there are some distinctions. But you also went a very different, took a very different regulatory approach. Since this is limited to government contracts, it's within the Secretary of Administration's purview, arguably. But so it will look, we've been through a lot of this, and it will look very familiar. The tweaks that I did make really were to true this up with the 2015 order, with how those rules are described, the exceptions to those rules. And then I'll get to it in a minute, but added provision that references the 2015 order and all of the regulations and advisory opinions that have been issued interpreting what the rules mean. So I think that will make more sense to you as we get there. But just as a refresher, that the providers to get a certification does not engage in any of the following practices in Vermont. Blocking, lawful content, subject to reasonable network management. I think in the Senate language, it said subject to reasonable network management practices disclosed to consumers. Solely for the purpose of keeping the language very consistent with the 2015 rules, I changed the language to just subject to reasonable network management. You'll see that down in subdivision two, the disclosure under the rule, the disclosure is made to consumers. So all of these rules, all these practices go to consumers. There's no substantive change here. Again, it's just to be consistent with the federal rules. Similar change in subdivision B with respect to the throttling provision, subdivision C is the paid prioritization, which has the waiver provision and subsection C, which we'll look at. Subdivision D, this is the general standard conduct, the no unreasonable interference. I highlighted that whole section because in the Senate language, it didn't actually include the exemption for reasonable network management. I don't think that was intentional. I think the purpose, in general, has always been to be consistent. So just, again, making it as just reasonable mean something. There's a definition, reasonable network management. So then you'll see, so all the definitions have remained the same, I believe, all consistent with the federal definitions of these terms. What's new is this subsection E, and we'll just read through it once. It is the intent of the General Assembly in enacting this section to incorporate into statute certain provisions of the FCC's 2015 open internet order. I won't read the rest. The terms and requirements of this section shall be interpreted broadly and any exceptions interpreted narrowly using the 2015 open internet order and relevant FCC advisory opinions, rulings, and regulations as persuasive guidance. So it's supposed to be order on remand or demand. I'm sorry? On line 13. Line 13. Report and order on. I believe so. But I'll double check. Make sure that's right. So in terms of the terms being interpreted broadly, exceptions interpreted narrowly, that's just one of the general canons of statutory construction that the Vermont Supreme Court and other courts and other jurisdictions have applied to consumer protection provisions. But maybe more importantly, for this issue here, referencing all of the FCC's advisory opinions and regulations to the extent that they clarify or shed light on how these terms are interpreted, that could be helpful. Because you know that there are a lot of technical issues, what is throttling, what does that mean specifically, how do you? And the order, this is 400 pages of the 2015 order. The actual rules are on five pages. But there's a lot of explanation, not just of legal issues, but what the intention is behind the use of these terms. So that's why it's there, maybe helpful going forward. So then this next several provisions, I think we've been over them. You're already familiar in terms of who needs to certify. Again, it's for government contracts. So section three is just a requirement that under administrative bulletin 3.5, that's just the general bulletin on state procurement contracts, that that be amended to include terms requiring that ISP certify that they're compliant. So if you go through the procurement process administrative bulletin 3.5, as part of that process, you have to certify compliance with net neutrality rules. Section four is also related to the executive branch agency of digital services as part of their many responsibilities to ensure that state government contracts for broadband service contains terms and conditions requiring providers to certify compliance. Then section five, this is the same requirement for any internet service contracts for the legislative branch and section six, contracts for the judicial branch. So all three branches of government. And again, that's the Senate passed language, including section seven, which is an application, specifying that these requirements would apply to all government contracts entered into a renewed honor after July 1st of this year. So very almost identical to the Senate language. So then section eight is the AG's disclosure requirement. I did not, I don't believe I made any substantive changes based on to the language that you reviewed last week. There was still the issue that the AG raised about what governmental entity, the Attorney General's Office or the Department of Public Service, should be responsible for posting the disclosures. Again, this is the disclosure of whether or not you're complying. So that's just something that's still out there to be determined. But otherwise, that provision has remained the same. What's new to the draft is section nine, which is the study. So we'll go through that since you haven't seen it. We'll go through pretty quickly. Honor before December 15th, the Attorney General consultation with the Commissioner of Public Service and with input from industry and consumer stakeholders shall submit findings and recommendations in the form of a report or draft legislation to the relevant committees of jurisdiction reflecting whether and to what extent the state should enact net neutrality rules applicable to internet service providers offering broadband in Vermont. Among other things the Attorney General shall consider, one, the extent to which Vermont is preempted from enacting net neutrality rules, particularly with respect to proposals in H860, two, the status of litigation concerning implementation of the recent order as well as the 2015 order, three, the scope and status of net neutrality rules proposed or enacted in other jurisdictions, four, methods four and recommendations pertaining to the enforcement of net neutrality requirements, five, methods four and recommendations pertaining to tracking broadband investment and deployment in Vermont and otherwise monitoring market conditions in the state, six proposed courses of action that balance the benefits to society that the communications industry brings with actual and potential harms the industry may pose to consumers and then any other factors. Does that seem consistent with the information that you were at least hoping to get back in a report or is there anything else that you wanted to include? It's got the answers I think we'll realize. So on page eight. Yes. So does not engage and for that number one, is that subsection one under B subsection one. The means for that will be determined by the secretary of administration, right? Okay. So demonstrates. So that could be, you don't do it like just check the box. This is, we do, we abide by net neutrality. This certification is required for a government contract. It's separate from a disclosure requirement on whether or not you adhere. And so, so does this require and does the governor's order require some sort of technical demonstration or what is, this is different than just subsertification, right? It leaves it open. The secretary shall develop a process by which the company certifies. So how they do that and what satisfies that process is left a little bit open. The secretary in subsection B, it specifies that a certificate shall be granted to an internet service provider that demonstrates and the secretary finds that the provider, so far as they are providing service in Vermont, does not engage in. So how that is determined, it may be a statement. It may be here are our practices that were required to disclose already under the 2017 order. You know, I think you're getting a questions of how will they know? How will they enforce? Maybe I don't know the answer to those questions. And this isn't so prescriptive as to say this is what you need to submit. And so for this piece, this has to do with contracting, the ability to contract with the state. And so, which we have the right to regulate. We know again. Nobody can make us buy something. Correct. It's a pretty well established exception to a commerce clause challenge when the state is acting as a consumer. It's not limitless authority and there can be situations where you end up regulating a market by your requirements. But that's, I don't think that that would necessarily apply here. So the minimum requirement of the secretary of administration really here is some means for the provider to serve. Yeah, and we can, I can look at quickly the executive order, the language used there. So this, the executive order says that following direct to all state agencies, all agencies that contract with providers shall include net neutrality protections, specifically no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization. As soon as practical, the agency of administration shall amend the state's procurement and contracting procedures, which is that bulletin 3.5. As necessary and appropriate to comply with this directive, each state agency that procures telecom services shall cooperate with the agency of administration and BGS in implementing this order. State agencies must receive approval from the agency of digital services and the secretary of administration before procuring internet services. So that's pretty much a requirement, but it doesn't specify anything beyond that. So it's the FCC's position that we can't do anything. It's established law that we can, that no one can make us buy something. And so... The FCC has issued a very broad preemption of state attempts to implement local net neutrality rules. There is a pretty well-established market participant doctrine where states, unless Congress has specifically said, spoken to the issue, which Congress has not in this instance, that when states are not regulating commerce, whether it's interstate or interstate commerce, but they're simply buying goods and services like any other consumer they can choose, like any other consumer who they want to do business with. So every consumer under the 2017 order has the right to decide whether or not to have a contract with this provider, broadband provider or this provider. Assuming they have a choice, this one does not comply with net neutrality, I'm gonna go with this one. I mean, that's the basic premise, is that it's informed consumer choice. So this would be a similar argument that the state, for purposes of buying internet service for its employees or in public buildings, can make a similar choice like any other consumer about who they want to, with whom they want to do business. It's not limitless, but I don't think it runs afoul of the preemption version. So one of the differences between the executive order and this is that, here we're saying the secretary has to find that the internet service provider is compliant. The word finds is rather open-ended, but I mean, there isn't anything that says how the secretary is gonna make that determination. Right. It is pretty open. So it could be bigger or something. Right. And I don't know, obviously this order went into effect. So the secretary I'm sure could speak to how they intend to implement the executive order and what they're gonna be requiring and so on. I just, I don't know. But this is consistent with the executive order, I think. It is consistent with it. The executive order does have a waiver provision. Wavors to these procedures may be granted by the secretary upon receipt of a written justification from a state agency and a finding by the secretary that a waiver would serve a legitimate and significant interest for the significant interest of the state. The Senate S-289 language doesn't have a similar waiver provision. So the internet service provider, the ISP certifying that it's compliant is different than disclosure of practices, although those could be included in the certification process, is that correct? Say that again. Those disclosure of practices could be part of the certification process. Well, there is a disclosure requirement that is already required under the 2015 order. So they, all providers have to disclose to consumers accurate information on their net neutrality. So there is. So that has to happen. That's part of getting certified. Yep, that is considered one of the five 2015 rules. And so the power of this is in informing consumers. Of the disclosure requirement? Of the certification, the compliance so that consumers can make an informed decision. What's that? Oops. Accurate? Possibly. The requirement on certification is just for government contracts. So. Okay, so the disclosure is everybody. The disclosure is for? Every provider providing broadband service in Vermont would need to disclose to a state agency, whether it's the AG's office or public service, whether or not they adhere to net neutrality rules. That's the public disclosure that's proposed by the AG's office. The certification is you must certify that you comply with net neutrality and that certification is necessary if you want a government contract. So the certificate is not a good housekeeping seal of approval. Well, it's only required of, the certificate of compliance is only required for providers who want government contracts. So it's company and I don't know if there are any ISPs that don't have state contracts. Still has to disclose but they won't necessarily have a certification of compliance. Right. So if they don't want a government contract, you don't want to do business with state and they don't want to comply with net neutrality rules, there's no certification requirement. There is a disclosure requirement. You have to disclose to the AG's office, Department of Public Service, who then will make that information available on a publicly accessible website. So presumably a consumer can go online, pull up a website, look at all the providers in the state and just see how this company adheres to net neutrality. This one doesn't. And is that adherence or not easily understandable language? I mean, is it a yes or no check or is it pages of fine print for consumers to wait through? That would depend. So the way this is drafted, it says the disclosure shall be in a form and manner prescribed by the Attorney General. So presumably they would come up with a way that is consumer friendly. Have we done it all about, who's going to sign this and when they sign it? And where I'm coming from with the question is. Sign what? The page had it where the commission will find. The secretary? Secretary. Develops a process. Yes. Excuse me, they'll be looking at, where is that? Can you help me? Sure, that's on page eight. Yep, so the secretary comes up with the process and this would apply to all contracts beginning July 1st. I'm trying to get a feel for this. How many contracts that will be out in the world will be? I really don't know. You would ask the secretary? This, okay, because we'll have to figure out who the signer would be, because signers is going to be a very limited number of their ISBs, if on the other hand they're... You mean signing for the state? There wasn't no signing for it. Oh, it's ISB, the museum's right there. You don't have the service provider that demonstrates and the secretary finds I suppose two things bring you into insuppliers that providers engage in the provision of broadband internet access service that they do not engage in at the following practices in Vermont and then it'll end your way through E. All right, so... I was just trying to put it, if it's not ISBs, they're a relatively limited number of ISBs. Yes, and the secretary of digital services can better explain how many internet contracts they enter into with how many different providers in the state and... You're asking who's going to sign the certification? Well, who the parties are going to be to it and I didn't care for the purpose of that. We're so much as not just trying to get a sense on size. Can we get ADS to give us the list of whose contracts are for the state? Oh, he's not here. Yeah, oh yeah. So we know how many contractors... I don't know the answer to that. Can we get them to give us the answer? What, what, what, what, what, what, what sections? So we know how many ISBs you're talking about in terms of the state contracting, if it's all of them or one of them or... Well, we didn't get to it yet, but how many breaches of government would this apply to? Under this proposal, it's all three branches of government. So any legislative contracts, you can hear from our legislative IT person about contracts. To the extent that whatever entity's right now contract for internet service. Okay, but that defines it in the internet. Yeah, that's going along. Yeah. Is he coming in? He's going to put it along. And he may actually do the legislative contract as well and the judicial contract. I don't know. Let's get Chris up. I got one last question. Please. So the executive order, that's in effect right now. I believe so. As soon as practical, but in no event later than April 1st, the agency shall amend. So my real question is, is there a bit of legal challenge to it? I'm not aware. We're a participator. I'm not aware of anything yet. Glad you're looking for it. I'm seeing if anyone, the administration might be able to answer that question. Sorry to. Warren has a question. We don't know who did get it. I'm sure we'll look for it, too. Whether the executive order is in effect. Whether there's been any litigation. No, not that I'm aware of. Not yet. Of course, it's been in effect for two days. Just another question. Does the executive order apply to new contracts or does it apply to contracts and companies? Let's see how long the language is. I have an application section. It takes effect April 1st. That's when the bulletin is amended. This directive, I don't know that they specify beyond that. So the short answer is I'm not sure that they have an application. So I guess if your contract is not being renewed for some period of time, not sure whether you'd have to comply before then. I don't know. They might have that, that might be part of their policy and have an application. Or maybe I just haven't seen it yet. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, for record, Christopher Curtis, Chief of Public Protection at the Office of the Attorney General. Just generally speaking, I think what you have before you, accomplishes what you have tasked your council with doing, which is setting out some very strong findings and then three primary actions. One is disclosure to consumers and policy makers. One is procurement policy and one is a working group or task force to continue to keep you and the other members of the body apprised of developments in this rapidly changing area. So with that said, I want to just, with respect to the findings, I think they're very strong and I think they set out the rationale and frankly the balance that you're attempting to strike here. I may have some feedback for your council about ordering because I always find that it's actually stronger to set out the essentially the state's role, the state's priority. There's a lot in here that starts out with the FCC order, either of 2017 or the FCC order of 2015. Surely it's really for your committee to decide how you want to do that. I might structure it frankly as more of a state's rights or state's interest provision first, setting out the consumer protection rationale for why you're doing what you're doing. Those elements are all in here though. So it's more a question of how you want to structure those findings. But in terms of making an impact and showing Vermonters right up front why you're doing what you're doing, I think leading with those consumer protection, the traditional police powers of the state that allow you to act in this area, I find that to be a nice way to proceed. But again, truly your election, I can talk some with your council about that if you'd like, but that's at your discretion. Make it so. Certainly happy and happy to do that. Would you say make it so? Make it so. With respect to, I did have a couple of comments with respect to the parts of the bill with the attorney general's office specifically. This is the working group or task force provision. That's near the end. Specifically with respect to the state, I think that instead of limiting, or I know that this is actually page 14 where you're setting out, among other things, the attorney general shall consider for purposes of reporting back to you. I would go much broader and just have the language around federal and state landscapes essentially consistent. So I can provide this to your legislative council, but I would just simply say the scope and status of federal law related to net neutrality and ISP regulation. That's the whole ambit. Right here, you simply say the extent to which Vermont is preempted, but to the extent that you're interested in commerce clause issues, the whole range of other potential issues and discussions that may or may not be happening at the federal level, I wouldn't wanna narrow this. And then consistent with that, you already have that in the state section. So you make the mirror images, the scope and status of net neutrality rules, and ISP regulation, proposed or enacted in other jurisdictions, meaning presumably the states. So just make those consistent so there's broad as possible so we can really do the deep dive that you are asking us to do. Methods, foreign recommendations pertaining to tracking, broadband investment and deployment in Vermont, that seems to me it's more directly related to DPS, but because we will consult with DPS, of course. That's just a little outside of our traditional area of expertise. So I don't know if you need to reflect that specifically. It's kind of upfront that we'll consult with them, but I just wanna make the point that that's probably that kind of economic analysis in terms of the regulatory landscape in the state would probably more fall into the purview of DPS. So I just flagged that. What page does that show? That's the same page, it's recommendation number five. What line? Lines, on my copy it's 17, but I'm hearing other people say 15. Oh, it's page 15, that's what you asked, what page? Oh, okay. Yeah, I have draft 2.0 on this date, but for some reason my numbers and pages are not matching up. Is it page 15, line 11? So there we go. Yeah, methods for and recommendations pertaining to tracking. So, Mr. Chair, I got a question on that. Could this get into proprietary information? I mean, do companies generally tell the state how much money they're spending on stuff? That's a great question. I think one of the things that it might be useful is that kind of thing can actually invite stakeholder participation and discussion and to the extent that there's proprietary limitations on what they'll share that certainly make us aware of that, but it might be a good way to just get folks around the table to start having the discussion. What does this look like in Vermont? What's the future gonna be? What do you anticipate? How all of this is gonna sort of unfold and transpire? And those are conversations that we haven't had with industry before. I don't know if DPS is or is not. Typically when we do a working group or we're tasked with coming up with recommendations, we do stakeholder involvement. And that includes the general public and includes everybody that would have a stake in the outcome. So to the extent that you're asking us to look at that, we can certainly do that and we would wanna do that in partnership with our sister state agency and of course anybody that wants to be involved in those discussions or give feedback, we can. And to the extent that there are limitations, I'm sure they'll make us aware of that. So that's a good question. Aspirational perhaps. Well yeah, but it may be that folks are willing to share in very general terms what the opportunities are. What are the challenges? To the extent that there are limitations in a rural state like Vermont that has a limited population, sort of what are the obstacles? It might help things work better. All that kind of thing. I think that to the extent that there's a question around the certification, that's really a question for the secretary to ask. I think my view on that is you probably want to give the administration some flexibility to determine how they make that determination and issue a certificate of some kind. But again, the key aspect of all of this is there are two ways to look at it. What is the state requiring of an entity in order to gain access to the state contracts? The other way to look at it, and I think the proper way to look at it is frankly, it's the state putting a requirement essentially on itself that it's not going to enter into contracts. And this gets to the testimony heard from your council that basically said it's the state acting as a consumer itself making a determination about with whom it will enter into a contract. So the way it's written here, it almost appears that, this is some kind of a requirement for the commercial actors, but really it's a requirement for the state. It's information that the state will use to make an assessment of whether or not it will enter into a contract with a commercial entity. So I think you're on solid ground there vis-a-vis procurement policy, and that's reflected in some of the other iterations, whether the executive order or the senate bill has passed. I would note that this is less burdensome frankly. I think one of the versions that was passed originally actually required a contractual term so that there would be a contractual term that this was all set out in a contract with the state. In this case it actually provides a secretary with the language that's before you, provides a secretary with a way to just make that determination, then the certification issues, and then there would be the standard procurement policy. There's nothing in here that says what happens if an ISP gets a certification and then falls on compliance, correct? Falls out of compliance. So say more about what you mean by that. So they get the contract to state, and then at some point down the road they say this isn't working for us, we're gonna change our policies a bit. So that's an interesting point. One question I guess for your committee to determine would be do you want to put in some kind of a mechanism whereby if an entity, if an ISP changes its policy, it would be required to give notice to the state to that effect. Now you have essentially an annual disclosure requirement so theoretically what would happen is if somebody six months into either a contract with the state or theoretically they've also disclosed to the public that's been posted to a website that they're complying with net neutrality standards if they wanted to change that. They presumably could give notice to DPS or our office whoever the agency is at any time just like any other notice that the state receives. Providers can, while there might be an annual notice requirement, typically a commercial entity can always file a new notice as supersedes the prior notice. If you want to make that explicit you certainly could. With respect to the certification that is a different question. That might be a question you want to pose to the administration. If it's going to be issuing a certificate of some kind how would they get notice that somehow the certification might be affected? If somebody intentionally, if they change their policy and they don't provide any notice whatsoever or they're willfully sort of obscuring that then theoretically you have a consumer protection act violation because that would be an unfair or deceptive act that they're representing that they're abiding by certain principles and they have a theoretically in the example you referenced they have a contract with the state they also have a disclosure with the state in another agency. And so if then they are kind of hiding that that change or essentially misrepresenting that fact that would be a consumer protection act violation. But we can also put something in there that if they do change their policy with respect to net neutrality they would be required to file those changes and the secretary of administration or whoever's doing it would have the option of reviewing the terms of the contract. Yes, and I think so in this, the bill before you already, of course there is the waiver provisions so theoretically that would then allow the secretary to say we need more time to find another provider if we're gonna elect to do that. And so therefore if they're gonna change their operations to ensure that there's no blackout or loss of service in the interests of Vermonters they could theoretically extend that but you could introduce and notice provision for change of circumstances, for example. You don't have a waiver on this right? You don't have a general waiver. We have a waiver for pay parentization that's consistent with the 2008. So that would be a new element that you would need to ask your counsel to draft. The state, choose to do business with a company that's not in compliance. My understanding under this, the procurement policy of the state would be that they would not enter into those agreements. There's a requirement that the commercial actor with whom they're doing business is certified net neutral. What the bill doesn't do, this before you is require every commercial actor to be net neutral. It's up to the state to make that determination and then issue certification to those who are and then it could enter into contracts with those providers. The state has a waiver paragraph. Executive order. Executive order. Executive order. Has a waiver paragraph. Has a waiver paragraph. What the bill before you has is a waiver of the paid prioritization. So again, I think how broad or how narrow you want to craft a waiver provision is. Which page is that on? It's a policy determination. I see I wasn't here to make. Marie, do you know what page that is on? Which one specifically? Waiver. The waiver provisions and paid prioritization. Page 10 I think, okay, thanks. I must have walked out for that one. Okay. So I bear with me as I go down this path a little bit. So I'm thinking if, so AT&T says they're compliant for consumer and all the consumer provisions from. And that's fine, but I'm wondering if, so AT&T also has not a contract with the state but is providing the first net services. If, and I don't know how this would be, but if they're not compliant on first net services, they are on consumer, provided consumer service. Would the state, because they're not compliant across the board, the state would not enter into a contract with them. And I don't even know if this is a possible scenario, Chuck. I don't know how those lines work. In my view, what you're trying to achieve here is basically a declaration that a commercial entity, an ISP is abiding by net neutrality principles or not. And if they are, then the procurement policy of the state of Vermont will be that they will enter into contractual arrangements with those providers. Those ISPs can operate in the state of Vermont, regardless of whether they make such a declaration that they're gonna remain net neutral or not. They can provide those services to consumers and let consumers decide based on the disclosures they're gonna make to the general public. So you're gonna have a certification program on the one hand that leads to, that's a procurement policy of the state that leads to contractual arrangements with the state as a consumer. You're gonna have maybe some of the same providers who provide, you know, entered into contracts with average consumers as well, and consumers are gonna decide for themselves who's made a declaration that they're net neutral and who hasn't. Now, we've been hearing, I think, that a lot of providers have represented that net neutrality principles are things that they believe in or support, and presumably may continue on that path. So the disclosure requirements are gonna tell us that. You're gonna know, and every consumer's gonna know. So, when we talk about broad man, I think the first thing we think about is what we have to our home, whether it's DSL or detail. So, but now if I think of AT&T, I think AT&T in Michigan, that's the telephone service and they got U-Verse or whatever fiber there, but now in Vermont, I think AT&T is wireless. So, is AT&T considered they're wireless or are they considered an ISP in Vermont, because so they're wireless? That's a great question for your regulatory authority. So. Who's our regulatory authority? Of course, you're a regulatory. Play terms with us. Play terms with us. Peace, not good, not good. So, I would lead that to, again, that's an issue that DPS can better point you with and sort of dive into the details of, will defer to them on sort of who fits under what category of provider. So, well, to that point, I would think that state employees have cell phones and a lot of them could have AT&T, see and say, have the greatest coverage. So, would that be considered a contract with the state when state employees have cell phones with AT&T? That's a legal question. So, all very good detail-oriented questions. I think that the bill before you is pretty straightforward in terms of saying, if you are an ISP provider, you have certain disclosures you're gonna have to make and if the secretary finds that you're abiding by the principles that's set forth in the bill, there's gonna be certification, they're gonna be allowed to enter into contracts. Which contract specifically and how that pulls out across state government? I don't know how broadly or how narrowly you wanna try to define that vis-a-vis a question like the one you pose for state employees, for example. But I think that's an administration question or DPS question, so. Okay, any other questions for me at this time? Meeting with Maria? Yeah, on some of the words smithing and some of the specific, yeah. Other subsets that I think. Findings. The findings, yes. Both as a list and with defined terms and stuff. Yep, absolutely. And I think we should get something under that if a ISP is certified to be compliant and then goes out of compliance, what should happen? Or either way, I mean you could imagine somebody that has tried operating under the new order and then sees that maybe for either, you know, they notice that they're losing some customers or maybe they want to have access and provide services to the state, they could change and say, nope, we're gonna go back and adhere to net neutrality principles. And so, a notice for change of circumstances in either direction, I think, seems entirely reasonable. I think we're gonna have to comment for a great reason. I was just gonna say that for purposes of the state contracts, they have to include terms and conditions saying that they're adhering to net neutrality. If they no longer adhere, it terminates the contract. And that's the enforcement. You're no longer have to have a contract if you're not in compliance. So I think that was specific to make sure that the contract includes those provisions. So the extent it's enforceable if there isn't a contract. Have we? Asked the question of you all or Clay or John, Quinn, about how we would know that somebody's gone in compliance. Well, in some respects, that's what Representative Yantachika was just asking about is should there be a notice for change of circumstances? And that could be just generally, that could go with the disclosure requirement to the general public. That could be noticed the state if suppose, for example, they don't want to cut the contract short but they wanna give notice 30 days prior to when the contract is gonna be up, they can give notice to the state in advance and say we're not gonna renew or we're changing our terms of service. And so therefore, we're out of the running essentially. But just in a really kind of short-cutting way, we're expecting that we would find that about this to their providers themselves, notifying us. One way would be through the providers. Another way would be through state agencies. Another way would be through consumers, right? Because what they're attesting to is, again, that no throttling, no blocking, no paid privatization, et cetera. So. So if we have a consumer that comes forward and says that we believe there's been throttling, unreasonable throttling, what would happen? So that would go, a complaint would go to the Public Utility Commission? Well, if it's a consumer complaint, typically, yeah, consumer complaints come to us all the time. And if it's the allegation is it's a CPA violation, which is how you've set it out in the bill, then that would fall to enforcement under the Attorney General's office. And so when would the contract, so okay, so that would fall under your enforcement and then when would the contract be jeopardy at what point? You mean the contract with the state? Yeah. So if they have a contract, because they've certified you have a consumer that's committing this complaint, they've complained to you, you're going through the process. It would be after you make your determination. Well, so it might be two different things, right? So one is, if this is a provider that has, is serving both the state and general consumers, meaning everyone, and there's a pattern or practice that's determined that, in fact, they're not abiding by net neutrality principles, then you'd have a situation where our office, I think, would be responsible for enforcement of the Consumer Protection Act. The state and the secretary would be responsible for making a determination that the contract is now void because the contract is with the state of Vermont. After you make the determination. After you make the determination. So it's not just a complaint that's gonna void their contract. You'd have to make a determination. Well, and the attorney general's just to be clear, so even if the attorney general's office in any circumstance moves to enforce the Consumer Protection Act, the court decides whether or not there's been a violation of the Consumer Protection Act. Right, so the attorney general's office can investigate, the attorney general's office can file a complaint in court to enforce, but it's a court and a judge that will ultimately make a determination about whether or not there's been a violation of the CPA. And that's just standard operating procedure. Thank you very much. So we're having this come back tomorrow. Who's this coming back tomorrow? Is Chris coming back tomorrow? This bill, is the bill coming back to us tomorrow? I would say so, yeah. Yeah, okay. It's on the agenda for 9 a.m. I'm wondering why you're here. Yes. So why? For the record, I'm Corey Chase. I'm a telecommunications infrastructure specialist at the Department of Public Service. I can't remember specifically who had our questions for her. We wanted to hear from a network engineer about throttling, I believe, yes. You wanted multiple testimonies on throttling if consumers can detect throttling and then things of that nature. So our next three witnesses are all throttling. Catchers. I have keepers taking care of me. So that sort of was, we don't have a good sense or we want to make sure we have a good sense of terms. Clay, you're edging that way. Do you want to be together? You guys? I can always jump in if there's. Something for me to say. So yeah, just, can you give us a sense for what all these things consist of in terms of our effort that are in here? Just what, is there a differentiation by a company that's managing validly my precise choice of terms as opposed to someone throttling, throttling, and if so, what are those? That's the type of thing we're getting out of. We didn't know that precisely what was taking place. And I think the even touch is somebody just was headed in the direction of how does a consumer identify it. You know, if somebody came in and they come to your department saying they're thinking that they've got poor performance on their, from their ISP because they think the ISP is doing something untoward. So I would say that this is a relatively new subject. I spoke to you last week, I believe, and described some aspects of network design that relate to this subject that you're talking about here. And we talked about content delivery networks and the general architecture of a modern internet query and how traffic flows. I would say that states generally are not, don't have a deep bench in examining this kind of issue because traditionally it has been a non-regulated service. There has been, as Maria described, efforts by the FCC to change this, but those efforts have changed with the administrations. So I think you asked about throttling and generally that's a very, that can very quickly become a complicated question. Why? So you asked why a throttling can become complicated. It's because there are some, so the question can become a complicated because there are, for instance, if you go back to the previous discussion we had where a consumer was trying to download a movie from some edge provider, there are many different places across the internet that could be causing the kinds of concerns that a consumer might experience as degradation and service. It could be their local connection. It could be their wireless router. It could be their computer. It could be their internet service provider. It could be the content delivery network. It could be congestion in the internet backbone. It could be the edge provider. I'm not saying that there aren't ways to track it. I'm just saying, I'm answering your question. You asked how could such a question become complicated. There are many different things to think about. So we have, where I live, the town that I live in has a ski resort. And so our regular population is 2,000. On the weekends we can have 10,000. The size of the pipe coming in is the same size whether there's 2,000 or 10,000 coming in. And so on the weekend sometimes it gets a little slow for some of our customers that are using the one provider that came in here. It can get pretty slow. I would expect that to be the case. Right, that seems, and it seems like it's just kind of what happens. But how would you be able to differentiate you, or our regulators, be able to differentiate between that happening or I am slowing down this street full of people who are from New Jersey. And they're not good for longers. We are, how would you be able to differentiate? I believe that that particular kind of question that you raised probably wouldn't be addressed by the rules that are being discussed here because that is a discrimination on a local network because people don't like people from New Jersey or something like that. I think that the issue that we're talking about here is one edge provider, let's just say Amazon, and another edge provider, let's just say Hulu. One of them has an arrangement with the internet service provider and another doesn't. And the internet service provider looks into, they use deep packet inspection as a term of art. You can look inside the packets that are traversing a company's network and determine that these are sourced from Hulu and these are sourced from Amazon and you might do prioritization in those instances when you were talking about how there's not enough capacity and generally everybody is experiencing some kind of degradation. Some packets get through miraculously without experiencing degradation while others don't. I think that would be an example of the kind of throttling that you've been discussing. So how could you tell, so how could you, as a regulator, tell that a company, so if I call you and say I think that this provider, which is not aligned with this ISP provider, which is not aligned with this edge provider is slowing that service down. What would you do? How would you investigate that? I think that it would take some thought. I don't have an answer for you right away. It would not be a simple task, in my opinion. And given that there are so many other problems that could be contributing to that experience, the consumers, I mean, the consumer's computer, the consumer's Wi-Fi network, the consumer's modem, maybe the entire cable node that they're on has got problems. I think that it would take some thought and I don't think that we have a strategy, an in-depth strategy in place. That sounds like a process of elimination. Sounds like what? That's a process of elimination. Troubleshooting is a typical kind of thing that a company would do when they're at it. When you're asking the question, that's what I was sort of thinking too, is if I were, the way she was asking it, if I were in your shoes in a situation like that, I'd probably start asking questions to find out what I can eliminate until you get to that. Yeah, and I would defer to Clay. I could speak to technical questions, but I would defer to Clay about bigger picture. That wasn't actually my project call. In terms of telecom regulation, we petitioned the Public Utility Commission for investigations, and we're given the authority to investigate telecommunication providers, electric providers, gas and water. Their service, their quality of service, their rates, and most facets of their business and we do that. We have an investigation and fair point going on right now, for instance. So that's something that we're capable of doing. I think the question becomes, in this scenario, with net neutrality, that's a public utility investigation. Is that the kind of thing that the 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order, that's the kind of thing that is allowed. That's very much what public utility regulators do, and we do in the terms of telecom and electricity. So, yes, there's methods for that. There are powers to investigate. Asking, through a Public Utility Commission proceeding, asking discovery and hiring experts to do that kind of thing. That's something that we've done for a very long time in the services that we regulate. So that was going to say pretty much the same thing, that it may not be impossible certainly could be unlikely that you could make that determination because you could start an investigation into it and conditions could change very, very instantaneously, the game is over and everybody stops streaming now. And all of a sudden, you've got faster access and you would never be able to tell whether that is an indication of the rottling or not. I think it would be very difficult to measure. I would react to that and say that when I was responding to Representative DeBilly's question, I was thinking about a specific individual with a specific consumer complaint. And I think Clay's response was very helpful to kind of frame it in the terms of what we do is very much a regulatory process. We could, if we're subject to it for Public Utility Commission's jurisdiction, we could bring investigations and we would probably think more broadly than an individual, that kind of investigation. You would look for trends, you would look for our indications that there's one company getting preferential treatment or another and look for a wider net than an individual. Sorry to end. So it is a difficult thing to do but it's not an insurmountable thing to do. Given resources and time and jurisdiction. I'm looking for trends, maybe a lot different from just doing measurements. Doing measurement would be part of looking for trends ever. Oh, John, thank you. I keep changing my mind. I mean it. So you mentioned earlier, I forget the term used, but it was a deep dive into the data being transmitted and you can maybe see this is Hulu and this is Amazon. What was the? Deep packet inspection. Deep packet inspection. And is that something that you can do forensically or only in real time? Just wondering what tools are available? There are lots of tools available. It depends on scope, time and money. Deep packet inspection is a tool employed by internet service providers to look at the traffic in their network to try and analyze what kinds of services consumers are using. And there are many people who have concerns about privacy that use encryption so that their information can't be snooped on by their internet service provider. So is that something, again, can that be determined forensically or is it as the data is being transmitted? Do you mean if we, for instance, were doing an investigation of an internet service provider to look at their network and see if they have one of these trends? If it happened, could you take yesterday's data and examine it? That would be a question for the internet service provider whether they keep that information, I don't know. Different companies operate differently. There's probably not a huge data bank of every packet that's ever been transmitted, but there are probably information-attack. Yeah, exactly. Well, as far as blockings, you don't know the contents of it's encrypted but you certainly would know the sites that may be blocked, correct? Not necessarily. If you are using an encrypted service, a VPN, then the ISP doesn't know what you're looking at. Okay, well, not a lot of people are on VPNs on the homes but VPNs aside, okay, I'll grant you that. So one of the things that we've been talking about, blocking content, throttling, and again, network congestion, I can't tell you how many times in my house the internet's slow and if every time someone says the internet's slow, they're just gonna call up the AG office and think they're gonna be throttled. They better hire 100 people because the internet can be slow in a lot of, unless you're in Robin's house because he has one G but, and even then, there can be network congestion all over the place, I mean, unless we figured out how to get rid of that. So I think that could be a big consumer complaint driver that, but the thing that I wanna circle around to that everyone knows is my favorite topic is when I see there's a possible waiver. Didn't we go, didn't we get it? No, yeah, we had to go there. We offered the promise, we didn't do that task for it. I support this and I plan to continue speaking about the way you said it on the floor. About that, about paid prioritization. So since he hasn't heard my spiel, at least not lately, where it could be of advantage and in fact, it is used in the public world, the New York State throughway, the Garden State Parkway. If you're taking a Lincoln tunnel into New York, you can get in the bus lane and there's a lot of people that can pay a little more, they'll go faster and because of that, there'll be other people that go faster too. So my point is that I think it could be in the public interest to have a limited amount of paid prioritization because we had someone in here they wanna do live streaming video. Well, if you're doing live streaming video, it's not gonna work very well if you just find out that it's falling apart because of network congestion. So in that case, or telemedicine if I'm at home and a doctor is trying to check something on my monitor and they're getting blown away because 20 other people are watching Netflix, I think it could be in the public's interest for medical to have prioritization. So my sort of suggestion on that is it also, if you limited it to say 10% of maximum bandwidth could be prioritized, that could actually incent vendors to have bigger pipes and say, I use bigger pipes so I'll have to admit everyone else uses fast lanes, I think it's a misnomer, but okay, they're bigger pipes. You can get more water out of it per second but everyone else will call it fast lanes. And I'm not gonna call people on the carpet anymore on that. So what's your thoughts? Does it make sense in the public interest to have some limited pay prioritization? I don't think that I can speak for the department or the administration on that kind of question. Who can speak for the department or the administration? That's why they call it the hot seat. We want someone to speak for the administration. I could speak about technical questions about how you would manage that, but I think that would be hard to play about. Well, wouldn't it be technically possible? I mean, let's face it, there is, I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible. There is these very sophisticated computers called routers and they have their own operating systems. And maybe think of this, if you're trying to prove throttling, what are you gonna do? Sapina, everybody's IOS system and tell you what you've fed your routers and find out who you're throttling. I mean, there's all those questions, but, okay, technically, is that feasible to say 10% of this pipe we're going to prioritize? Well, I would say, when you say pipe, which pipe are you talking about? In general, whatever pipe that fiber, a pipe, a strand, a strand, or whatever. So you mean from a consumer perspective? No, not from the consumer, on the ISP perspective. I think that would be incredibly difficult to try to implement because an ISP, even a small ISP has multiple connections to different backbone providers and those backbone providers have different connections to different backbone providers and it's hard to say which one you're talking about. Well, say I'm going from Montpelier to UVM, there's maybe 10 hops. I mean, there's all these agreements of how can people get together and say, yeah, we're gonna do 10%. If someone I know how my heart's doing with my cardiologist, in fact my blood pressure is probably going up, I want my cardiologist to check there. I'm animated, anyway. So you don't think it's technically feasible to say we can prioritize? So we're talking about something that's not even possible that we don't want people to prioritize and it's not even possible. So what about first net, though? Public safety, for sure. But that's its own network, is my understanding, right? Well, I think it's, is it? I mean, aren't they going to have to use the backbone? We have a representative thinking. So I wanted to clarify. They're going to have their own physical network? Yeah, let's know, let's hear. Hi, Chuck Stor, all the public affairs for AT&T. It's my understanding, and believe me, I don't know all the technical aspects of the first net system, you know, it's a particular slice of the radio frequency spectrum that is going to be utilized for that. The utilization of that is going to be, you know, shared with the commercial customers in the normal course of events, and if there is an emergency where there's not enough capacity, then, yeah, there will be priority given to the first responders on that. As far as the backhaul, yes, I do believe that it's a separate backhaul for the first net system, but, you know, there'll be two backhalls for each site, because there's going to be one for the commercial one for the first and then for the first responders. I believe, and I want to qualify that by saying I could well be wrong on some of this question, but... That would be great. It's just in terms of technical knowledge to be helpful to understand Yeah, go ahead. I want to switch. You're going to be... So, I'm thinking about your suggestion more to set aside a certain percentage of the pipe for priority communications. I think the only way that can be accomplished is if you have dedicated lines. For instance, I've got a neighbor who's a physician, and he's been on DSL as always complaining that it's very hard for him to get his X-rays transmitted. So, you could have a provider like the University of Vermont Medical Center that has very good access, very high-speed access and everything, but you've got somebody else that they're trying to transmit to that's being limited by the fact, by his own connection. So, the only way you can ensure that he's going to have a really good connection that he's always going to be able to get at is to have a specific line that he has access to that won't be impacted by any other users on or any other content provider on the network. Well, I mean to the premise. I mean, if you've got fiber to the premise, there's not going to be any contention. If you have DSL to the premise from the one spot, it's when you have Comcast when there's sharing connections, you could have congestion. So, the fact whether or not I'm not a network engineer, whether or not a sophisticated router can figure out priority traffic and ship that ahead for 10% or wherever it's, whatever the hop is. If they can't do that, then I don't know what, why are we even talking about network prioritization if they can't prioritize the network anyway? I mean, the assumption is they're able to do it, so now we're here and they can't do it. To clarify, an ISP can certainly prioritize different kinds of traffic, assuming it's not hidden behind a begin, but they can prioritize traffic on any kinds of quality. But it's difficult to say 10% of every trunk for some special kind of priority because there's all kinds of different trunks. That would be very difficult to oversee and administer and regulate. The companies certainly are able to prioritize traffic. I'll have to talk to one of my favorite network engineers and see how they can do this. Unless you're an IOS expert. I'm not an IOS expert. I have a Cisco training but I'm not current. That's a different IOS. That's a different IOS. Thanks, Corey. Thank you. Thanks, Corey. You guys want to open that door? Maybe I should. I'd love it if you would open that door. You're not asking people to leave? There it is. Okay. Thanks, chair and members of the committee. I'm Andrew Crawford from CCTV Center for Media and Democracy. Where? CCTV Center for Media and Democracy. Thanks, Orca, for recording all these sessions. It's great for people who live further away from the state house. I forgot I'm recording. Yep. I was asked to give some testimony on particularly throttling or technical matters that Corey has already touched on. Looks like already testified on earlier. Yeah. I originally submitted my testimony in relation to the House 680, I believe. Bill. So it's obviously the bills have changed substantially now, but I'm still here to answer any questions that you folks had along the lines of... You can probably take us along where we just went in. Did you have anything that you thought you could add to the discussion of throttling versus blocking or something like that? Oh, great. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, indeed. So as Corey said, yes, ISPs can practice traffic. That's one of their main tools in being able to provide service even when there are lots of people using services. I would say that there are lots of different technology stacks and software stacks that enable them to use the hardware and the physical pipes, if you will, be a fiber or copper. There are additional virtual networks that are now capable of being deployed on top of that physical hardware and those physical networks, those links and those physical links. So the... I don't know if people have had a chance to read this, but basically all of this stuff the basic TCP-IP suite or IP protocol, which is sort of the foundation of the interconnectivity that the internet provides us, you know, has a lot of benefits in the sense that it's very decentralized. Each autonomous system gets to make up its own rules about how it routes traffic. They can enter into our own peering or transit agreements with other providers. It allows a lot of freedom for those enterprises to do the things that make sense for their business model. And I don't think Net Neutrality wants to get in the way of that but I think Net Neutrality does want to say to people who are buying a service from these black smile providers or these access providers be at the state itself through a contract or be it through a community member in their community buying from a local or a national ISP here are some ground rules about what services we're actually going to be delivering to you when we say we're saying internet service. Just to make it more specific UVM is an autonomous system. Is the state an autonomous system? Burlington Telecom? Burlington Telecom definitely is. It's just UVM, the state. Yeah, I mean basically you're an autonomous system if you have been designated by in our case the IANA to have ASN which is called an autonomous system number which gives you the ability to route certain IP addresses over the internet. I'm going to get if you don't want me to get too technical then you can ask me to stop. I'm just giving a for instance of who is an autonomous system and who isn't. Yeah so usually it's organizations, educational institutions people who provide other internet service providers or people who provide backbone or transit internet services so it's sort of you wouldn't be if you know you as a consumer are definitely not autonomous system because you don't have the ability to be the authoritative person for the routes to those IP addresses. For the good of you. Just again for building this so how many ASNs are the autonomous systems? 50 or are we talking 500? Oh autonomous systems. I don't know that number off the top of my head. It's probably under 100 for sure. Okay. So but globally it's significant. Probably around 60 or 70,000. I don't know the exact number right now. Different. And that's internationally. To say this, okay so moving ahead sort of a lot of the the basis of what you're being sold as a consumer if you're being sold internet service I think the assumption and the idea is that you're being sold essentially a connection to the internet so that you can route packets over IP protocol the network layer and the transport layer. And so at its most basic that's what I think for me means internet access. Increasingly the last mile providers are not just sort of selling you that internet access but they're also selling you sort of access to their network if you will and so a slight change in the business model that is accompanying this regulatory change at the federal level where there's a switch between simply you're just headed out to the internet versus you're headed onto our network whatever provider is you're others and there are services on that network that you may be taking advantage of more directly rather than the entire internet if you will services that are available to you so some of the tension that results from that change is precisely related to this discussion of net neutrality so with that framing the next thing that I'd like to say is that what I did in my testimony was I looked at a couple of the various methodologies people have used to infer traffic congestion from sort of publicly available measurement tools and so the only large-scale research that's done on the internet to my knowledge is done by Kata which is the Center for Applied Internet measurement analysis I can't remember the exact it's in the similar sheet in my testimony and it uses something called time sequence latency probing and so that's one technology where they've actually been able to infer congestion between these autonomous systems that operate over the internet so that's just one that's looking at the borders of those ISPs if you will information about what they're doing internally doesn't provide information about other ways that they might be affecting traffic and it's really just essentially using some really basic tools in the internet protocols in TCEIP suite to do that testing so it's not that just like Kori said it's not that we couldn't figure out but without the measurement infrastructure that Kata uses which is all voluntary so people from networks around the globe take these units, they plug them into their networks and then these research scientists run continuous tests from all of those sites around the globe and build up a base of data and forthcoming I believe in the next month or two there's going to be a publication hopefully from some of the authors listed in my references a bit of a better understanding of the baseline internet congestion between various autonomous systems because the important thing is if we're talking about enforcement or detecting throttling or detecting any of these techniques that ISPs use to manage their traffic we, number one, of course need a baseline from which to measure and number two, we need an ability to measure what someone is experiencing and I think it's far beyond really the capacity of most consumers to go through the process of trying to determine if they're actually being throttled due to the many, many variables that are involved and these are people doing scientific research papers to get really basic information about not even a definitive determination but circumstantial determination so there's that I can if people have questions, I'm happy to answer them So we talk about the content delivery networks which so-called in some terms the internet's going to be rewired and that Netflix or whatever, things aren't coming over dynamically from Netflix there's hundreds of these Netflix servers all over the place so in a way that to me is de facto prioritization because they are eliminating their traffic is getting where they want a lot faster if I'm going from some other site coming from across the country Yeah, I mean the content providers as well as ISPs have different and slightly competing business models so if you're a content provider, it's your job to try and get your content people so that they have the best experience possible and if you're an ISP it depends, you might be also a content provider in many cases or in other cases you might be really trying to get people out on the internet faster for example Or you may want to get more bandwidth coming in from other places so it's certainly seen for a lot of ISPs as a win-win because they'll have less network congestion so I think part of my point is it's already the big guys are getting all sorts of priority versus some small media company in Vermont that wants to stream video they're not going to have it's not a level playing field in that regard for example, we operate our own small nonprofit cloud we serve video, it's all hyper-local video for people in our community in Burlington and that video originates in Burlington it doesn't originate out of CDN elsewhere but a lot of the people that watch our video are in Burlington your audience, but if someone wanted to watch it exactly, so then it's going quite a far distance and certainly no one at an ISP in San Diego is giving us any priority at all for that traffic we have had experiences with some other networks where we've actually measured the latency and seen that there's a significantly latency but without a systematic way of measuring that over long periods of time and finding a statistically significant change in that it's very hard for us to say yes, we've been discriminated against for example and yeah, we're getting highly technical because it's the constant throughput that you need for video, correct? I mean it doesn't matter so much that there could be an initial latency but once the stream is coming, it just keeps on coming fast, correct? There's a lot of technologies that can be used to mitigate latency the thing that doesn't work with latency is if you have something that's very high priority like a telemedicine application or something that needs live instantaneous to weight. It's back and forth but videos are just a lot of data. Ship it down and don't care I mean it's not doing handshakes well, I'm not going to get too technical depending upon the protocol it does actually act all the all just handshaking for all that stuff but anyway, yeah so in the last part of my amended testimony I have put in sort of the net neutrality suggestions model language from a consortium of organizations that looked at this issue on the international level and I think that content is valuable I don't know if it has too much bearing on this particular piece of legislation but it certainly has bearing on any exploratory rulemaking that's part of that would be part of a later process so my question was if you had specific suggestions for us that that is my specific suggestion and I mean I'll put it out there we're an organization that values sort of the hyper local service we provide and because we're hyper local we aren't as concerned necessarily about our stuff being viewable in San Diego but the reality is that there might be something in San Diego that the community actually needs to know about and so in that respect net neutrality becomes very important for us as we do our operations so and my suggestion is you know I'm not a lawyer so I don't have any great insight on the you know, legality or the rights of the state to employ any techniques or standards for ISP blocking or the next term throttling is that going to have an impact on you by definition I mean are you absolutely going to get or is it well blocking is relatively obvious you can detect blocking pretty easily but is it somebody blocking at you you say that or was it just something I would say I would classify my personal our experience in the organization as being throttling it was it was not an outright we cannot reach our our resources so does that help yeah look yeah I mean it's a it was a pretty expansive process I think that they used to come up with these and they actually are if you read them they actually are pretty light touch they actually don't legislate any hard technical requirements on the providers themselves it actually offer a fair bit of leeway to those autonomous system operators in terms of determining their policies and they even often offer as you mentioned in special circumstances the ability for an entity to create a certain separate thing so a separate class of traffic if you will thank you very much now we can get telemedicine I think it is what I said it was a little early other than that it was a great segue exactly Todd Young yes that's me I'm not sure how you guys want to handle this do the same thing I just did okay I'm trying to get your voice sure I'm Todd Young I'm the network director for telehealth at UVM so this span of scope is not only for our network hospitals in Vermont but also in New York as well tell us how your network tell us how your network operates today well I mean I can give you a general statement of how I think the net neutrality affects healthcare in our network I think that probably might not be a bad place to start as our commitment to health around our communities our strategy is to deploy telehealth strategies as a core component of how we provide care today and to do that we're using technologies such as video visits as you guys just discussed home patient monitoring and e-visits and these technologies are really expanding access to care for patients throughout our state and to provide these types of services we need high quality, robust affordable broadband network services for our patients homes in a lot of cases we need good broadband or good ISP connections for even some of the services that we contract outside of our own hosted environment so more and more we're using cloud services to provide some of the applications that we're using within our ecosystem a good example of that is the Telstra platform that we're about to deploy in the next year or so but even before the repeal of net neutrality we're facing some of the significant challenges around the network and we've talked about throttling all those sorts of things but one of the things that we really focus on is access to network to the last mile for homes and really the cost and we haven't really heard too much about the cost and we have some really social economic issues making sure that we can provide our services out to patients homes with limited means limited means incomes so those are the things that we're really focused on is making sure that we can do that because since you guys passed the S-50 law last year we're starting to see some great examples of how we are using telemedicine at the homes a couple examples are we're providing palliative care out to terminally ill patients in their home so they don't have to come to the medical center or we're providing primary care to medicaid patients that they might be working in Rutland and you know we avoid trips up to Middlebury or what have you that just happened today and then you know our partnership with BNA providing home health monitoring and you know those types of things for both diabetic and heart disease patients that are just coming out of care are very vital to providing these services so yeah we've had dozens of hours discussion about the last mile so we just are focusing on a different aspect here but to the point video you're talking two-way video so what do you look in how many megabits per second do you need to do a successful two-way video we're actually having some pretty good luck with a vendor called zoom and they're on the radio yeah zoom is on the radio and they can go as low as about one megabit and so actually what you know what we're seeing is that actual window is coming down for us where a few years ago trying to do that in one megabit and have quality of service wasn't even doable but zoom now it's not the greatest service they've experienced that one megabit you know you're better at five but that is the bar is around one megabit right now there's a lot of services asymmetric four one we have a we have a lot of our network map is gone but so four one so a good lead number would be able to do it but of course there's the people out in the more remote sites that aren't going to get four one but with that it seems like you would have pretty decent coverage but then the next question is I would think since you're doing two-way video that you would want that prioritize over me doing a gigabyte download of Microsoft Office you made a really good point earlier and I fully support your thoughts in that regard that I do think it would be an opportunity to prioritize public safety type traffic and health care would be one of them maybe even education some of those types of things over pure content providing for entertainment there's a rational argument about that well the whole thing with entertainment is that it really doesn't have to be a streaming video they could just download it the night before to me waste a band with this live streaming video from Netflix but because Clay he has a sort of a hybrid system there he can download it's not live streaming with Apple is it you can download it so so anyway it's the whole thing I think there's a lot of reasons that the internet could work a lot better for a lot of people if we had an eye in some sort of rational regulated prioritization and obviously telemedicine or the example that an article that I was reading about is remote robotic surgery sort of thing I don't know if you have doctors that do that remotely but it's in the let me speak Telstroke is a really good example where prioritization really means means something where we have a window of time where we'll have a neurologist in Burlington trying to provide service or care to somebody in Middlebury and we're having to do live video upload CT studies and bring laboratories all together and what's called the magic hour to make sure that we're making the right decision to treat a patient or transport them or do some intervention at the critical axis as well Good idea to have priority over Netflix Yeah, I would think so I mean when it's in our own network our private network we can control some of those factors but as I said earlier some of the vendors that we're starting to use are cloud based application providers so we have to make sure that our ISP as a larger entity is providing the pipe size that we need to provide those services out to every one of our locations And just a technical aside is the UVM Medical Center an autonomous system You know, I'm not a network engineer and I can't really answer that question Of course, they've really confused everything the UVM hospital and the UVM University but that's a little different Yeah, that's another discussion Anyway, thanks You're welcome Good Last one Sure So I think it was last year we passed H50 or Act 50 S50 Third try Yeah So you've talked about a number of ways that it's being utilized Do you anticipate a lot of growth with that? Oh yes The law was just enacted like October last year and I was actually hired into the UVM network last June in anticipation of the law and we're making major investments in telemedicine across our network us being an academic medical center at Burlington and providing our specialty care out to both rural communities and our other network locations we see a huge uplift not only with our network affiliates but Rotlin and others that we're working with Yes You're going to see a lot more of that So a lot more demand There's a lot of consumer demand in regards to providing services at home for both for urgent care follow-up visits and things like palliative care surgical follow-up, all those types of things that don't necessarily need physical contact but just need to be able to have an interactive transaction with the patients Visual check Mike Do you find you have better communication capability between your different hospitals and your network as opposed to say your hospital and an individual doctor someplace in Vermont? That all depends on the activity that the doctor might have within their home As far as hospital to hospital Hospital to hospital Those are private networks where we're controlling the bandwidth and our own network within WINDEN So we have a private network between the medical center and Central Vermont Medical Center Network being direct line between more hospitals? Yes So we can control those factors Once we go out into the ISP land then things get a little bit more variable What's the nature of the private network? It's fiber It's fiber connected We're pulling We're pulling Thanks again You're welcome