 as we're live and hopefully we will stay that way. Yesterday we stayed live and when the state house internet went down, everybody but faith eventually got on, including the witnesses. So we continued, but hopefully we will stay live today. Today we wanted to talk about, we know how many houses we've strung lines by. So how many houses have access? What we don't seem to know is how many houses have signed up. We know there were a lot of affordability and incentive programs put out by carriers. We know they had some deadlines and limited time frames. I've heard there have been some price increases. So we're trying to get an idea of how many people initially signed up? How many people used the, I guess the impact of affordability programs and then how many people are presently signed up and the status of those programs? Just to get a sense as to what did we really accomplish and is that subsidy? How crucial is that? Cause I'm going to assume people didn't sign off with their kids going to school and they're going to work online unless affordability was a real issue. So that's what we want to talk about today and I'm going to start with Commissioner Tierney. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. It's always a pleasure to be here. I know you have many people presenting today. So perhaps you could give me a sense of how much time you'd like the department to save you. I think just a short, very short intro, what you know, how many houses do you know we have put access on the road by their house? Fair enough. What don't we know? So what we've done today is prepare the two presentations and given slides to faith, they'll be available to the committee and online as well. And I think in the interest of time, we won't go through all of those slides. One presentation is about the consumer affairs and public information division that may be of interest to the committee in due course to see what the complaint rate has been about broadband and the like during the pandemic and the work that the department does in that area, notwithstanding that we don't have jurisdiction to regulate. The second presentation is about the affordability issue and there about seven slides in it. The last two are the ones that I think are probably most germane to what you were just talking about, Chair Cummings. I'm gonna ask Clay to go through that presentation if that is what you'd like. Otherwise I can just cut to slide six and seven to tell you how many applicants we had in our subsidy program, how much money was awarded and what the average award was. In terms of how many houses the service was made available to, I'm gonna ask Clay if he can answer that question off the top of his head. Committee, what would you like to hear? Can Clay just tell us a number for houses? I'm sorry, for houses to which we brought a broadband subsidy. To what note? No, houses that we were in line by. We brought internet service through the connectivity initiative. I'm gonna estimate, because I don't remember the exact number, but nearly 10,000 homes. The LeeCat program, the consumer line extension program did another 260 homes. That program, we know that people signed up and purchased service in that program. Okay, yeah. And then, I'm sorry, Madam Chair, go ahead. No, that's fine. I was just gonna say, and I think it's important to put a flag in this. The questions that the committee is now asking is how many people did we actually connect? Which is very different from the mission that we were pursuing in the heat of the emergency last year, which was, how many folks can we make it available to since the measure has been against the 70,000 addresses that had little or no access. That was the reference point. And in reference to that 70,000, what Clay just gave you is a 10,000 reduction. So we're now down to 60,000 have little or no access. More granular question of how many of those have actually been hooked up is a different question on which the department does not have complete data. As you just heard from Clay, we do know that folks who asked for line extensions through the LeeCat program in fact got connected. The other in part also asked to await the door knock, not the door knock, but the mailer that we're gonna be sending out, letting folks know that this service is now newly available. I think folks who are here today will be in a better position to tell you how many people they actually connected. In terms of the subsidy, just to give you a sense of availability and what people have done with the program during the pandemic, Clay, I'm just gonna handle slide six and seven. We had 2,935 applicants during the period of July 1 to I think mid-December. We awarded $920,712 and the average award was about $313. And to your point, Chair Cummings, the federal government has very recently made money available to the FCC for a lifeline style subsidy program for broadband. That is going to be low income based. So they're going to be putting more strictures on that benefit than were imposed when we did the subsidy program through our CRF offering here in Vermont. So my sense is that there'll be a smaller pool of folks who are going to be able to draw down that benefit in Vermont, which then raises the question of whether the state wishes to continue a benefit that would reach people who perhaps don't meet the low income parameter, but who nonetheless are in need of a subsidy to take service at least during the pandemic. And very broad brushstrokes, the federal emergency broadband benefit is $3.2 billion in funding. That's national. It's going to be administered by the FCC. The subsidy is supposed to be available in March. And I think Senator Sharotkin has been doing some work in trying to close the gap in January and February until this benefit's available. The department filed comments in conjunction with the PUC on this program on January 25, and we have a set of reply comments going in as well. And we really don't know too much more about the program, except that it looks like there will be a credit of up to $50 a month, and there'll be $100 toward a connected device. And we think it's going to last between eight and nine months, the program. Okay, so not ongoing. So again, we've got a cliff. There is, although I recall having this conversation with the committee last summer when we were working through what to do with the CRF money and Senator Pearson and I had an exchange at one point about do you make the money available to build infrastructure or do you make the money available to provide a benefit? And where we sort of landed was with this money through these programs, the thing to do largely is to build the infrastructure because there are many other avenues by which you can get at the equipment or the subsidy element, such as for instance, this federal program that's just come available. E-Rate is another source that's in the education realm where quite a bit of money's being newly made available as well where students can get help with equipment and subscriptions. But those details remain to be fleshed out as well. And more importantly, perhaps that money is being pushed out through existing mechanisms that the federal government has designed and that the states have also participated in designing. It varies by state to state. And so those are programs that the department generally knows about, but the department isn't actually involved in shaping those programs or regulating them. But to the point about the conversation with Senator Pearson, that's an example of where other help is available to make sure that the people who need this service are able to get the necessary equipment and the subscription. And so the department's been focused on deploying infrastructure. That's all I plan to say about these topics because I really think it's important for you to hear from the ISPs that you've invited here today. But if you have anything at this time for me, happy to take the question. Any questions that this would be a refresher for us? I've got Roger Nishi next. Waitsfield, Champlain, Valley, Telecom and you're also represented independent telephone companies. So welcome back. It's been a little while. Glad to be here today. We've actually set this up to have Kim go first and then I'll follow. Okay. If you could start that would be greatly appreciated. That's fine. Yep. And where is Kim? I'm right here. There you are. You're moving. Okay. Good afternoon. Hopefully you can hear me okay. Yes. Okay. I want to thank you for this opportunity. My name is Kimberly Gates and I'm the controller of Franklin Telephone Company, small independent company in Northern Vermont. And my company is one of the independent telephone companies serving Vermont's telephone and broadband needs. And you should have received a handout that's been circulated. I'll send it in. It is on the internet under documents for today. So the committee should be able to call that up. Okay. And I'm just going to touch on it briefly but I want you to know that it's there. So that gives you a brief summary to look at. So the independence are Franklin Telephone, Shoram, TDS, Topson, VTEL and Waitsfield, Champlain, Valley, Telecom. And we are experienced providers with the ability to continue to build out broadband and telephone service to all our customers. We have the expertise to design, build, operate, manage and maintain our networks. And we've been doing it, most of us have been doing it for a hundred years. The broadband's been about 20 years and we serve rural high cost areas. We have a carrier of last resort obligation which means we have to build to all customers in our service area. That's our obligation, even with competition and high cost. And we have to have affordable rates. And we're building broadband now. So a little bit about Franklin Telephone. It was started in the 1890s by my great grandfather. And as a small Vermont family owned and operated business, I get to wear many hats. I do a little bit of everything from accounting, customer service, legislative and regulatory, engineering, construction, tech support. Sure, there's a few other things I forgot but I pretty much do a little bit of everything. I'm not very good at fiber slicing but I know how it's done. We started our fiber to the home in 2014 and we started it on the dirt roads. And it's not a business model that is normal or should be followed but we did it to exceed our customers needs. We had some copper plant that was causing us a lot of headaches and our customers a lot of headaches. And so we opted to start replacing those plants with fiber and it's been a big learning curve. The customers appreciate the fiber but they don't wanna pay for the higher bandwidth packages and it's disappointing. And fiber the home is expensive. So just for my company, for our fiber customers, 20% take the same package that they can get on copper, the 10-1 package and they pay no more a month. We don't charge any installation and they're taking what they already had. The higher package, I only have 13% of our customers taking a higher package. So without increasing our revenues but increasing our expenses for the fiber build, it's harder to keep the broadband needs met and to keep it affordable. So last March, when the pandemic was declared, we went to work. We started running fiber. I remember several days being out there when it's snowing trying to run fiber off the reel. So my husband and cousin ran 40,000 feet of fiber last year and my daughter was home from college studying and I got to be the flaggers and the gophers. So it was, and that was in addition to our normal operations of running our network. So it was quite a year last year. We were fortunate and we appreciate that we received a Get Vermonters Connected new initiative grant. That grant was for 23,000 feet of fiber connecting 24 locations. So just to do the math, because I like math, that's six homes per mile. That's over $2,000 per customer. And with the grant money, Franklin didn't apply for 100% funding. We put in some of our money with that grant as well. But at $2,000 per customer, if a customer were to pay $11 more a month, it takes 15 years to just cover the construction cost without anything going towards the cost of maintenance and maintaining the operation. So numbers don't always make me happy. Topsman Watesfield also received grants for the fiber to home builds and their numbers are in the handout that's available. VTEL is 100% fiber to the home. TDS and Shoram were installing remotes to improve their network and their broadband. And so remotes, you don't get talked about that often, but you get a pretty good bang for your buck for increasing bandwidth at a more reasonable cost and fiber to the home for each house. The timing for the grants last year was really challenging. It was a short turnaround for applying and to have construction complete. And if you didn't have supplies or no really good salesperson, you weren't getting supplies in time. Last year was critical, the fiber, getting fiber and supplies were really challenging. Even this year, fiber that I ordered in November is due in June. So we deal with a lot, but we're building. We keep building. It's about keeping our customers and our community connected and we try really hard. Looking at this year's construction projects, I was working on it and I got discouraged because it's really hard to justify, I'm down to projects that are like a mile and a half, five customers, half a mile, one customer, third of the mile, one customer. It's really hard to do the calculation to keep it affordable. And if people aren't taking the higher take rates, there's not the revenue to offset the increased expenses. But I'm still building, just like all the other independence, it's a tough battle, but we're still building. So a couple of takeaways is fiber to the home is a great technology, but it's expensive and the revenues are not offsetting the builds. Franklin, Shoram, TDS, Tops and VTEL and Watesfield, we're building and maintaining networks now, trying to reach all our customers. That's our obligation and we're best positioned to build out. We're balancing that carrier of last resort obligation. We have competition and we're trying to maintain affordability. So I'm gonna let Roger pick up from here. I think Sandra Pearson has a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tim, when you talk about building, are you, I'm kind of assuming you're going by, you're replacing or stringing right next to current, maybe cable or whatever that you own. Is that accurate? We overlash copper cable, typically. But that's already yours. In other words, as you're saying it's expensive, I can appreciate that. What we had heard is if it's blank, stringing fiber versus stringing a different technology is not all that different in costs. So I'm just trying to understand how, what I'm misunderstanding here. And can you repeat the question for me? So if you're just were in the wilderness where there was nothing and you were stringing fiber, it would cost you a dollar. And if you were stringing copper or cable, it would cost you 90 cents. I'm just making that up. But it's not wildly different. But you're talking about it being quite expensive. And so is that because you're replacing your older infrastructure or you're overlapping your current infrastructure? Yes, and it's a combination of things. So when you build a plant, accounting wise, you plan on a 30 year life for poles and for cable and stuff. So I have copper that is not 30 years old that's not fully depreciated that I have to put in. The other expense is the individual customer location. The equipment, it's called an ONT optical network terminal that box that gets put in the house. There's a cost to that. Typically the majority of our cases, the customer has older inside wiring where we have to assist them with getting ethernet cables to the new location. So there's the time and cost of running that. It just all adds up. If it was a new build, yeah, I just put fiber in and it's not a big deal, but these aren't new builds. And then when you're doing drops to the homes, that is fiber as well or you combine? Okay. I remember I'm here in Burlington. I was the first Burlington telecom customer north of Pearl Street just by virtue of where I live. And I remember trying to help in the troubled early days and they said, well, and we sort of had a campaign plan to go door to door and get more customers. And management said, you got to understand it's 500 bucks a house. It's not that we kind of don't want more customers because it's a cash flow problem. So I appreciate this is a tricky issue. And oftentimes it may sound like we're simplifying it in the way we talk about it, but I do think we appreciate some of the nuances but it's very helpful to have your examples. Thanks. And it makes a difference if it's an aerial drop versus a buried drop. Traditionally our copper drops were direct buried. We now ask that they be in a conduit for a fiber because if somebody weed wax, copper drop or they dig it up, planting a tree, there's a little called a hockey puck. You just make the connection seal it inside this little hockey puck with gel and you're good to go with fiber, it's glass. It's like taking two strands of hair, melting them together, keeping them straight. So you have to have the conduit because typically you're pulling in a new fiber. You're not going to be splicing that. So there's an, you know, anybody with a buried, there's that added fee. Sandra Sirachan. So I'm trying to get out a basic question. I understand that the pandemic has increased need for broadband. But is there any, can you explain to us what other impacts that has had on your business? Other than increased demand is, did it make companies like yourself more difficult to survive function differently? Or I guess that's a question. I think everybody's function differently in this last year. So it, you know, it's more challenging with COVID being able to go into houses or not going into houses. So that slowed things down. The big challenge is the supply of material. You know, we ran out of fiber drop and, you know, I had to go through all sorts of sources and, you know, was fortunate to find some or, you know, we get all ready to do a job and there's one piece missing. You know, I waited, you know, now the fiber world, typically you go to order something. It's a four to six week wait. That was pre COVID. Now when you order something, it's a six month wait. So you readjust, you know, I ordered, I had to figure everything out last October, what I'm going to do this year, just to know that I have supplies en route. So did you qualify for any PPE loans or economic recovery grants in the state of Vermont? I did not apply for any. My revenues were consistent with the year before. I have a small staff that we, you know, we were able to maintain everybody's position. Actually, I think we all worked harder than we've ever had before, but I didn't apply for any of those programs. Thank you. Tim, can I add a few things? Well, Roger. I can just add to a few things. I don't know a lot of companies that applied for the PPE. And it really, the COVID was an environment when where there's really an increased demand for our services. So we had additional customers hooking up with their broadband connections and many customers increasing the amount of bandwidth that they purchased from us. So they upgraded their service to a higher speed package. And therefore we did keep revenues fairly constant. So that was part of an outcome of COVID. One thing that I can add is that we spent a lot of time in customers' homes and working them through various issues that impacted the level of speeds they were purchasing. In an old environment, where everyone hooked up directly with a wire, we could guarantee speeds into the home. But now with Wi-Fi, there are so many factors that come into play that impacts the speed a customer can receive. Whether it be the amount of units they have attached, which everyone always underestimates to where their modems are located. I always use the example of, we have customers who they put their modem in, I'll say in the basement. Well, when you go into the basement, if you have your light on upstairs and expect to see in the basement, you won't see anything. So if your modem's in the basement and you're on the second floor upstairs, you shouldn't expect to have good coverage or good speeds because it's like there's no light there. So in several instances, we spent quite a bit of time in just dealing with customers and their issues that they may have had with Wi-Fi. Back to Kim. I've got one question for Kim and I'm gonna have, I think, I've got at least two witnesses with a hard stop time. So I may see if some folks can be a little more flexible. But Kim, the thing I found interesting because there was a discussion, I think here Friday, that kind of implied we shouldn't allow low people to purchase 10-1 or 5-1 or any, I think it went as far as 25-3 because we're gonna give them 100, 100. And if you put that out, people will buy it. But what you said is you put it out and people still bought, 20% of them still bought the old 10-1. Did that change when the kids started staying home and doing school work? Did they upgrade or? We had a few people upgrade, but not very many at all. I'm talking just a few that upgraded. No, and even with our get connected grant of the 24 locations, a little more than half took the 25 package and the rest of them stayed at the 10-1 package. And it's, our first bill was actually a small section around the lake that are second homes. And very few of those people take more than the 10-1. It's as much as I'd like to say you build it, they're gonna come, they don't. And that's part of the business model. People need to understand is just because you pass a bunch of homes, they're not going to take a higher package. And the 10-1 speed, you can be running three video devices on it comfortably. You got a gamer in the house or you got a couple VPNs, you're gonna have issues. But the 10-1 is a nice package for now. We're all building to increase as much as we can, but the reality is 10-1 works very well for a lot of people. Yeah, they don't need a hundred, a hundred. The business next door might, that's uploading blueprints or films but not your average person if they can get their school work. And okay, just thought that was interesting. Roger, I'm gonna let you finish up here, yeah. Sure, I'll go ahead and talk about the affordability. I mean, the whole thing that I can say in terms of the independence and all the carriers, we really reacted to the Keep America Connected pledge that was started at the federal level. And whether we signed on or not, we all agreed not to disconnect customers. And then we responded very well to commissioner Jeremy's call to action. Detail put in 15 additional hotspots. We added hotspots. And at the hotspots that we already had, we took off time limits and increased the speeds. At the same time, we identified locations where there were students that didn't have service and we got them connected. For Watesfield, we still have 28 students that are connected and we're providing that service for you charge. I know that VTEL had approximately, I wanna say 14 students that they have connected free and are so on and they actually connected 153 wirelessly. So we've done what we can and we've actually built us some locations that didn't have service. So we've done what we can to the best we can to get students connected during the pandemic and keep them connected. At the same time, participated in the Average program to make sure that people's bills stayed caught up and at the same time participated in the broadband lifeline program. Now, there's still the moratorium on no disconnections for the voice service. And for some of us, by the way, the rules work, if we're not disconnecting for voice, we're not disconnecting for broadband. So that's been the case at Watesfield and remains to be seen how that does impact us on a bottom line when it does end. Other companies have started disconnecting their broadband and that's a tough decision because they take a look at it each and every month and try to determine how that customer will really be impacted. In addition to everything that the state's done, there is also the federal lifeline program that provides $7.25 for broadband connections that are 25 or three or greater. And at the same time, 525 for voice services. I will say though that the program is not as effective as it used to be given that they keep raising the speed of the broadband. And oftentimes to get the 725 for the broadband, you may have the pricing going from 10 over one to 25 over three. So the customer may come out behind in actually applying to the federal lifeline program. Lifeline program was always there for voice. And this next year, there are gonna be some customers that no longer receive the federal lifeline because the voice portion is going to be going away. With that being said, we're hoping that this FCC will take another look at it and the program and see what they can do in revitalizing it in some form or fashion so that we can keep customers connected. We took, Wadesfield did get some grant money, connectivity initiative grant money and we built to an additional 224 locations. And those are 224 locations that I can say that without that funding, we probably wouldn't have gotten to last year. So every little bit of funding helps us get people connected. And we're an advocate for the governor's 16 million that he's applied for grants. To let's see how we can get that process started quickly so that we can plan and get that money invested year and get more connected. Because like I said, each and every dollar that comes back to us for the independent companies are out there, it's not going to planning. It's not going for business plans. It's going directly back into our networks and building broadband to customers. With that, I'll stop since I know you do have some time limits and I'll answer questions now or when you deem it to be appropriate. I had one, you said you extended to 225 or 24 homes. Did all of those homes sign up? So I know that we have the fiber into all the locations now except six, the majority of them I will say already had service. So they converted to a lower speed service to a fiber service where they'll have the ability to purchase up to one gig. Okay, that's what we'd hoped would happen. I think what we're trying to find out is did it in fact? And if the subsidies go away, will they stay connected? And I think we're doing kind of a business evaluation here. How much it's costing in public dollars? I think more and more people realize, I mean, given all the needs today, more and more people realize that it's essential for them to have the service. And in fact, it's interesting from the standpoint of, it's gotten tough for us making decisions because those that need the fiber yell and scream very, there are most vocal customers and they want fiber and they want it now. And we take a look at where they're located and they may have the ability to get 25, three to be and they want more. And in those instances, we have to say, well, we're not coming to you right now even though you would like higher level of service because there are those that are underserved and we need to get to them first. And that's just something that we're going to face until we get a hundred percent fiber to everyone. I think it was a sale. I lost that that was one of the circumstances over at your area. But it was up. Yeah. I mean, they had at least 25, three actually had better than 25, three, but they wanted a much higher upload and said, we just can't do it now. We're going to get everybody on one place. Senator Hardy, Senator Sorotkin, is that a new hand? No, it's an old hand. An old hand. Okay. Senator Hardy. Thank you, Madam chair. Roger, I just had a question on something you said. I didn't follow you. You mentioned you were talking about the federal program and whether or not people were using it and that in some cases they ended up worse off. If they use that program, could you explain what you meant by that? So at one point in time. At the federal level. You would get to $7 and 25 cents for a speed of 10 over one. And they've increased the speeds to get to subsidy or to get to seven 25 seven over the seven 25 to 25 over three. In some instances, a company may charge say $8 for 25 over, more for 25 over three. So for the customer to continue to get. The $7 25 credit, they would have to up their service to 25 over three. Possibly pay $8 more and only get a $7 and 25. I see. Okay. So as they increased their speed, it costs more and then the subsidy was less meaningful. Essentially. That doesn't happen in all instances, but that's that has been pointed out to the FCC is if you want to keep people connected, you should allow them to pick the level of service that they, they want to be connected at. Okay. And then just a couple of other clarifying things. You also mentioned that you still had some hotspots out there. That you mentioned 28 students that you still had hotspots for. So did you, did you take away hotspots or are, did they no longer need them? What, what, what happened? You had more at one point. Is that right? No, we added to the number we had in those that the existing ones that we, we took away the time limits, increased the amount of bandwidth to them. Okay. So you didn't remove some hotspots in the middle of the school year. Okay. And so how many did you have before the pandemic for what's I asked this question today and I didn't get an answer, but we have 21 right now. You have 21 right now. Okay. And the other thing that you mentioned that there's still the federal requirement that you can't disconnect voice, but you can now disconnect broadband if people are not paying. Is that correct? Is there a moratorium on the broadband disconnect at the federal level that's now gone away? Or was there ever a broadband disconnect moratorium? So the moratorium, that was part of the pledge. Oh, okay. And when, when the pledge ran out, well, there, there were actually two phases of the pledge. Everyone pretty much signed up for the first one. Some didn't sign up for the second one. And that was, that was what we said we would do in terms of the broadband. Now, because broadband isn't regulated at the state level, it can be disconnected at the state level. Right. Okay. Yeah. And that, that's the problem in some cases that we, we can't regulate it at the state level and that for us, I see that as a problem as a state legislator. So, but thank you. That, that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. New hand. New hand. Okay. I can't put them down like I could. So you need to put your own hands down. Well, you know what, I'll do it right now. Okay. How's that? That's good. Now you can talk. Yeah. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. So the existing broadband subsidy program that ended in December. That was what $40 a month. Is that correct? Okay. And how many. Roger, we can't hear you for some reason. I'm sorry. It was increased to 80. 40. That is the state programs. $40 state program. Okay. What percentage would you say roughly of your customers took advantage of that? Or would you know that? Maybe 5%. Okay. Okay. And. And did you see, did you have any feel as to. It was a charge for broadband that they were taking that $40 subsidy on. How much was the bill versus how much was the subsidy? Oh, I would have to, I would have to look that up. In probably in the ring of $80 though. So they're getting half of their bill covered. By the subsidy. Yes. Okay. And the new program that's coming in is a. $50 subsidy for somewhat different. Population more means based then. Then meeting telehealth or. Schooling or job remote work. Yes. I think that the, at the federal level, they're still looking into. To the requirements and how they'll be applied. So I guess I'm generally asking, you know, you've seen a lifeline program for your telephone services and for broadband. I mean, how. Important. Do you see a subsidy program for your rate payers for selected rate payers. Being, I mean, you know, we have subsidy programs for electricity and other kinds of services. How important do you rate broadband in that? Oh, I rated up there very highly and those that, that did apply. I think it, it made a difference in them. Being able to use their dollars on, on some other thing, possibly to feed their, their families or to, or to help pay their rent. So I think it just makes it helps those that, that, that are in need. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I've got Jeff Austin, Erica Smith, have to leave by three. Ahead of them is Holly and. Grouchner and Stephanie Lee. Can you two stay with us a little longer? Certainly. I can too, Stephanie. Okay. That's great. So. We will go then down to Erica Smith and I see Jeff, I don't know if you two have a presentation or who's, who's going where, but you have the floor. Great. Thank you for coming. It's nice to see everyone again. So thanks for having us back. And actually just a quick introduction. I wanted to introduce Erica Smith. She is our new senior manager for regulatory and legislative affairs. I've done a lot of work in the, in the Vermont legislature in my previous position, handling regulatory and government affairs for consolidated communications. Actually recently over the last few months, I moved into a new position as senior director of our consolidated fiber build strategy for the country. And Erica's moved into the role of regulatory and legislative. And I think you'll hear a lot more from Erica, but as it relates to today, I just wanted to introduce Erica. I'm not sure if Erica, if you had anything else you wanted to add before I jumped into our testimony for today. I don't think so. Just to say thank you for having us. And it's nice to meet you all virtually. So I look forward to working with you in the future. And so, so today as we transition, I'm going to go through some of the affordability that, that some of the questions that came up, sharecomings as we're preparing for our testimony. And I'm also going to talk a little bit about broadband, but we'll keep this brief. And I think that maybe some of the stuff that we talk about today may, may result in maybe another, another time in the committee. If that's, if that's acceptable. But I'll start the other times. Perfect. Okay. So we're going to talk a little bit about broadband. We're, is ongoing. We'll keep talking about that for sure. So as it relates to affordability, a lot of the things that Roger and Kim said, in, in relates to the pandemic, things that we also participated in, keep America's connected pledge near the Vermont, a rearage program, the broadband subsidy programs, really involved with the department of public service on those programs really, you know, those where they, where they're deserve for sure. A lot of hard work, a lot of hours and a lot of effort put into those programs and really want to thank the department for all the work and all the collaboration, getting, you know, getting those programs out in a short period of time and making them as successful as successful as they were. So I appreciate that work. As it relates to other things, just as we work through the pandemic, like everyone else, we provided, we had a program to provide free internet service for 60 days. For, you know, for new customers, folks who needed a school at home, work at home kind of situation. We connected over 400 new Vermont households with remote learning needs when the pandemic began through this program. And those were, you know, basically, and some new customers or some existing customers were also honored with that program, but it was mainly geared toward new customers. Fortability, again, we, with the state programs, we also participate in the federal lifeline program that Roger was just talking about. We're actively engaged as a company and Erica has been engaged in the, the FCC's emergency broadband benefit program, which is obviously, as everybody knows, is currently being developed. The subsidy programs, depending on availability. Now that one of the things about affordability, right? I mean, it is key. It's a huge topic when it relates to broadband equality or connectivity equality. Though a lot of the services that consolidated provides today on the internet side, we have a wide range of service options. And I know I'll throw out speeds and I know that they, they're going to sound old and antiquated, but there are some households who, who do order service at the three meg level, three meg of it that's download. We do have services that customers can order at the hundred megabit level. It's a lot of that is the copper network. It's DS, it's our DSL service. It's distant sensitive the further you're away from the electronics account of the lower speeds, but we have about 12 different price tiers. Anywhere from three meg to seven meg to 10 meg. We talked about that 10 one service, 15 meg, 25 meg, 40 meg. So as it kind of relates to affordability and accessibility, we do have, we do have a bunch of different ranges that customers can order and a bunch of different speed or a bunch of different price points related to those speeds. And, and it's something that I think the committee and this may be a different discussion, a further discussion. A lot of the talk that we've had, you know, with consolidated communications as an incumbent local exchange carrier consolidated purchase of fair point territories back in 2017. That's something everybody's kind of familiar with. We have a lot of fiber in the footprint, but not a lot of fiber to the premise. And we've talked a lot in this committee and other committees about fiber of the premise, the ability to have gig of it or multiple gig of it, symmetrical, right? Download and upload speeds to as many Vermont residents as we can get it to. And a lot of the discussion that we've had is copper DSL, right? Now, new technologies with copper DSL get higher speeds, but the, you know, right? There are certain limitations on those technologies. So again, something that I can get into just on a high level and you can let me know sharecomings where you want me to stop here, but consolidated announced back in September that we entered into a strategic partnership with searchlight partners. And that is, that has resulted in a large influx of capital to the company. We're taking that capital influx and we're actually going to be building out over the next five years in the main New Hampshire and Vermont territory just to give you an idea where that is over 11,000 miles of fiber. And this is fiber to the prem multi gig of it, symmetrical internet service. So we've taken, we've talked about affordability, right? Overbuilding. We've talked about the copper service. Well, the fiber is the future, you know, for us, we've talked about things like future proof and how do we get there? Well, this fiber program, accelerated fiber expansion program, I will call it. This already started in Vermont. So we've really accelerated this. We're building in 14 of our wire centers, which cover about eight, 28 towns in 2021 alone over 500 miles of fiber for the premise service in 2021. And when we're all done after five years, just on this program, there's art off discussions. And I know that's probably another discussion. We're going to be building over 2,500 miles of fiber to the premise services here in Vermont. So I won't. I have a, I could do a couple of hours on this, but in the, in the spirit of time, and I know we're talking about affordability. The only thing else on that is we're really looking for really looking to build state of the art fiber to as many folks as we can. And when we're talking about affordability right now, we're looking at our 15 megabit symmetrical. So up and down services, the beginning price point is going to be about $35 a month for that service. So just want to kind of put out on the affordability side that we're thinking about this in all different ways. How do we get the most bang for our buck? How do we build out to as many people as we can affordably? And then how do we make this affordable, you know, for our customers? So I will stop there because like I said, I could go on for a while, but and see if anyone in the committee has questions. Thank you. Oh, everybody moved. So, okay, there's Jeff. It gets disorienting when people, the little boxes move. Well, thank you for that. I had, did you, I didn't look on our website. Did you provide written testimony? And if so, or if not, do you have a map of that 25 file plan of building? I love the term fiber to the prem. Now I can sound very cool. Like I know what I'm talking about. Do you, can you give us a map on what your plan is? Yeah, we're not yet. We don't have, it's a five year plan. So we don't have anything kind of basically outside 2021, you know, completely mapped out. We've done really high level reviews of where we're going to go. Where our estimate is going to be passing over 210,000 locations. So as we're looking at the big picture, we haven't done the detailed engineering, like boots on the ground that needs to happen to make sure that we cover everyone that we plan on covering. Okay. So that is something that we'll continue to work on though. Okay. Do you have the 2021. Any, any map or any plan that you could provide, even if it's just the one year, that would be helpful to see where, as we're looking at lots of different proposals and plans to how much of our state we're going to end up patch working together, higher speed coverage. So if you have that, that would be great to see. The other question I want to ask is on a different topic, but other members of the committee will know what I'm talking about. We've over the last couple of days actually gotten several emails from customers who are, let's just say not very pleased with your company and have customer related complaints. And one specifically caught my eye as something that sounded really egregious during the pandemic, which was a, you know, rental change in a home, whoever was living in the home and one renter canceled their service and the next renter tried to try to connect to service and was told multiple times by consolidated, oh, we'll get you, we'll get to you, we'll get to you, we'll get to you, we'll drag out over months and months and months, never got connected, finally consolidated told them, we don't service that address anymore. When the address had previously in, you know, April or May been serviced by consolidated. And we've just heard continued stories about a lack of clear communication from consolidated to customers. And I'm just, I'm just concerned about your customer service and your customer communication, particularly in this time of real, real need for families and for, for customers to have this service. So what is your company doing to serve customers better and to communicate with them better? Yeah, I can in the air, if there's anything you want to add as I'm going through throw that out there. But so individual situations, it's hard for me to address that, but I can say that the way that we built our network, our TSL network is you run fiber from the central office to a remote terminal. And this remote terminal is out further into the rule of territories that remote terminal has a certain amount of capacity to be able to provide a certain amount of customers with internet service. Now, as you can imagine, the pandemic has created more need right for, for that kind of folks who previously did not need or want internet then turned around. So our capacity, definitely we saw an increase of capacity and increase of orders. Now the way that the design is are those, those that capacity at that remote terminal is not for individual address locations. So for example, you're in, now I don't know all the details of that one specifically, but in that situation I can foresee that if somebody didn't disconnect in that, that port basically in the electronics became available, became available, somebody else on a different address put an order in, use that port, we connected their service, that might have exhausted the ports in that area. When you exhaust the ports, then you have to build new electronics for more capacity. So again, not knowing all the details about how you're explaining it. Now that those conversations, those are tough because again, it's we have to go out there and we have to build more capacity as we're building out. So we have to schedule it. We have to, we have to get the electronics. I know Kim Gates mentioned getting materials in a pandemic has been a challenge on timing and things like that. So we're happy any to research and, and take care of anything. If anyone here has situations like that, send them to Erica, you know, send them to myself. We'll get them to the right folks, but I will pivot a little bit to that, that absolutely we want to be sending consistent messages, you know, to our customers. Right now is a really hard time to not have internet access. You really need it with school at home, work at home, telemedicine, everything we're doing these days is really required, you know, to have an internet connection. So we understand that part of this fiber build that we talked about is a whole digital transformation also. It's world-class service. Our internet technical support is changing. Everything we're doing in the company is transforming. And we've started putting this together back in September. We've got a little bit of runway. We've got some work to do these situations. We definitely want to know about so we can feed those back because we do want to provide that world-class service. And when you get out into those rural areas and we have got the cover plan, the DSL, we've got some, we've got some good speeds. We've got capacity in a lot of areas, but we definitely have run into challenges in some areas with capacity. And it sounds like your example happens to be one of those. Okay. Well, I'm happy to send those along to you or Erica. I'm sorry. But I just, it's pretty consistent that we hear concerns with consolidated customer service. So if you're going to be building out in Vermont, that sounds great. But if you can't provide the customer service to those Vermonters who then are using your technology and using your services, then it doesn't really matter if they have broadband, if they can't use it and they can't get their questions answered. So I just, you need to focus on that more. Yep. No, that is a high priority in the company, not just here in Vermont, but across our footprint. So no, we actually, we absolutely hear that message. We're actually putting in some new indicators, a national provider service provider score. So we can, we have more of a con, more contact with our customers. They can provide more feedback. We have avenues to hear what they're saying. And we have avenues to address issues like that. So as I mentioned, as we're kind of transforming the company, and it really is that this was really consolidated vision when they purchased the territories back in 2017. We had a good core network. We've had limited or no fiber to the premise, you know, customer service. So as we're rolling into a little past year three, we've got the capital influx. We have the ability to do this complete transformation. And customer service is at the, is really at the top of that list. So I absolutely hear you, Senator, and totally agree. Yes. Thank you for the time. Where were your next hard media? Senator Bray has a question. Senator McDonald's training me to be extra clear on, on terminology, which is a good thing. So fiber to the premises. Does that mean to the property or to the building itself? So that there's no gap between. The ONT or whatever, and, and the, and the dwelling space or business space. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Sarah. Is it really, it's a great question. We're building fiber on the poles. So we're going to go past, you know, over 210,000 locations in Vermont. That makes a fiber available. If somebody orders service. One of the challenges is when you're building out anything, you want to make sure that you look at the cost of the build, right? You want to build it as efficiently as you can. And you don't want to have any, let's say, but we don't want to have any assets out there that you're stranded assets, I guess would be a, would be a term. So if we went and we built, we built it on the poles, and then we ran a drop to everybody's homes. Not everybody is going to order the service. We're really looking at increasing our fiber availability to approximately 70 or 75% of our addresses in Vermont. But we will still going to need our people to call and order. So then we can put the drop on their house. Then we can put the O and T, like you mentioned inside their house. So it'll be available on the poles. And when people order it, then obviously we can provide service to the individual dwellings or the, or the business. So fiber to the premises means basically to the address and then someone needs at that point. So that's a checkbox for fiber to the premises. And then an actual connection is one more step. I would agree with that. Yep. Yep. Okay. And one other quick question is, is there any kind of chart when, when one of your customers says, you know, I do want to upgrade. Is there a fee to bring them over, swap them over from copper to fiber? You know, I, that's actually a good question. I'll have to look. I believe that there's an installation fee, but we have promotions that we're working on that would waive that fee. It's something like $99 potentially for the connection charge. But again, we're looking at promotions to waive that fee. And I think that's a good question. So what we would have to do is it does require us to have a technician truck roll, you know, so we've got that overhead to go out and connect the fiber, get into the house, place the, the L N T. And get everything running for them. So I, I don't know that answer 100%. But that's, that's how I see it today. Okay. And last quick question is the slowest service. When takes fiber is what level, please? It would be 50 mag symmetrical 50 by 50. Okay. So 50 and up. Yep. And actually when we roll this out, we're looking at four speed tiers. So it'd be a 50 mag by 50 mag, 200 mag by 50 mag. So that's what we're looking at. So that would be a 50 mag by 50 mag. 250 by 250 one gig by one gig and two gig by. Okay. And one other your mileage may vary question. Is that an up 250? Or is that mean that 50 is the floor when I said or not for that service. Yeah. 50 is a four. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Welcome. Looking into. How many people did. Did you did have, I'm sure some programs to make it easier for people just to sign up and to afford and. And. Do you know how many people signed up using. Those programs. When has the program ended when, when will it end? And then I think we're interested in how many people stay signed up. Just some general numbers. I know with the, with our two months free or 60 day free service for, you know, families with students, we had about 428, you know, new customers sign up for that program. So that's the program, that's the program. That's the program that they stayed with us. You know, how many of those 428 still because. We ran that program through the summer of. 2020. You know, through that period of time for folks to get signed up spring and summer. And as it relates to like the Vermont broadband subsidy program and the arrearage program. I don't have those exact numbers on how many folks. Signed up for that program. So what we're trying to figure out is we know how many premises we've run fiber by. But we don't know how many actual. Customers have signed up. Because they sign up with you, not. Right. The department. And so we're trying to get a handle on. How many signed up. How many went away when the subsidy went away. Just because as we go into the future, I think we're looking at. You know, how, how necessary is a subsidy. And then what speeds they're signing up for. So. And how that state subsidy would work with that new federal, you know, program. Yeah. And all those combinations. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. We can definitely provide some data for you. Okay. That would be great. All right. Other questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I should know this, but. Can you say you're participating in the. The rearage program. Can you describe. That program. Is that the. A rearage program for all utilities. And did it extend to broadband. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was the rearage program, Senator for all utilities. And the, it did not extend in a program that was really on, on the home or voice side of the house. It really was for that basic local exchange service, that dial tone service. So that was the V cap program. And then the broadband side had its own broadband subsidy program, which was the $40 a month. That Clay mentioned. But there was no a rearage program for broadband. Correct. I think the, the way the program and anybody can. Correct me if I'm wrong. The way the program worked was. You had to sign up for the program. You had to apply for it. But you could retroactive those $40 a month programs back to March. Of the beginning of the pandemic. So it's not in a rearage, but it did have a retroactive part of that. That would retroactive back to March of 2020. And that's correct. Jeff has correctly described the program. Okay. So. Well, for telephone service. And utilities, there was some. That waiver back bills for broadband. There was just a credit program that you could apply. Retroactively for, but you couldn't wipe out your entire bills. That were due. Right. You'd have to, if you actually had. Past due. Basic local exchange. So past two dial tone service. Talking about broadband. Oh, just broadband. Yeah. Then that was the broad, just the broadband subsidy program. Yeah. Yeah. The effect could have been the same, right? Theoretically. And certainly again, you can correct me, but, um, if a customer was past due and they applied for, and were approved for the program. The charges could have been applied retroactively. So for some customers, I think that benefit would have worked that way, but it wasn't designed in the same way that the rearage program was for basic telephone service and other utilities. So I'm not going to correct me if I'm wrong. So I guess he's not going to correct. I had trouble getting to the unmute button. No, the, the. The program wasn't intended to be for our rearages, but early on we had identified that the, the VCAP program, the legislation didn't cover broadband because it only covered. Um, utilities that were. Covered by the PUC's moratorium on disconnections, which did not apply to broadband. So in picking that $40 number, um, you know, that was an average broadband bill. It didn't necessarily cover everyone's total broadband expenditure, but it went a long way for a lot of customers. So it didn't necessarily cover everyone's total broadband expenditure. It didn't cover everyone's total broadband expenditure. It didn't cover covering. Um, the rearage. Um, Technically customers could get up to $400 for all 10 months. The average. Subsidy was $313. So. We did hear back from many customers to. Um, use the program to cover their rearages that they had. Accrued since March. So that was a great sacrifice to pay their bill. They still ended up getting a credit in the end. Um, so it was more expansive than just simply covering a re-erges. Um, while, while you have the mic. Play. Uh, do you know, or. Can you put together some sort of. Uh, memo as to. What some of the other providers, the bigger providers in Vermont provided in terms of. Subsidies for their low income customers or. For telemedicine or telehealth. I keep hearing that Comcast and other things have these programs. That are somewhat means tested where they're. Providing some help and. Paying people's bill. It'd be nice to have that all in one place. I don't assume it may be proprietary, but I don't assume it's not common knowledge out there. So the, the, uh, several carriers do have programs. I think Comcast is the most widely known. Um, it's actually well regarded. Um, among consumer advocates, at least compared to other, other carriers. I know Comcast is not on the, on the call today, but, um, Comcast program, I think is $10. Um, and you can qualify for it. If you qualify for a free reduced lunch. Or snap. Some of those other federal programs much in line with the lifeline program. Um, it's, it's pretty good. And it, uh, there are many takers of that in Vermont. And we covered that with our broadband subsidy. So a lot of the people that qualify for that program, we paid the extra $10 through the, a rearage program. Um, But, uh, that one's a popular one charter also has one. Um, and I believe some of the telephone companies as, as we've heard today has one. Um, an EC fiber when they testify, we'll probably talk about the program that they initiated in response to the pandemic. Um, so there are several programs. We can try to put something together for you, um, on that, but Comcast is, is the largest. Um, in the past, um, some have had difficulty getting that some of those programs, if they've had a previous a rearage with, um, with the provider offering, uh, the subsidy with the new federal subsidy, uh, that will be rolled out in March. Um, a rearage should not be a problem. So if someone would otherwise qualify for one of those low income programs, they can sign up, um, through the FCC's program. So I just want to make sure I heard you right. You say the subsidy that was a good one was Comcast. Um, I don't think Comcast is $10 a month. I believe it's $10 a month. Um, I'll have to go back and check, but $10 a month for a 25, three service. Which costs. What? $60 a month. I don't know because I don't think Comcast sells a 25, $10 a month. Um, I don't think Comcast sells a 25, $10 a month package is, I believe, or in the 60 to $80 range for, um, their common internet packages. Thank you. Do you have a question or did you get your answer? Yes. Senator McDonald. I, I, I, for 10 minutes, I didn't know what Senator Sarat can meant when he said, we finally. Got an answer that we're talking about 25, $10 a month. Um, so. It's kind of tough to understand what's being discussed when it's not. Explain. Okay. Any other questions. For Jeff or Erica. Okay. If not, I'm going back to the. Order. And I've got Holly gross. Groschner. From. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really. Welcome again. And thank you for working with our schedule. No problem, Madam chair. And, um, I will share my screen in a moment. I'm thrilled to be here. And we took you at your word that you wanted to talk about affordability. Uh, because I represent not just easy fiber today. Um, and we're, we're volunteers, but I'm also the volunteer chair of the board of something called equal access to broadband, which is an organization that EC fiber has initiated. Uh, through seed funding this year to address the affordability issue. And I'm happy to be here to talk to you about it. Although I may not be able to, uh, answer your questions about deployment, uh, because we've really separated these two activities. Um, I am going to share my screen, uh, not because I don't think you read, but actually just because I think it would be great to have a very, um, consolidated look at this. But when I am doing this, I don't see you. So please speak up if you need me to stop. Uh, I don't think we're going to be able to talk to everybody either. So I think we've got it down to. We just holler politely. Okay, then. I can. That it'll be like family supper. Um, so I know, I know some of you, but, um, I'm a former partner downs, Rathen and Martin in the telecom practice. I helped bring wireless to cell phone service to Vermont. That was a national international and they started the international facilities infrastructure, build a business that supports cell phone service. So, um, that was a national network of towers and infrastructure including fiber. And I'm the former general counsel of the Vermont telecom authority and hello, Senator Bray. And you may know me. I have been on TV as the CEO of Vermont PBS. And I am proud to say that I authored the merger of Vermont PBS and VPR to ensure that public media service will continue in Vermont for a very long time. So there is great news, especially in these times. We all agree. And I think it's great to get our heads above the clouds here and say, isn't it fabulous that we all agree that everyone needs broadband service. I think we all agree that it's not affordable by everyone. And we could say that the easy thing to do is to reduce the price. But that is not the only thing we need to do. We do have 3.2 billion dollars, which is. Sounds like a lot of money, but is only scheduled to last for 8 to 10 months, as commissioner Tierney said. This is a target subsidy of $50 a month. And that will help. But it is using is an existing system. And as the national carriers have offered in their testimony, this build on the lifeline program. And it means that the access is just about how do you subsidize that individual customer. It doesn't deal with getting the service to the customer or helping the customer make decisions. So equal access to broadband is here because EC fiber and the other CUDs have a broadband mission to serve all the neighbors. We see that that's going to require helping these CUDs who don't have big government affairs or subsidy programs themselves. To help log in and how to plug in the networks that exist in communities to help low income families. The proposed service rate at EC fiber for low income families is 25 megabits square. And I assume that that's a phrase that folks know for $22 a month. Could explain just 25 square means. Yes, that means when you see when you see the federal standard, they've set the definition of broadband to be 25 megabits upload and three, I'm sorry, 25 megabits download and three megabits upload. And EC fiber delivers all of its services symmetrically, which means its uploads and its downloads are the same. It makes no judgment by whether you're uploading big files at work at home or whether you're downloading big files. So it's selling symmetrical service. And that is going to be offered at about $22 a month. And that's interestingly about what the federal government targeted its subsidies at the retail rate for the same service is $72. So you're trying to find that $50 subsidy to help folks, but it isn't enough just to find the subsidy. We have to find a way to help folks know how to find this service and that they need this service. As the Pew charitable trust research recently said, people who are in low income families don't access this service because they don't think they need it because they don't understand it. And they're afraid of contract commitments. The Comcast program at $9.95 a month. It is fabulous, except there's barriers to entering that program. And it's scary. So people do love it if they can have it. EC fiber and the other CUDs of course serve areas where these national companies have not found it possible to string fiber or any other service. So we're trying to deal with folks that are specifically in these targeted areas without access to any of these other subsidy programs. The national funding process is a bit like the national carriers. It's a nice linear package. The customer goes out and defines it's his or her own eligibility on a verification database that's run by a national service. There is a benefit coverage established in the FCC's picture right now, given the 3.2 billion and we hope that that's continued that funding for that is continued. That's about a $50. But please know that the carrier sets the price for the service. So whether $50 covers all the service or a part of the service, that's up to the carrier. The carrier also has particular obligations like making sure they're actually providing broadband. Then there's an amount and application of the benefit and a distribution of the benefit. Those two steps are done by the government, not by the carrier. And then the funding sources of course Congress program administration is again the government and transition transition really means bringing low income families online. So we at equal access to broadband has spent the last three or four months talking to school officials and case workers about what broadband really looks like to low income families in Vermont. So first there's the problem of where are you located. Is there even service available. No one lets you know that proactively. You have to figure that out. And if you happen to live in a building where there's a landlord, there's an added complication. Then you have to determine whether you qualify. Part of that is whether you qualify under a federal program. And then there's the question of, has the carrier processed your paperwork. This is a, you know, multi step process. And sometimes, as in the lifeline program, there are government agencies that help you figure that out. Sometimes there are not. And many of the case workers we've spoken to are at agencies that are trying to scrape together dollars to help do a funding for the drop to the low income families household, or just trying to help the family sort out what they can afford because they don't understand that they may have cable, they may have a mobile phone, they may have a landline phone. What do they need, what can they do to change their economic picture to make this affordable. And then there's the weight, the carrier has to make approvals the landlord makes approvals. There's a question about how the federal benefit will arrive. And then there's the actual linking up to that. The drop that we've been talking about. There is a whole area that no one talks about in terms of tech refresh. You know, I'd hate to think that we're talking to the folks in the old one of the oldest states in the union about whether they need high speed broadband. I know my mom doesn't think she needs it. I feel that I adoption telephone customer have lots of days when I wonder how we're going to survive because we, we haven't we are operating on DSL. That's more like a speed of six megabits per second down and three quarters of a megabit per second up. So is our television connected to our internet service. Yes, it is. Is our cell phones. Well, by gosh, they are because there's no cell service here in Corinth. What about our TV. Is it too old. Can we use it on this new broadband service. Somebody has to help sort out these questions and this activity gets pushed down to teachers and case workers. And we don't think that that's a good, a good place for it to live but it's certainly not a good place for it to live. If those folks aren't supported in understanding what what the question is. And then there's the financial management of all this, the cost of devices, the cost of the drop additional monthly recurring costs which create great fear in this population. So here we are equal access to broadband is trying to support the CD in delivering custom community service. So we'd like to see there be frictionless registration of the CUDs in the National Verifier database. That's the database that folks like Comcast are going to access. We're going to support outreach through existing channels that schools and case workers to make sure that the community that needs this subsidy and needs the knows about it. We're going to try to expand the standards for eligibility to include free and reduced lunch. And I'm told by case workers that even then when you're dealing on a percentage of the federal poverty level, you're leaving a lot of folks behind who really need help just on a cash flow basis. So EC fiber went out this year they're supporting multiple families. I think there's presently about 50 families that they are supporting and they waive the charges for the drops to those families because urgency was there. They knew that this was important and they had to do it on an ad hoc basis because of the urgency and because frankly, this is new. So we're trying to build a more systemic approach to this, including an arrearage program, because our research says that there are going to be arrearages, and we need to not be disconnecting people, we need to be helping them with continuous coverage. So that provides a little bit of a window and what we're trying to do. We've seen a price tag for our initiative of around $350,000 to get set up and start distributing this program. So as you know, school is in your car is not the answer. We're trying to make sure that we're not leaving the lowest income families in Vermont, living in their cars and a Wi Fi hotspot by their local library. And, you know, I think it was a WCAX or known as Vermont digger recently reported on teachers that are spending their days in their school parking lot accessing Wi Fi. We are very concerned that this creates a multi-class society or worse a disconnected portion of our society. And we don't we want to be one community. So that's why we're here. So please support equal access to broadband. Anything you can do to build us into your funding strategies, we would very much appreciate. And because all of you are getting so good at these vocab words. If you'd like to join me and help us create this new support mechanism that helps tailor support for low income families in Vermont. Please just raise your hand. Thank you. That's a rock and are you raising your hand, are you asking a question. I'm both raising my hand and support and asking a question. Holly, you're obviously very knowledgeable and a great resource for us. I'm going to ask the same question though I, I'm shaking my head on the Comcast subsidy that people are just falling over themselves and supporting and it seems like a, it's like a 15% discount for low income people at $10. What am I missing here. The discount is more than 15% against a Comcast bill on the charges 10 in the retail is I think it's more than 60 15%. Oh, I miss it. I heard 15. Okay, so my question to you is this. Are you asking me. How is this possible to make this big discount. I guess I must be missing something I guess I'm not viewing $10 is a big discount. No, no, they're paying $10. Oh, okay. Thank you that resolves the whole thing. Okay, never mind who's paying that wasn't clear. Never mind. Okay, Senator Hardy. Thank you and thank you for clearing that up with Senator Sorokin. I thought you had it backwards in your in your mind, Michael so I'm glad you got it. The, I think it's one thing that's really important that you mentioned and this goes to that Comcast program it might sound really good but the barriers to entry are really quite big still because of all the strings that are attached and anybody who's been a Comcast customer knows that they have tons of strings and really complicated pricing mechanisms and really complicated contracts and it's intimidating even if you have the resources to pay their bills, let alone if you don't have the resources so I'm trying to understand exactly what you're pitching to us. Essentially, you're asking for $350. It sounds like you're asking for it. That's your ask in order to create or support a program that has been created by EC fiber and maybe in partnership with other cuts. I wasn't sure about that. And you would essentially be the interface and do the things now that social workers and teachers are doing and help people access these subsidies and help people navigate the complexities. Is that what you're saying I just want to make sure I'm clear on the program you're pitching. I'm really glad Senator Hardy that you've asked me for clarification because I've missed my mark. The Equal access to broadband is filling a role that exists in part at commercial broadband providers. No one in the ISP community has a full blown program for getting finding low income families making sure they're connected, making sure they understand how to use the equipment or have the right equipment. Our experience tells us that low income families trust their case workers and the folks at their children's school. It's best if we support those folks in delivering access to the subsidies and access to information. We'd be happy to help develop an educational program, but I think it's best to use existing channels to deliver it. 350,000. That's what we see as our cost over the next two years. We have a little experience in fundraising, but there is a lot of challenge right now in raising dollars. And this is a complex area of people say, oh, food, I understand that, but people don't understand how devastating it is to not have internet access during these times. And that's, that's the problem. So if this committee in drafting legislation and it's early in the season can help us, that would be, we would be grateful. Okay, and thirdly, one third, one more thing. You asked about our relationship to the CUDs. We're setting up this program, and it is being set up with the support of VC fiber, but it's being modeled so that it can be used by all the CUDs, if not other nonprofit ISPs, so that they know how to access the National Verifier Database, for example. And they don't have to recreate a system for getting subsidies to their low income customers. The conversation with a low income family does not fall naturally from the lips of your broadband installer. And so that's the support we're trying to bring. So you're, I just want to thank you that was helpful, but I just want to make sure I definitely have it correct. So your program would help the people who are already trying to help low income families connect to internet service. You would help them be able to do that better. Like the people who are showing up at your house to connect to your broadband or the teachers at the school who are trying to explain to parents how to get it or the person at a social worker who's trying to help the family in their caseload. Is that correct? We're at the school and the social worker and we're trying to get that information to the broadband carrier. So I should make this really clear. We're going to do this. I almost said come hell or high water. We're going to do this, no matter what, because we need to. It's almost a moral imperative or perhaps it just is a moral imperative. When you talk about a customer for a broadband company, it isn't normally the low income folks who come beating on the door, as was referenced earlier, wanting high speed internet connections. Because to them that sounds like a contract and another monthly expense. And in fact, they're buying track phones so they can contain their expense and a lot of times that's the only internet interface to the internet. And so this is a way of reaching out to those folks and helping bring them with us into the 21st century. Thank you. Something you took me a while to understand, and I come from a background of working with low income people, is that when you have very limited means, and you're living paycheck to paycheck, if you're lucky. And every unanticipated expense causes fear. And so to sign a contract that says, I've got to pay for this service for X amount of time. And then you have equipment for what happens when it breaks. If it breaks, I can afford to fix it, but I've got to pay this contract for the next six months. And you're saying that the resources to help folks get the equipment to understand the equipment to understand the contracts and you know what funds are there to help pay for them. What the contract really means and what happens. You need to get out of it. But it's traditional social work you kind of hold their hand and walk them through the process and answer your questions really at their level of understanding technology and I love you know you call up and you ask for help, and you get a technician. I'm frequently not sure what language that technician is speaking but I sounds like it's in English but it's nothing I understand. And I think that's what you're. What you're saying to us is that's what it's going to take to get the most needy Vermonters hooked up to what is, if it isn't already going to be as essential as electricity or indoor plumbing. This is our next big step. Okay. Yes. And, and we are not trying to take the role of the case worker. We're just trying to support the case worker so that they can have the conversation. Case worker may not know all the technology. They do not. I mean, I've, I've spent the time talking to a number of them. And it's. I get into conversations that literally sound like, you know, when they drop that thread thing, and it goes into the box. Well, we, we talk in my language. We got to get the, we got to get the landlord to say we can have the box. Yeah. And by the way, that's a challenge right there. There's a lot of low income folks who are at the mercy of their landlords for whether or not they will have broadband service. That's something maybe we can look at too. Sandra Bray. Hi, Holly, it's good to see you. I have a quick question. So for the people you serve, I'm guessing that you're vendor neutral. It doesn't matter what you're not steering people to anyone you're just laying out options for what's available where they are. Is that correct. This whole enterprise is really set up to be supportive of CDs. Yeah. It is definitely the case that if you're a low income person who qualifies for assistance, and you go to your case worker, and you live in Chittenden County. I'm not going to be your helper. Okay. But that's not to say there couldn't be a long term plan, but that's not where we're focused today. Okay. Well, no, it's not a criticism. I'm just didn't know what your territory. So are you the territory you're planning to serve is the territory where CDs either exist or are building into. Is that correct. That is correct. And we're starting with the 31 towns that are either served or to be served by easy fiber. They currently have 5500 customers. And they are growing like mad and have added an additional eight towns just in 2020. Okay. So are there counterparts to what you're doing for the other CUDs that I think like five CUDs have formed in the last 12 months or something like that. So are you are there counterparts there or are you. So the marvelous, the marvelous FX Flynn, who is the chair of easy fiber. He is on my board at equal access to broadband. He is also the chair of V CUDA, the Vermont Association of CDs. And we are building this to create a replicable model or a single source of this support. Okay, thank you. I have to also say that CUDs are by and large just looking at their built plans right now and trying to get that baseline like where's the design going to come from and so they're not close to needing a subsidy program quite yet. Okay, well, I remember a long time ago Steve job said, you know, computers should be no more complicated than your toaster. I don't know that we ever got there and when I look, you know, at this, our own group the Senate getting together, although we have people, we struggle regularly with different aspects of it so. I think we're all sensitive to the fact it's, it ain't easy to get connected. At the later coming point, it really isn't easy if you're really worried about how you're going to afford your medicine in your food. Thank you. Yeah, I, I'm going to put a little pitch in while I'm here as former general counsel of the Vermont telecom authority. I haven't seen, I'm not privy to what the grant language is for all this new fiber that's being built out. But I would certainly hope that those recipients of funding are obligated to make that open architecture fiber so that other providers can be accessing that fiber as well. I know it's complicated, but it just seems like it's something that needs to be at least talked about. So I hope committee will think about that. I think it's one of the things we missed in the rush to get fiber out the door. But it is definitely, as we move forward now at a more manageable pace. Something we're going to be talking about is what I, if you're getting state money or tax money, what are your obligations, you know, if you sell and you're not for profit now. If. Yeah. Is it open access and see where we go. Okay, other questions. If not Senator Bray, my father who fixed everything. The only thing he ever declared was not meant to be fixed was a toaster toaster. So they are apparently not that simple. Okay, let me find my agenda. Thank you Holly that that was very refreshing. Yeah. Madam chair that toaster analogy maybe was more clever than we knew because Apple does want you to replace their products on a trailer cycle. Maybe they want you fixing your toaster after all. That's why one he decided. Okay, that gets us to Stephanie Lee. And Stephanie, thank you for hanging in there with us. No problem. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you madam chair and members of the committee. I'm Stephanie Lee. I'm from Verizon and I lead government affairs and public policy in the New England region. I also have one of my colleagues listening and Ellen Cummings who is going to be partnering wondering who my cousin was down there. I'm going to pick up. That is my colleague. And she's going to be also on partnering with me and we also work more closely with Chris Rice who is our latest on the ground, and has worked with us for many years. We have a great opportunity to highlight some of our work in Vermont and to talk about this issue, which is really important. I think the pandemic we always knew that access to broadband was an issue, but I think the pandemic really shed a light on a lot of the opportunities and how important it really is, especially as we're all trying to work from home, stay connected, even have more telehealth appointments, and our kids, every kid needs to be able to have access to education remotely. And that was the first area back in March when schools were closed that schools were panicking. They were reaching out. They knew they had to go remote. They didn't know how they were going to do it. It was happening as well as in rural areas where departments of education and leaders of schools are saying, how are we going to reach our kids? They don't all have connectivity. They don't know how to use connectivity. And we looked at it similar to what Holly was talking about, which was really, she was an excellent speaker, Holly, that was great. But she's right. It's about affordability. It's about access. And then it's about adoption, not even if you can, you have the money or you're given the money to buy the access. And you have a provider running right by your house. Not everybody knows how to actually use the technology. So Verizon is looking at that access from all of those areas. So I wanted to just sort of fast forward a little bit of a few things we did during the pandemic and that we hope to carry through what we learned as we continue to move forward. Well, obviously rural broadband or lack there of a rural broadband is a real issue. And one of the things Verizon has been doing is more aggressively building out our 4G LTE network. Eventually a 5G network in Vermont itself over the past three years we've invested about $40 million. Corporately we invest last year in the pandemic we actually decided to invest more than we originally told Wall Street we're going to invest so we were supposed to invest about 17 to 17 five we invested over 18 billion. And we are going to invest at that same clip again in 2021 with a focus on really trying to add capacity where we need it, but also expanding coverage as well which is critical. At the beginning, again when school districts started coming to us, trying to figure out how they're going to reach their kids. One of the things we knew was really important is that we were able to get technology into kids hands so we very quickly started to work with departments of education across the country. We came up with a remote a discounted remote learning plan that we could actually work with school districts on it was a bulk thing that we, we put together there on a literally we pivoted very quickly. And now we have 40 states that are participating and more than representing over 38 million students in Vermont, this discounted program what it was is that we work with the departments of education in the school districts, where they could actually get hot spots jet packs and 4G LTE data plans into the hands of students wherever they might be located where service was available. In Vermont, there are about 1500 students that have benefited from one of these hot jet packs and the 4G LTE wireless plans. It's throughout the state. There's some some districts that participated a little bit more strongly where they probably had more students that didn't have access. So, I know other providers were doing similar things but that was a way we thought we could help and we're looking we're extending those deep discounts, they're about 75% discounted rates that the schools, some of them use tax money, some of them found other funds to help their families and we're extending that pricing through the end of 2021 and are looking at more sustainable options so that districts can help fill that gap. If we're going to be in a remote environment or a hybrid environment in the long term. The other thing we did through our corporate social responsibility Verizon has a program where we work with title one schools called Verizon innovative learning. We have about 260 middle school and high schools across the country and we're adding another 150 this year and we provide them professional development work with the teachers but we also provide free internet access and STEM education tools. When the pandemic kit we went to all the schools that we're working with including our alumni and offered them to have. Our four G LTE plans, at least for the school year in the emergency situation. There were two middle schools in Burlington, Vermont that are part of that innovative learning network where we also made that offer to them as well. We've discounted our pricing for our unlimited pricing plans for adding health care workers and teachers to a program that we have offered to first responders and active duty military and veterans and now permanently health care workers teachers and their families are able to have the best pricing that we have available for our consumers. We also took participate in the keep America connected pledge to ensure that our customers could stay connected during the pandemic where they were not charged we would not terminate service or charge late fees. We extended that beyond the pledge for an additional few months. And now we're working with our customers putting them on payment plans and doing everything to ensure if they're still struggling with the pandemic that we keep them connected. The other thing we're doing is looking at this picture. Going forward this. We realize that wireless can fill in gaps we're not everything for everybody but because of the mobility. It does provide opportunity as it did for some of the school school that had need. But one of the things we're doing is really looking and working with the federal government on really trying to build subsidies subsidies so that families beyond lifeline subsidies that others have talked about which we offer for wire line products and our wire line footprint, but have subsidies that people can use no matter what their technology is that would be like an emergency broadband benefit package where they get $20 to $50 a month to be able to discount products. I know Congress did take some steps as part of the emergency broadband benefit package and we're hoping that we can work with them as an industry to do some things more permanently. So Verizon is, you know, we've realized the digital divide is something that we need to work on we continue to invest in our own networks and we're also lobbying at all levels to come up with different types of government funded subsidies so that there can be more public private partnerships and unserved areas, including especially rural areas where there just isn't a lot of option or any option. So that that's pretty much where Verizon is on this. I'm happy to answer any questions. That's up Senator Sirachan. So it sounds to me like we're, we've got a subsidy program in place through March at this point. With general fund dollars at $40 a month which is continuing the program that the CARES funding established through December. But in March we're going to get a $50 subsidy from the federal government for a different population, a low income population versus a population in need because of they have telehealth or tele-education or job needs. Do you see a need for something else to continue some sort of assistance to the people who are getting it now? Yes, but we think similar to a lifeline type service that which only goes so far right as you know it's about a $9.95 a month discount, you know, so that it's that $10 a month discount. Although Verizon and our wire line is doubling it right now to $20 we'd like to see a subsidy for people that fit the need that they can always get the subsidy because so that they won't be left behind because I think as our society evolves and we're seeing it really in this pandemic, we're really leaving whole entire portions of our society behind and that's not good for their own livelihoods as well as our communities and our economic development. But as I understand it, what the federal government is doing is giving a much larger subsidy to those same people for broadband. And that is and that's really just specific to emergency relief at this point we're looking to work with the federal government on a more sustain a long term sustainable program. Well, we would like to do that as well but we're focusing on the immediate future I guess I'm asking about the 3000 people that are on there may be some overlap but there's 3000 people on the broadband. And forgive me Senator McDonald. People on the brand on the broadband subsidy program right now. People how many in a household. You're right more than 3000 people 3000 units 3000 households are now getting help based upon their specific needs of telemedicine or education. Does Verizon have a position on continuing that program during the pandemic. We are supportive of it but obviously you know it's not our decision but we are really talking to our federal leaders about making sure that people that need access and have affordability that they have the resources that they need to stay connected. Thank you. Thanks for seeing any. Before we go on to Owen Smith who has been with us through thick and thin Roger Nishi had one thing he wanted to add that he had forgotten so Roger I see your name. Are you there. You're back okay you had one thing you wanted to add here. I neglected to mention that TDS telecom, which is Northfield Ludlow and Perkinsville, they implemented a program called TDS connect, and it provided broadband 25 over five for 1995 a month for a 12 month period. And that included Wi-Fi with that, and it followed really the national program for lifeline in which you had to qualify either through Medicaid food stamps, supplemental security income, the federal housing assistance program veterans pension, and the National School Lunch Program. So they did implement that and I don't have the numbers on that but I can request those if you'd like to hear those at some point. That would be helpful. Thank you and thank them. Okay. Any questions, not seeing any. Oh, and thank you for sticking with us till the bitter end. The floor is yours but we're probably exhausted so you should get a free ride. Okay. And I could also say, Ditto with what Verizon said we could all go home for the weekend right. But I know if you get away with it. No, Madam Chair thank you very much for the invitation to be here this afternoon and good to see all the other committee members. Thank you as well for the opportunity. My name is Owen Smith. I am with AT&T. I cover Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont for legislative and external affairs. So, I would like to highlight what we've done in 2020 during this pandemic which has really been the crux of our efforts, along with the affordability piece but as many of you know or all of you know that that first net is a big piece of our effort to build out in Vermont and across the country it's allowed us to do some things that we didn't really have from a business that made a whole lot of sense but over the last couple of years we've made some very big headway into networking. And I'd just like to cover a little bit of that. And I will say that the first net network which is for public safety benefits our commercial customers the AT&T commercial customers across the state and the nation as well. So, despite the huge increases in our network which I think we've all experienced, Wi-Fi calling up 105%, video and web conferencing up 400%, text messaging up 120%. Our networks have held out very strongly and I think that's a testament to what we've done over the last four or five years in Vermont. From 2015 on through the end of 2019, AT&T invested $100 million into our Vermont network. And again, back to first net over the last 18 months. It's going very well. We're more than halfway to our goal of 30 sites over the first five years and we're just about three years out of the five years into it. We've got 18 sites on there, 15 of those came on in 2020. In addition to those AT&T built sites, we also contracted out to Great North with Wireless up in Essex County. They've turned on the six committed sites that they have committed to in 2020. So those sites in Lunenburg, Norton, April, Wenlock, Cannon and Warren Gore. So we continue to make great strides with first net and these are sell sites that provide anywhere from a mile worth of coverage or 20 miles worth of coverage depending on the terrain. And of course we all know that Vermont is a tough state to cover with with a line of sight wireless network. The other thing we've done is we've also upgraded many of our sites. In fact, sites in 77 towns in Vermont have been upgraded adding capacity using that first net spectrum. So that's really added a lot of capacity for people to use it was they work in and school from home. So one other thing that we did with the network in 2020 we got a roaming agreement with a local provider in the state, and we're able to get on 62 of their sites that were underutilized and are providing coverage in 52 or more towns across the state. So that is now available to AT&T subscribers. So that in itself has really expanded our network by 28 to 32% within the state with those added sell sites. So we've added a nearly 90 sell sites in 2020 to our Vermont network which also already had over 250 sites. So we're really pleased with that. On the affordability front, you've heard a lot about the Keep America Connected pledge. AT&T was obviously a big part of that. That has run out, but we continue to provide assistance along those lines with service terminations, late fees, overages and so forth. So, I think it's indicative. We know that our customer outreach along these lines has been working. The percentage of customers that are behind their payments is in line with levels that were before COVID. So we continue to work with our customers and encourage our customers to work with us on putting in payment plans and working out if they're having difficulties related to COVID. Similar to Verizon, we've done a lot of adjustments of our offers and rates and features a lot to our unlimited plans to give people more access and more data. We've also worked with school districts in Vermont and across the country similar to what Verizon has stated, what Stephanie has stated. Wireless plans for teachers and families, first responders, military personnel, doctors, nurses, veterans, all eligible for an extra 25% savings off of our regular wireless plans. So that's a big piece of our offering. Yesterday, we announced a new unlimited data offer for public education and includes unlimited data for free, with a free wireless platform or through your own device as well. So it can be as low as $12 per student. And in some cases, there's no cost to teachers. So again, a real focus on trying to connect with education and students and teachers. So we've got aggressive pricing on devices, including the new iPhone 12, 30% off accessories and, you know, it goes on and on and on. So we have Holly had mentioned seniors and digital literacy back last summer. We locally AT&T partnered with the Vermont Agency on Aging and we put together a video and did some live zoom digital literacy programs with the agency and a lot of their facilities across the state. We actually made a video and have made that available for the agency on Aging to put around to many senior centers across the state of Vermont. So along with that, just more on the national piece we've started $10 million distance learning and family connection fund. We've been a hundred, excuse me a million dollars to the Khan agency to expand online learning resources that will also help trickle into Vermont, a half a million dollar contribution to a video calling application called caribou allows family members to read and draw and play and use remotely with one another. So, again, we're, we're very thrilled with what we've done and what we've been able to do the timing has been great with COVID and and I think many residents in the state of Vermont have benefited from the network build up that we've been doing for the last two or three years. And I think that doesn't about 142. What was that the answer to this isn't jeopardy. How many questions I have. Oh, okay. Would you like to ask one. Madam. We sit here and we listen to statistics and vocabulary and percentages of discounts and how many iPhone numbers this that the next thing whether they're new or they're used. And when I'm done I don't know anything more than when the presentation began other than my own frustration with understanding what witnesses are talking about, which is probably a personal failing match. Mr. chair. When I think you probably share with more than one of us. One, can you tell us how many people you sign, you know, new customers you took on as part of the COVID. I can tell you that nationally because we just released that for the fourth quarter, and it was very similar to what we did in the third quarter, about 1.9 million new subscribers. That number for my I can try to get that for you I do not have that now. That would be helpful how many people expanded their service. Using some of the incentive programs how many came on at the beginning of the pandemic and how many of them are still on. Okay, if you can find that that would be helpful. Senator Hardy has a question. We have that six month period was the biggest increase in our net additions since 2011 so we know it's significant. And I will see if I can find that for a month. Okay, so this is a just trying to understand the technology and you know get the hip language to go along with it but the for AT&T in Verizon. You are a phone and Stephanie's not here anymore but your cell phone carriers so when you're talking about building out in Vermont, you're not talking about what the other people who testified like Roger who's amazingly still with us. Which is laying the fiber doing the you know fiber to prem stuff you're talking about building cell phone towers and wireless technology right so it's a different build out it's a different infrastructure is that right. No that's that's it's wireless broadband. So you are correct we do utilize the the fiber that that these wonderful companies are are laying throughout the state. But we are basically transmitting a wireless signal, a broadband signal, it exceeds the 25 for, you know, we've got speed test as high as 70 or 80 or 90 megabyte. You know, downloaded in 15 or 20 upload or or higher so it is broadband, but it's wireless broadband correct. Okay, so it's why it's like what I get on my cell phone and that I can sometimes use on my laptop but it's, it's not a, it's not a copper cable or a fiber cable that's coming to my front door. It's coming wirelessly right I know I sound silly but that's I'm just trying to understand the difference between the technologies. You're absolutely right. Okay. Okay. So, but you're you answered my second question which was so you're sort of equivalent to the upload download is you said you can get as high as 70 up and did you say 25 down. Yeah, and that's that's exactly. So that's our 4G LTE. It will be faster than that when we roll out by G, but that's what we're experiencing today. And it tests all the do with how far you are from the tower how many other people are are in your area, working off the same signal, but very realistic numbers for the wireless industry. Okay, and then the prod last question and then, Senator Bray, I see has questions but the, the project or the build out that you noted in Essex County, which is one of our most remote counties in the state. That was because you either built or released a tower up there is that true. So, that is true that is true. First net, which is the federal authority for public safety to contract that AT&T one three years ago and we've been building out in Vermont and other places. So AT&T is building 30 sites and this is just in the first five years. We also went to a company called Great North was wireless who we work with in New Hampshire, and the main and asked them to build six additional sites up in Essex County, which they have done and have completed as of November of this year. So those six sites are up and running. Okay, with voice and 4G LTE. Which is data, right? The 4G is voice and data. Okay. And I know you have plans for more. There's one in Senator Bray and I, my district that's being proposed right now. So, anyway, I'm just wanting to try to distinguish between the types of technology. Thank you. Okay, your people's going back and forth between mega bits per second and mega bytes per second. And I thought all these measurements were mega bits per second. Am I missing something? It's one in the same. And a byte are not the same. One is eight times as big as the other. So that's what I'm trying to keep straight. I was at the measurements were mega bits per second. Okay. It's Friday afternoon. I think we're all fried. It's been a long week. Thank you. All our witnesses for hanging in there with us. And we will continue this discussion. We're still trying to get a handle on where the need is. How expensive it's going to be to fill that need. We've got Holly's getting people to understand how broadband is important and how you get people signed up. But then there's how we pay for keeping them signed up so we will continue this discussion. Thank you, everyone. I think faith has posted the agenda for next week. Again, if anybody has anything they want on the agenda, let me know. It's 349 so faith is still with us. So unless there's any other discussion. I'm going to sign us off have a good weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your computer screens until Monday or Tuesday. And I'll see everybody next week. Senator. Yes. Can you hang for a minute after we go off the air? Yeah. Thanks very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you all.