 I think we're ready. Okay, good morning. I apologize everyone for being a little bit late. I'm going to be on time and then I got caught in a paper and part of it cut by the key of the ocean. So maybe we'll start by going around the room doing introductions. I'm Dave Sneddick, your chair of the Connectivity Advisory Board. Ken Jones sitting in for Michael Schirling of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. Robert T. White, V-Trans. Good morning, Ashlyn Joy on Treasurer's Office. Michael DeHart, Department of Public Service Connectivity Coordinator. Corey Chase, telecommunications specialist, Department of Public Service. Evan Crossen, two North Coworking Investors. I'm Iris and I'm reporting for VT Baker. Okay. Steve Whitaker, I got a point of order. I made a specific request to be notified and sent the agenda. That didn't happen and the agenda that didn't get posted 24 hours. So I believe your meeting is not in compliance with open media law. I'm Steve Law from Oregon Media. Steve Law, you said? Law, L-O-B-B. And on the video, we have Catherine. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Catherine Sims, North East Kingdom Collaborative. Okay. So it takes care of the introductions. So the next item on the agenda are the meeting minutes from April 18th, 2018. If I can just note that Michael's not included as an attendee and yet he provided comments. So I'm probably signed in late. I do think that was the case. Yeah. It's on the phone. So I have Michael Sherling to the list. Yeah, maybe go through, do it once over and make sure I didn't misattribute anything to people because I was trying to learn all your names and take down everything you said at the same time. I believe that all the comments from Michael Kloss and the Treasurer's Office are properly attributed. Thanks. One page, what turned out to be page three of the minutes under item 4.2. Just to the typo, I think when my comment was kind of under D it should be action plan versus action play. Where was that? Number D on 4.2 under 4.2. Should be action plan as opposed to action play. Oh, yep, thank you. That's all I had. Are there any other corrections for the minutes? Okay, if not, I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of April 18th, 2019. Move to approve the minutes. Is there a second? Second. Okay, any, all of them were signified by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, abstained. I reiterate the objection that you're not in compliance with the law and you can't take formal action for this meeting because this isn't a meeting. Next item on the agenda is new business and the first item under new business was suggested agenda changes. Mike, did you, can you speak to that on this? Oh, yeah, I didn't know if anybody had anything they wanted to address in this meeting. It's a little light. Connectivity initiatives kind of out the door at this point and that's the major function of this board. So if anybody else has something they'd like to add, discuss, I'd be happy to tack it on. Okay, are there any suggested additions to the agenda? Yeah, I'd like to know what the status of the Microsoft RFP response is. Okay. I can talk to that. Is that okay to talk now or do you want to? Yeah. Right now we're in, you're changing the agenda so do you want to add that to the agenda? You want to continue adding to the agenda or do you want to discuss that? Let's do it that way. Add to the agenda then we'll discuss. So any other additions to the agenda? And like an update on the Public Service Department's new hire for a CD specialist. Anything else? All right. So if we can just jump to item B under your business update on the connectivity initiative. I'm not sure if Corey or Michael. Yeah, that'd be me. We've got all of the agreements fully executed and out the door. One project is finished. I should add a caveat. One project is not fully executed because of a misunderstanding. One applicant didn't understand that it was a reimbursement grant despite the RFP and the grant outline saying that it was. So we're renegotiating his agreement, trying to make it more workable for them. Other than that, MC Fiber has already finished working. It was fast. They're pushing to get their payment already so trying to keep up with them is going to task. I just have a question about that. Which project seems to be renegotiated and also what happens to that money if it can't be renegotiated and just the board then need to approve it again? Or did we sort of designate that authority to staff the public service department at the last meeting? So I don't know if I can discuss specifically which entity needs to be renegotiated with. I can say it's not MC Fiber. But yeah, I don't know if that requires executive session or if that's confidential for the company. As for the issue and whether or not that responsibility has been given to us, I'm not entirely sure. I know the commissioner has final say on these things. It's unlikely that it doesn't go through. But right now it's in discussion at the moment. So it's not the best news for them. And it's happened before that the grants have been fully utilized in which case the funds just go back to the next cycle of grants. Right, 2016 there were two rounds of connectivity initiative funding with the leftover funds. The practice has been, this is Corey Chase, the practice has been to if funds are not fully utilized to put the funds back into the connectivity fund and use them in the next round of grants. Either in the case of the company not completing a negotiated contract or the funds are reimbursement based. So if they don't use all the funds, if they come in under budget, the funds are used later. Yeah, and after this legislative session we're hoping the connectivity initiative gets a little bit of extra funding. Can't say that it'll actually happen or how much it'll get. But hopefully more than 200,000 because I think this year's money went or will go pretty far. I think it's a pretty effective program but actually just finding areas where internet can go and building it out. Would that be as a result of the H513 which was the increasing money to the universal service? But once it goes into the USSF I think some more allocation happens. So connectivity initiative's not necessarily first in line for that. Is that all for updates on the connectivity? Yep. Alright, so now we can jump to the additional agenda items. First the Microsoft RFP. So we conducted an RFP earlier this year and we've had two bids and we discussed the proposals with both vendors and both vendors we found the proposals to be problematic and so in the case of one proposal it was a novel new technology of using airships. The other proposal would have activated some but not all of the locations and we were concerned that it would use up too much of the capital funds the remaining 900,000 capital funds and not achieve a complete network. So we paused our process negotiating with both vendors and currently we're talking to towns to ask towns to consider the idea of cost sharing. So we prepared a survey and sent the survey to all 250 or 60-odd towns depends on whether you include villages or not but we talked to Vermont League of Cities in towns and sent a query to all towns and we asked towns if they would be interested in having microcells in their towns and second whether they'd be interested in helping to pay for those. We've had about 70 responses and there are about 10 towns we've not yet heard from where there are currently microcells installed and so we don't have results to discuss with you yet because we don't have a complete set of results. I've been trying to get answers from towns and it's not easy. Everybody's busy, select boards or volunteers and it's been frustrating but I imagine that we will have a report about that soon. From the responses you did receive can you say if they've agreed to provide some cost sharing? So there are some towns that are interested there are many towns that are interested as I recall I can't quote you exactly but roughly two-thirds of the towns that we heard from that participated in the survey we're granted it's not we don't have answers from I think I said we had 75 responses or something so roughly two-thirds of those towns that we heard from are interested in having microcells less than that are interested in paying not all that responded are interested in paying and those that are interested in paying aren't interested in paying the full cost that the microcell, the full operating cost of each microcell. So in any event if we are going to consider going down this road of participating with towns it's going to require some amount of subsidy from somewhere to pay for it. So to be clear the inquiry that we posed to towns was would you be willing to pay for the operating cost the direct operating cost of microcells in Europe? And if you're interested I can share some information about that board. Let me just now know what the kind of overall cost to town is. So what we heard from the previous vendor Bono Covertail was that the direct operating costs for microcell sites is $1,800 per year for each site. And how many sites would happen or be put in place per town at this stage? Right now there are 193 sites installed around the state and some towns have as many as 10, 12, some have this one. And these microcell sites are by and large installed on utility poles. And the direct operating costs include electricity, the DSL connectivity, and geolocation services. Any questions for Corey on the microcell project? Thank you Corey. The next addition to the agenda was a request for the an update on the new hire for the public service department for the CEV specialist. Well Clay's not here but he did let us know yesterday that he's put in the paperwork to create the position. So that's about all we know. The timeline I think what he should expect to be able to have the position out for hire by late August? Well I think that's his hope. I think you recognize that state government doesn't move on a dime. And so this is a new position. It's not only a new position to, in addition to the staff of the department, it's a new position. And so the state of Vermont Human Resources Department has to create a new job specification, and that takes some amount of time for HR to do that. Once that job specification is created, then we can start to see candidates. But we can't do anything until human resources creates this job specification. So I've started writing the RFP and getting help from Corey and Clay on what role there should be in place for this new grant program. So when this person starts the job, they should be already in the process of receiving applications, the broadband innovation grant program. So they'll be more or less facilitating feasibility studies and business plans for towns and contractors they select to help them do the studies. Do you need a very brief update on this grant program from age 13? That would be great. Cool. I forget what the budget is for this. Is it 700? Yeah, 700,000. So it's pretty significant. The maximum amount of one single grant is $60,000. There are two deliverables for each grant. They come in phases, the first of which is a feasibility study. So we're asking these applicants, tentatively right now we're still writing the rules, but we plan to ask applicants to identify a service area and preliminarily a type of technology and they can sort of stick and sort out the details after they've made the proposal and we've accepted it. But they'll start working and determined based on infrastructure costs, estimated take rates, whether or not it'll be feasible and whether or not they could be cash flow positive at any point in time with the plan they have. We expect to hear a lot of different types of solutions, be it CUDs or even all the way from CUDs to just paying the existing ISP to build out at the cost, you know, anything's on the table. So yeah, the first $30,000 of, well, the maximum is $60,000. They can come in under $60,000. The first half of the grant money will be paid after they turn in their feasibility study and we determine that it's credible. We're determining what the classifications of credible are in this case and what classifications for feasible are in this case. As H513 was written, there's a bit of wiggle room involved so we want to make sure it's pretty tight because being a big grant program we don't want to have it be ineffective. So after a feasibility study is determined to be credible and feasible, we would suggest they move on to the business planning study, which is the second half of the current environment. And their business plan will take the form of infrastructure planning, the whole nine yards, something Cori suggested and contemplating putting into the application is that the business plan has to be something that a lending institution would feel comfortable lending to. So we don't want just, you know, down the street trying to say I give me 40,000 bucks, I put some poles on the ground yet. So, you know, we don't run businesses but we want some third party to be able to verify this is a credible business plan and this feasibility that they've accredited themselves with is feasible. So yeah, I don't know how long this grant program will run but $700,000 can probably last in a while depending on how many responses we get. The first round precludes electric utilities. I think after February we're allowed to open it up to studies that include or suggest that electric utility be the provider or the partner in the program. And there's a few legislative requirements associated both with this and with the idea of electric utilities being broadband providers. Because regarding electric utilities they have their separate track, two of them can apply before. Only two, yeah. Right, but that can take place earlier than February. So the electric utilities can't apply until February. So are they waiting for the results of the work that you're sponsoring on general electric utility participation in broadband? And then the results of that allow the electric utilities to pursue? Potentially. So H513 is set out like a laser minefield of deadlines for our department to hit. Some of which conflict directly with each other. For example we're required to report on this grant program I think in January. And we weren't allowed to start working on it until late June. And it's a seven month grant term. So we don't expect to have a full report by January. And I think estimated February will open it up to electric utilities. Well, or potentially. So I'll just add to that. We another update. So this wasn't on your agenda, but I think it's for the department. H513 directed our department to write a report about the feasibility of getting involved in broadband service. And so we conducted an RFP and right now we're negotiating with vendors. We've received many bids and we're selecting a vendor to assist us in writing this report about the feasibility of electric utilities being involved in broadband. And based on the results of that report we'll then determine whether or not electric utilities are eligible for these feasibility studies. Because if the report says I thought the statute said thou shalt provide grants to two electric utilities to have them pursue feasibility studies. If the results of this report if the results of this report are support the idea that the reason they put this report in is that there was concern that maybe electric utilities shouldn't be involved in the process. In which case it would be you can't give them grants to do something that they shouldn't be doing. So we're doing this report if the report is conclusive then up to two electric utilities are eligible to receive these feasibility, grants for feasibility for their individual electric utility. What's the scope of this report is it statewide or is it it's general about whether or not electric utilities ought to be involved in the broadband arena. And the fact that some electric utilities outside of Vermont are doesn't. So I found that in the statute again not more than two electric utilities shall be awarded grant under the program awards to distribution utilities shall be made pursuant to a competitive bidding process initiated not sooner than January 1, 2020. So it's not February. It's January 1. But the intent was by then you have a better sense from the general study. Who are other eligible applicants for these grants? So the brand that we're getting ready to do now, the RFP, is hoping to release very soon. It's pretty wide open. It has to be an entity some kind of legal entity. But it could be a town. It could be a private business. It could be a formation of or partnership with a cooperative CUD, a rural economic development infrastructure district municipal communication plant or utility. But that's not an exhaustive list. Because it may be a regional planning commission but I don't see why not. Could it be a movie electric? At that point it's a distribution utility. So that's included in the intent. That's included in it but that brings in the deadline for it. Did you say what the timeline for this first RFP distribution and then award is? I'm not sure when the deadline actually is. We've just been working as fast as possible on getting that done. So you're hoping to have it out ASAP with applications do at some point. And then awards for a year? Yeah, we've been mostly using a microscope on the RFP right now. I don't know when we plan on getting it out but as soon as we're finished we're going to advertise it. And we want to give at least at least a month perhaps longer for respondents to prepare our proposal because especially towns need to wait for a select board meeting. But we've heard many inquiries about this grant program. They're probably going to be a significant number of people of entities interested in it. Because it's the state offering up to $60,000 for an entity to evaluate whether it's feasible for them to get involved. So pick a small town in Vermont. They don't know if it's feasible for them to be involved in doing broadband. So the idea here is to provide them the funds to hire an expert to look at it to say it makes sense or it doesn't make sense. Yeah, I look forward to all the responses in some ways especially the ones that don't return a feasible outcome. Because then we can kind of find out what the line is, what the mark they need to hit will be and sort of get out of the gray area for what's possible and what's not. Can you allow for profit businesses to apply as well? Yes. So like a kingdom fiber but even a consolidating to apply for feasibility then? I don't think we've discussed that possibility but the statute's pretty broad. Yeah. The statute wants to give entities an opportunity to apply for it. But we I think we'll use some judgment in determining which vendors to which recipients to award grants to. So we'll be lending preference to feasibility studies that plan study areas with locations that are on the connectivity initiative eligible locations list. So there's preference for unserved and underserved locations both from a department level but also in the language of the statute or of the bill I should say. Yeah. I think we should say that I'll just echo what Michael said that the money is given for feasibility studies. And it's entirely possible that or expect perhaps even to be expected that many of these will come back with a finding that it's not feasible. And that's good and fine. It doesn't necessarily mean that you just because you stopped the grant that you're going to go out and do the project. A town might learn through this process that wow this is really complicated and this doesn't make sense but we want to allow for that. That's the whole purpose. We hope that many will find it and go out and build broadband projects and prosper but we're open to the idea that you look and determine that it won't but it's not a good idea. And those studies will become the property of the State of Vermont and the Department of Public Service so that can inform future telecom planning efforts and granting guidelines and things of that nature. This should be pretty informative. I do think it's prudent to go backwards on the agenda to update on the connectivity initiative. That's okay. H513 does include a couple of changes to the connectivity initiative that I didn't mention. Easy to gloss over because we've been sort of just pushing forward so much of this new grant. The speed thresholds and connectivity initiative have been changed to 25.3 which is not insignificant. It sort of rules out the far reaches of DSL and there's also a new requirement that any services funded in whole or in part by monies from the initiative shall be capable of being continuously upgraded to reflect the best available most economically feasible service capabilities. So DSL has less elbow room or less. Sort of the rub here. Thanks. Any questions for Michael or Corey on the H513 or the connectivity initiative? Katherine, any questions? Next item on the agenda is schedule regular meetings and schedule a summer public meeting. I think the last meeting we talked about, or requirement is to have meetings on a quarterly basis or to have a little bit more than that. Not more than six is in the statute. Six is the most. So this next meeting we've been suggesting be the open house style public meeting in our public depending on whether or not you believe what Mr. Whitaker says. Yeah, so this next one will include our commissioner and should be a discussion of the telecom plan. That's been the plan at least. We've not picked a date yet. We figured an afternoon and late summer before it starts getting cold don't only want to push too far out but it'll avoid being quarterly if we go too closer. Attendively September if you want we could pick a date right now or we can do it via e-mail. Would this meeting take place here or are we in a different location to be a more public one? Yeah, it's worth discussing. The pavilion is pretty convenient. Pavilion? I'm not sure. I've never been there. It's across the street. The auditorium. Yeah, probably not do a morning meeting so we can actually have people come. Afternoon. It's probably best to check the commissioner's calendar I would think. Yeah. Put some dates out there. Okay. I'll send out a doodle poll and CC June see what her availability is like tentatively middle of September sometime. I think that misses everybody's vacation schedules. Okay. So you mentioned to discuss the telecom plan. What is the status of saw drafts? I don't know if I've seen the end of 2018 and is there a new do you intend there to be a new draft that will be the subject of discussion or we've been making changes but Cory, I don't know if you can speak to that. So it's a frustrating situation right now. The draft that's out there the only thing that remains for it to become adopted is a meeting with the joint and they didn't do that so it can't be adopted but this meeting is to discuss it. So did you want in the light of that situation we're continuing on to revise the plan again to add new content based on the feedback that we've been receiving. So I don't think that we have an answer for a direct answer to your question yet. We're hoping to have a new revision out but it's hard to do that and do all of these other things we're trying to do too. And I know that the commissioner wanted to have to participate in the meeting and talk more about it. We've written what? Two new sections on the 513. There were several that we were right working provisions for. Prior to the meeting and I know that it's a pretty long plan. So maybe if we're going to be meeting in September could you send at some point in August the most current draft that you have with the new sections? Yes, certainly. And representing the agency commerce we're supposed to participate in that development of that plan. If we're going to be meeting with the chair the updates with us that would be useful. Certainly. So it seems like you're recommending that it would be helpful for us to circulate a draft to your agencies before we make a public. As you say statute requires agency commerce and community development to be part of the development. And I know that if the treasurer's office is going to be participating in a meeting where the purpose is for members of the public to comment we would like to be able to read all the sections that you've added since the passage of 513. That makes sense. I'll stop my head. I know we've got the battery backup section stipulated from 513 that's been added but I don't know if that's been published because we're sort of thinking of it as a new plan already at this point. Living document as they say. But yes to your point. We'll send it around. On the scheduling of regular meetings can we just set the years worth of meetings, the calendar and get them all down at once? Sure. So quarterly would be every three months if we just don't treat the September meeting as one of the quarterly meetings or should we treat that as a quarterly meeting? Doesn't the statute say something about that? That the board needs to have a public meeting? Yes. Not more than six and we've been shooting for quarterly. And then it also has to have one public meeting? They're all supposed to be. One is different. It's a joint meeting. Yeah. To truly invite the public to participate. All these meetings are public. That's what I meant. One that's focused on really getting the input from the public to the direction of. So we can choose to make that one of the quarterly meetings or just create a quarterly schedule and also include September's meeting whichever you prefer. So if we include September's meeting then the next week we can have a meeting in December and then March and then July or something like that? So December we should probably shoot for the early half of the month before we all turn into pumpkins. Today's Thursday, right? Friday. How about December? Do you want to just send a doodle poll out for all of us as well because we're so far out? Sure. I know my calendar is empty in December but others might not be so fortunate. Okay, I'll make that an action that I'm going to send out. As we're making the doodle poll I would put in a plug and in March the week of town meeting is always a good week to have longer meetings because folks don't need to be over at the legislature. That makes a lot of sense. Can you say a specific time in March or just March? The week of town meeting is the legislature's non-session. Whichever weekend that is. I have one other little thing to add to the updates about what we've been doing. Just because you mentioned regional planning commissions I'd forgotten to mention it previously. An update on our mobile wireless drive testing. We did the mobile wireless drive tests for the particular reason to participate in the FCC challenge in December. Since then we've had inquiries from regional planning commissions in towns to borrow the phones to do more testing. So the tests that I drove just the main roads just the federal lane highways but many towns we've had inquiries from 6 or 7 towns but also several regional planning commissions including yours. We've let them borrow the phones and they've got interns and volunteers that have driven the back roads. And the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission has a VISTA volunteer on all the roads of all of the Central Vermont plant towns this summer. Once all of the driving is done we will update the interactive map. So you get all the data. Once the data is collected we'll update the map. So the map has not been updated with the new data but when it's collected we will update the map. Yeah I talked to I know we did it and I think Addison County has already completed their work or at least they're thinking about it. Addison and LaMoyle County. LaMoyle and Central Vermont are the ones that are. Has any other state done this? I haven't been talking to other states I don't know. I know that New Hampshire when they were doing their drive tests last fall worked with planning commissions. But they didn't have as much time because it was also crunched. We had a tech savvy intern who was more than happy to help us out with that. It was a good project. Anything else Corey? Anything else on the meeting schedules? Is that broken down by carrier? Yes. I'll send you a link. Each cell phone in the little bank represented a different carrier. So there are six facilities based cell phone carriers in the state. There are many that resell each of those six but there are six separate networks of towers. Is that who you guys primarily use? No, first net. So Terry LeValley has the raw data. I know what we're about. When I say we'd be trying for battling with them just on our own infrastructure that we're putting out. I know it's frustrating. I'll make sure to get you off-line the data. You didn't have band 14. Did you have a band 14 phone? No. Can you add one? If you want a first net band 14 SIM, I can get you one. That's a good idea. We should add that. That's what I've got now and trust me I'm battling with them the same. The quality would be we could talk more about that later. To exclude it so that it only operates in that band. We have an AT&T phone. Yeah, but do you have the news? No, it's just checking. Yeah. I don't want to say we'll get you the new AT&T SIM that they claim covers all that. It should cover both band 14 as well as regular. Because this is for regular consumers and then for the public safety community. The other sort of idea. I agree with that. You can add my phone. Sadly, the app that we use for testing is an Android app. Yeah, I figured that. Okay. Anything else, Robert? No, I was just saying thank you for wanting me to have her up. Number five on the agenda is for public comment. Is this Stephen or Steve? Any comments? Yeah, absolutely. I want to caution that the drive test methodology is not anywhere close to the drive test methodology that was done statewide in 2010 and 2013. The sampling frequency. The signal measuring the signal strength and logging the signal strength. The signal strength is relevant. You may have signal but not be able to complete a voice call that has direct bearing on whether 911 connectivity is affected. If we are going to do statewide and it seems like we're promoting everybody use this cell phones and drive your county or your regional planning district we should really pause and take a look at whether we should be doing it to a certain standard. There are vendors Pericle is the vendor that we used to the state pay $1,000 to in 2010 and 2013 but I researched it and currently the data we're collecting with the purpose specific project that Corey described is not adequate to do the kind of planning we need to be doing. Both the frequency of sampling GPS location and signal strength we should really be doing once so we don't have to go back and do it again. On the microcells I understand there was 55 new microcells carrier specific microcells deployed by AT&T kind of in the rounding in subverting the neutral host microcell model that coverage code was. AT&T only banned 14 microcells for FirstNet whereas we're kind of missing the opportunity to leverage those microcells into all carriers neutral host model. So are they banned 14 only? I am not privy to that information. You know Robert, whether the new microcells AT&T are they banned 14 only or are they banned 14 capable but AT&T only Verizon folks can. The problem is that this is shrouded in secrecy. Is this about FirstNet or AT&T's private deployment or a state deployment? I want to take it down correctly. It's not all three. But it's FirstNet. It's FirstNet I believe that's driving this small cell deployment. The department's small cell deployment? No. AT&T these are new microcells. Also we call the advisory board's attention to the fact that two years ago the legislature required, upon the failure of coverage code, the legislature required the department to do a study of microcell technology costs, alternatives, need for subsidies, etc. That report was grossly inadequate. It really is a shell of a report and therefore we're lacking the information now and the department's admitting that it's lacking the information in order to adequately advise these towns on whether they should deploy the 2G microcells that the state already owns. I would encourage this board to advise the commissioner to get that report done professionally by an independent engineer, whomever. That microcell report, all the department did was to crib the numbers out of the coverage code report and did not look at the opportunities for reduced backhaul costs, reduced electric costs, meaningless installs, many things that could actually reduce the cost, the operating cost of the microcells and make it feasible for these towns. Similarly, there's no way that the towns will be interested in putting the bill an unknown amount for the back end routing geolocation. The geolocation charges should come out of the 901 fund because the 901 service is the only thing that requires those. The 901 fund is one of the first things out of the universal service fund and again if it's only 901 that requires that geolocation, that cost which is a substantial cost of deploying each microcell should not be burdened on the town. It should be the 901 fund. We've got a multi-million dollar investment in these microcells and it's going to waste while these things that idle on the poles are in boxes in a warehouse. And this board was created five years ago, four years ago to advise on these issues and FirstNet was a major one and this board didn't do it. This board has in effect understanding connectivity grants and not advising on the plan. And I understand that the new planning requirements of 513 require if I recall specific strategies to address each every goal and objective of 202C and that is a major shift in the role of the telecom plan and I would encourage you to read the goals of 202C. That's the state policy of telecom and imagine what a telecom plan is going to need to look like if it's going to have a specific strategy to address every one of those goals. The there's new set of antenna regulations that were just adopted on the west coast that are worth looking at. The antenna the expedited 248A expedited tower sighting and antenna sighting does come up for a sunset again and there's going to be a huge rush to get everything permitted ahead of that sunset. But there are goals that are not preempted by the FCC. There are design parameters and restrictions that can and should be considered by this board to advise the commissioner on what should be in the telecom plan related to small cell sighting. The towns and the league are actively engaged in not being preempted and not having these major carriers come in and throw small cell antennas wherever they feel like it. So that's again one that should be high on your list. This idea of meeting quarterly to, you know, rubber stamp grants is absurd when you've got a statutory body that has the ability even to diverge from what the department wants to do. It's okay if this advisory board wants to say something different than what is the company line. It would be a healthy debate to have. So I would encourage you to review the history of the first net decision. Review the micro cell report or like they're way in on the who pays for the geolocation of the micro cells and whether there's an incremental strategy where the towns can be invited to host the 2G micro cells and build out fiber anticipating an upgrade to a 4G cell and use some of those extra strands to instigate community fiber initiatives like these communications unit districts. The isolation docket where telephone exchanges and entire switches like Comcast and Charter are isolated and those people cannot call 911. That docket is open at the PUC and had a workshop last week the transcript is not yet available. I would encourage you to read that and realize that it's not cost effective for consolidated to build a special multi-mile fiber to remedy that isolation. Isolation is when there's not a diverse route via a different geographic path and so that one cable, be it a T1 or fiber gets broken those people and those exchanges cannot reach the outside world or 911. And it's not cost effective for consolidated to take on that entire cost and build it to the rate pairs whereas it is cost effective. It may well be cost effective to align the priorities of micro cell placement community fiber and isolation remedy in the same fiber sheath so it's going to push back on the BTA model of state owned middle mile fiber which I know the current commissioner is adamantly opposed to but this advisory board could come out and say we should revive BTA or some function of BTA for state owned middle mile fiber to accomplish these things. Currently there's no state agency talk to John Quinn, the ADS secretary, no state agency is responsible for thinking across the silos like that. You've got a public safety imperative for micro cells. You've got FERSNAT, you've got this telephone isolation issue and community broadband all of which could be consolidated or could make cost effective a fiber build. The state also has the authority under conditions on every VTrans permit to over lash its own fiber to facilities that others have permitted at no cost. That would mean no delays for the whole. Not true. What's not true? That violates federal law. State law cannot overrule federal law. Well, the permit condition continues on. The permit condition reads that I am. The permit condition reads that the state may for its own use over lash state. Your permit condition doesn't read that. It violates federal law. You're going to take it out of all the permit conditions? Nope. So I'd appreciate not being interrupted while I finish. I would appreciate it too. So, the permit condition that's been attached to every fiber build permit is that the state is allowed for its own purpose to build fiber over lashing to the existing facilities built by the other carriers. That would potentially reduce the cost of fiber builds by half or more. This network spans where there is no fiber. It remains to be argued whether the state's economic development and public safety qualify under that for its own purpose. I know that Bob's not a lawyer so he can have his opinion but I have been tracking that issue and this advisory board should clearly do so. That opportunity would open up and revive the idea that it's 500 million or a billion to build fiber to every address is totally unfounded. The information we have on where the fiber is is so incomplete and there's no effort. The department opposed the language in H513 amendments that would have built a GIS of where the fiber is and where it is not. The department is enjoying being the only one with that information under non-disclosure agreements and yet this advisory board should direct the department to require the production of that information under the 202D authority. The 202E authority is where the non-disclosure agreements are and that's what's muddied the water and pushed all this information underground. The 202D authority does not include that and it can be argued that if it's clearly in the public right away and it's clearly visible that fiber is not a secret. Who owns it and where it is should be public information to help facilitate all these planning feasibility studies that are underway. Thanks. Do you have those comments in writing because the minutes will struggle to reflect? That's why you record, right? The number of topics you just covered. You may want to just check in. Do we have a transcript? Do we have a recording of this? No, not a recording this morning. I would also encourage you to record all your meetings because I shouldn't be the only one with a copy or orca. Are there other public comments? A quick question. Sorry, I found out I was covering this meeting five minutes before it started in the 210th primary church. Microcells are different than H513? Are they related? So the state a former part of state government, the Vermont Telecommunications Authority acquired 400 microcell devices. These are small devices that provide coverage of approximately a quarter to a half a mile radius. Cell phone coverage. And they provide cell phone coverage they're capable of providing cell phone coverage in areas that have no coverage from other providers and the former vendor that worked for the VTA, Bono Coverage Co had agreements with major carriers so that the customers of those major carriers could roam on to the service of these microcells when they were outside their own coverage area. Unfortunately, that company ran into financial problems and the 193 microcells that they installed were shut off. The 193 installed now the remaining 207 are in our warehouse. Any other public comments? Okay. Now the next item on the agenda is motion for adjournment. I have a motion. Make a motion for adjournment. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you everybody. Thanks for making it. Thanks everyone. Thanks to Orca for being here.