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[Music] good afternoon everyone it is my pleasure my name is dana connors i'm president of state chamber of commerce to welcome all of you on behalf of my organization to today's webinar expanding broadband in maine i'm glad you could join us for this virtual discussion of such a vitally important issue that is of course broadband access it is so important to us that we have decided that this will be the first of several webinars to keep this in front of the people of maine so that we don't lose sight of its importance or the issues that we need to address in order to fulfill the promise as we've all become accustomed there is a a time and a place and this is a time to remind all of us that we have an hour we have five outstanding panelists um who share their opinion in terms of the impact that it brings to their particular sector uh you will be on mute until such time as we and hopefully we will have time for questions um and also it um is very important that i bring to your attention those who make today's webinar possible we have webinar series sponsors because we're all very used to the use to webinars these days and we have those who support all of them bangor savings bank central maine power eaton peabody mimic northeast delta dental and rudman windchill we also have supporting sponsors for this event uh that we're a part of today first light lincolnville telephone company versus power and the university of new england i want to thank each of them uh because we know how important this issue is and they allow us to share the program that we have with all of our participants today clearly broadband is one of the most important policy topics in maine right now we've seen in the past couple of years few years that has gained some momentum but i think we can all agree that coven 19 pandemic has brought it front and center it is clearly a priority for us and there's good reason because it has clearly fundamentally changed how we live and how we work and in the process it has lifted is heightened the importance on high-speed internet access to our lives and to our livelihood in that respect i think we have come to know that broadband is foundational for students who want to access education for seniors for veterans and other patients who need health care for the breadwinners who need to do their jobs remotely and certainly for small businesses that need to continue operating through online sales but we've also come to know that not all main families and businesses have access to adequate broadband in spite of the value that it brings to today's economy but also our future opportunity it's fair to say that maine recognizes this and certain improvements have been made and are being made such as just in june of this year voters approved the ballot measure by a margin or i should say by a vote of 75 percent that would provide for 15 million dollars to go to building broadband infrastructure through the connect main program the governor is using cares act money to provide internet service subscriptions to low income house co households with k to 12 students we've seen service providers expand and to do more for those who need it and certainly the incoming legislature has declared that broadband access is one of their key priorities for the upcoming session yes the state chamber of commerce along with many of you if not all of you support these efforts and we are a voice of many our panelists today is going to bring this home to all of us because each come from a different perspective but they certainly come together as one in the understanding that broadband connectivity is essential to maine's future let me share with you who they are first is bruce williamson a commissioner from the maine public utilities commission his participation shows how important this issue is to the state's top regulatory body on broadband and we are anxious to hear about the efforts that they are undertaking to help broadband deployment nick batista is the chair of connect main authority which is spearheading broadband expansion in rural areas and nick also serves as the executive director of the island institute he'll speak to both the connect main authority as well as the efforts underway on the state's islands and coastal areas we also have with us former state senator a strong leader and advocate for the value of broadband as it relates to education our workforce needs of course i'm speaking of brian langley today he's going to be speaking of the bridge academy the value that broadband internet uh has for student success in vocational technical skilled trades lori parham with the state director of aarp is here to tell us why this issue matters so much to mainers over 50 who depend on internet access like never before mike uh i did that very poorly mike i apologize vice president of charter communications and charter is leading the charge on a number of broadband employment projects and we're looking forward to him giving us an update on those and other future efforts let's begin with bruce bruce tell us what's going on with p.u.c let me find my way through on muting there um good afternoon thank you for joining uh joining us here and thank you for inviting me to speak on this i think it's a very important topic i'll give you a rapid slice of background so a few ideas to work with and a few numbers as we talk about the future so i have to give you a standard disclaimer on this that i've worked for a number of years in the telecom industry itself in network build out and do product development in the us and internationally so i've got some professional opinions and professional views and some idea of the economics but these are my own views not those of my fellow commissioners and certainly not those of staff so let's get started first the quick background a few years ago landline or wireline communications came in the form of copper wire or over a cable company coax cable now the distinction is blurred if not erased in many instances and in time it will be replaced by the single notion of a service provider with a fiber-based network today almost all voice and data moves over fiber and i'll get into this it looks the same electronically i'll get into this in just a moment for wire line communication there's some copper wire with older phone companies and cable collects particularly in the last mile and on the customer premise itself but otherwise we're talking about glass fiber carrying the signal most of the way when we say wire line for our mobile devices fiber still does most of the work radio transmission happens only between your mobile device and the nearest cell tower and the towers themselves are tied together by fiber so today whether you use a voice call or a google search or facebook it's running on fiber or fiber plus of some just small distances of radio spectrum secondly i want to say something about commission and broadband we don't regulate broadband and we don't regulate cable when the legislature last looked at the whole industry comprehensively in 2000 to 2011 they put internet and voice over id companies outside our jurisdiction cellular is regulated only at the federal level and cable is in a similar situation uh in in most states some states have some cable regulation but it's not extensive the commission does regulate a few aspects of wireline telephone companies including what you may have heard of the provider of last sort or last resort obligation for incumbents or what we call ilex incumbent local exchange companies secondly we still regulate the incumbent telecom company's obligation to serve anyone in their service territory at just reasonable rates third we regulate the entry and market conduct of competitive telecom companies or what we call c-lex competitive local exchange companies fourth we regulate the wholesale network elements that is the electronic characteristics of servers and switches that non-facilities-based competitors can come in and lease portions of that to act as if they're a telephone company without actually making the investment themselves and any equipment and fifth we still regulate the polls and poll access public rights supply for both telecom and electric companies and this is the item i wish to focus on next so the pole attachment of fiber has been one large and surprisingly complex barrier to getting fiber built out sooner access to poles getting fiber on it is is a costly process or has been a costly process and when we recognize that our efforts began in earnest about 2015 that is nearing completion actually this spring for some of you it may seem like a long time but it's surprisingly complex so polls may be singly owned owned by one company but maintained by another and there's a couple hundred thousand polls in the state of maine different heights different ages different condition uh and different in the numbers of attachers who are already on the pole so pole owners can be telcos they can be municipalities they can be electric companies and there's a few other minor categories many polls have two or more users attaching their network to the poll which is what we call a situation of a joint use poll so beginning in 2015 we had to work through an older rule going back to 1995 with joint use facilities rules that is what happens when more than one kit one company gets some equipment on a pole what happens in the relationship between them the prices of getting on the pole who maintains it all that kind of thing and what happens if any of that stuff has to be moved around so um that moving around of gear on a pole is what we call the make ready work and it was a big complication um it has to be done in an orderly and safe way if there's an electric line at the top which is the usual place for electric anything put near that couldn't be too near it and then anything below that and what we call the real estate on the poll anything below that had to be spaced so that there weren't any cross-channel communications or or safety hazards created for anybody going up and maintaining it and as we know polls come down in storms so having an orderly process is very important when these these poles are being repaired other service providers can sometimes fit the fiber and devices on the poles and sometimes not but in any case when they do get on the poles they must do so only in a way that doesn't infringe on the other company's networks or create safety problems for themselves or anyone else so all attachers we decided had to be technically qualified and we had to define and clarify each type of providers that were allowed this what we call real estate on the poll their working space and we do the same thing with buried lines by the way we have a program called dig safe which many of you have heard about it's the same idea there has to be a safe spacing so that when someone's up there with a bucket truck they don't accidentally knock into somebody else's equipment off notice also the problem with shorter pulls or older pulls or poles with non-compliant detachers or damaged poles holes that get damaged by cars hitting them or trucks hitting him or storm damage and poles that are simply due for replacement some of these poles are 60 65 years old and need to be replaced there's a program for replacing them but if that pool that you need to have replaced also is the next pole that you need to put your line on it becomes an issue about how quickly that pole is replaced so you can get your work done and there was this other problem when you're talking about replacing poles and doing changeovers in the make ready work there's a matter of costs and we decided early on that costs had to be shared but had to be a fair way of sharing question was what are fair costs ironically it turns out historically companies have often negotiated one-to-one some cases records weren't there about what was actually being paid so there wasn't any information in the state that was consistently usable we went to the fcc when they came out in 2017 with what's called the cable rate prices they set up a set of prices that we decided to use as a last resort when there's a dispute between pole attackers then we'll say the cable rate applies the fcc cable rate applies otherwise they can work it out among themselves but knowing that the fcc cable rate applies is certainly an inducement to negotiate fairly and so we've worked out this idea of cost sharing and then along came a wrinkle the municipals went to the legislature and the legislature decided that municipals could attach for free and everyone else had to move at their own expense that wasn't the original concept we had thought about where everyone had a share of the costs that created a wrinkle and it's still something that we have to work out and then the other wrinkle was what if the municipal wants an entirely new poll who pays in and that's what we're trying to solve right now in dockets that's open for right now and for the spring and then lastly i want to bring up this ideal that we have and i think many have of what's called one touch make ready this will mean a single registered technically qualified professional could move others gear about on the pole all of them to code electrical communication without waiting for each attacher to roll a truck out separately and in their own time with their own crew to move their own lines this is a revolutionary step and if we can get to that which is our aim this spring it'll it'll speed up the process of getting fiber out to remote areas um and lower the cost of doing so the key to making it happen is a comprehensive database including every single poll in the state and every attacher on every poll it's expensive and highly detailed there's some analog and what's being done in the electric world but not for a combined communication electric which is what we would need here so this kind of a database though is a critical infrastructure item it requires cyber production and it could be that this the commission ends up maintaining the database like we do the e911 database uh but nothing's been decided on that yet so when we started our amendments to what we have as a chapter 880 rule some of you may have heard about the chapter 880 rule and commission rules of pull attachment when we started this the cost typical cost of attaching to a mile of poles was about 35 000 to put up fiber on a mile of poles and 40 percent of that cost this was a estimate for about five years ago 40 percent of that cost was a make ready cost of different trucks rolling out at different times to take care of their own components so we hope with what we've done we've already lowered this cost and with the one touch make ready it'll drop even more so i think we've made progress it's yet to be seen um what those final costs would be but i suspect they're going to be a lot less than what they have then and one last topic i want to touch on give you an idea of numbers how much do you think is currently spent on broadband deployment in the state well if you think it's a small number and not quite on target last year the telcos in the state got almost 36 million dollars for broadband related build from the federal government in five different types of programs this is the acam alternative all right i forget the name now acam1 acam2 uh there's caf connect america uh fund caf2 and then the cap connect america fund with broadband loop support or bls and many of these programs have built-in specifications for we you we want 25 3 with this money in un underserved areas so there's certainly flowing to telcos the speed through the fcc secondly there were seven million from your phone bills sent to the main telcos last year in the main usf fund um then there's also rural development opportunity fund which i think will speak to uh there's uh five or six billion nationally i don't know specifically on that for the build out of the first net network which is first responders first priority but all the rest of the capacity broadband capacity is uh for available for resale and then there's connect me which as as data just mentioned got an enlarged budget from the we used to have i was on connect me for four and a half years at the executive board we used to work with three and a half million dollars that ca e off the phone bill um this is a big chunk of change now that the connect me operation can work with and they've gotten so much better at targeting how this money is spent and then ensuring that there's results for what is spent that's great i mean it's on a small scale but it's very closely managed that's good so this is dana i apologize um in the interest i'm sorry yes you can just kind of wrap it up so we can get the next sure so just just very quickly with this annual expenditure why don't we have the broadband we need i don't really know i don't have the answer to that we don't oversee fcc funds um we have very little insight uh except after the fact so we still got a long way to go and i don't think that there's any quick pixie dust solution available to us but i'm happy to take questions later thank you thank you bruce nick tell us about the connect main program as well as what's happening on the island there we go just need to come off mute here all right thank you i'm nick patista um with the island institute we're a community development organization in rockland maine we're helping to support over 70 island and coastal communities in improving their internet access i'm wearing another hat here today as well and that's chair of the connect main authority board and bruce shared a little bit about um connect main authority and and all the work that um that he did when he was on the connect main authority and the work that the puc is doing um really quickly uh we know that access to internet is extremely important to daily life we're here we're we're meeting virtually on on video small businesses depend on high-speed internet to stay open and create jobs whether you're a web designer um or you want to sell your your oysters it's it's very helpful to have a good internet connection you know if you don't have a good one um public entities are meeting remotely now since the pandemic hit maine municipal association recently did a survey of its members to find out whether they were prepared for remote meetings at the beginning of the pandemic and seven percent of municipalities said they were ready for remote meetings um 70 percent were not in in thinking about where they want to go in the future almost 60 percent of municipalities said that they would prefer to have remote proceedings um continue to be a permanent option for for a meeting i know anecdotally we've seen a significant increase in participation in um in town meetings and in local select board meetings um and as a you know selfishly as as an organization that works with a variety of island and coastal communities spread out across a broad geography we have staff who are able to attend multiple community meetings in a night instead of having to pick between one and drive up and down all of the state's peninsulas or take ferries we know that broadband's really important and it was recently recognized in a couple of big reports that came out the governor's economic recovery committee included internet access and and some good language there under the sustained mains people goal and broadband was also included in multiple different places in the um climate council's report meanwhile weight and how we hit our our climate action goals i think all of this speaks to just how absolutely critically important broadband is to the future of our state um you know as as bruce was was saying or indicating your ability to have good a good internet connection depends on a company seeing the business case for making a capital investment there for building out the infrastructure or receiving some sort of subsidy to to build out that infrastructure um broadband is place based infrastructure it's built street by street utility pole by utility pole that's what makes the work the poc is doing so so important around chapter 880 and one touch make ready state and federal subsidies are reserved for areas that um that have internet under 25 3 and so you know as a as a mainer i grew up in falmouth in the late 90s um you have to have internet worse than i had growing up in high school and fell within the late 90s to to get a subsidy to get one of these subsidies um if you're thinking about you know how does how does internet get built out and and what are some of the drivers um you're you're looking at potentially how many different customers you you might have how many customers your infrastructure passes by how many of those people might take your service those factors are are called premise density and take rates when you look at maine over a third of the road miles in the state that have buildings on them do not have a strong case for for somebody to make that private investment in broadband infrastructure and so that means that there needs to be some sort of government subsidy to make sure that everybody has the connection they need the three major policy levers to fix this dynamic are changing the take rates so the number of people who who potentially take service in an area providing a grant or subsidy to reduce the initial private capital expenditures to build out the infrastructure um and then providing an ongoing subsidy to support support service or entice a private sector to make that investment one of the things that maine is doing um doing pretty well is community engagement and community planning and this is how one of the ways to structurally change the take rates and the um make make it easier for providers to expand service maine is nationally recognized in this regard um better better data and information um is also really helpful one of the recommendations coming out of the economic recovery committee and one of the most common questions in the public policy process is how big is the broadband challenge in the state today the main broadband coalition is running a speed test project go check out the website take the speed test do it after after you get off zoom do it after you turn off your your vpns um but this is a way for all mainers to um better understand and interact with their internet and understand what is available in their in their area when you do it you can go to a map like this the the red dots are places where there isn't speeds of 10 down the yellow places yellow dots are are under 25 down the green dots are above 25 25 down and the blue dots are really really good speed you can see areas like brooksville and heading out towards belmont and liberty montville those are areas that don't have great service i happen to live in camden there's a bunch of green dots and in camden we have pretty good service here um so going back to how does the state effectively participate in in public-private partnerships the the state needs to be a good partner that's the job of the connect maine authority state statewide broadband authority um one of the things i'm most excited about in broadband right now is the connect the kids now project um about 5.6 million dollars going out from the connect main authority to connect 730 students and educators all of this is happening on a two-month time frame these are funds that came from the coronavirus relief fund and they're going to ameliorate the the challenges posed by remote learning for students who don't have internet which i'm sure you can all understand is a pretty big problem it's worth noting that a two-month time frame for building this infrastructure is incredibly tight the internet service providers participating in the program they dropped everything or they dropped a lot to to make this happen to partner with the state to make sure that that kids were connected um you know a good example is charters doing a build out in canaan other companies are are working in in other areas this has been a huge push on the part of the private sector to to make this happen um and to go back to what bruce said um the poll attachment process was definitely a factor in whether these funds would be and who was able to access these funds places where there were poll attachment challenges just we couldn't get the money out in time to connect the students a huge thank you to the maine state chamber for its leadership and members for supporting the um the 15 million dollar bond package um connect maine's currently working through a stakeholder process to finalize the grant criteria and scoring um looking forward to making sure the process is clear and fair and and doesn't leave main disadvantage mainers disadvantaged by scoring criteria we know there will be some people who will be connected to high quality infrastructure and we know that there won't be enough money to connect everybody who who needs a connection um and so um you know yesterday we had a great conversation with almost a 100 people and started to to dig into a whole bunch of media issues about how some of these projects get scored and how to compare scoring across different kinds of projects and so the connect main authority board has indicated that the first round of bond funds will go out uh the applications will be opened in in late january so still still on that time frame looking to the future um will the legislature move forward with 100 million dollar broadband bond i i sure hope so we've got 600 million dollars in in need out there and 15 15 million to good start um will a federal coveted relief package include funding for rural broadband maine senators have been working hard on including a broadband in in any relief package if that goes forward that could do really good things for the state bruce mentioned art off um when and and how will the successful for successful art off recipients in in maine build out and then what about spacex what about some of these satellite things will silicon valley save rural maine i tend to tend to think we're we're better off having the infrastructure here so we have we have the control in our state we have the control um locally but the biggest thing that you can do today um go take the speed test and you know it's always helpful if you contact your members of your legislator your legislators and let them know that broadband is really important thank you nick uh next let's hear from brian langley what's going on at the bridge academy and how does it how does broadband help the students there uh thanks dana first of all i see lots of familiar uh names and faces on this uh on this meeting today so i'll just like to say hi to all of you whether individually i see some people i've served with in the legislature and some people who are out in the halls working work in the legislature to do good things i run the bridge academy maine which was formed in the legislature when i when i chaired the education committee and it was a a way to bring early college programming into our ctes to shorten the time frame that it takes a student to get into a high-wage high demand job in maine with greatly reduced or or very little student debt and the way that we do that is create these partnerships between our uh high schools our ctes and our higher ed institutions our public higher ed institutions the university of maine system and the community college system and as as you can imagine in the the depth and breadth and the scope and the distances in maine that we do our work best work um you know through the through the internet uh and that was the case of of connecting um our higher ed faculty with our teachers prior to covid and then once kovid landed you know broadband and and remote learning became the norm for for all teachers so i've been surveying teachers over the past week or so to come up with something that i could deliver to you folks right from the front lines and that is what are they seeing out there and really if you want to boil this down really to one word that that really captures it is as access so the the lack of access in rural maine really widens the divide between the haves and the have-nots and in a lot of cases the have-nots are students that really need to be in school to be motivated by uh by their teachers and the faculty and the guidance counselors and and a number of students struggle at home there's a lot of issues that go on in homes as you know there could be domestic violence substance abuse and just a lot of these things are exacerbated uh in the in the lockdown that we see so what i find is that teachers are struggling in a lot of cases to to reach out to all of their kids and there's quite a number of students who are engaged but there's quite a number that aren't uh for example i was work talking with a social studies teacher from mount blue farmington last week and i asked them specifically and they said well they they have hot spots that they'll give to people that don't and students that don't have internet at home but there's not even always cell coverage all over the state of maine so there are kids that are falling through the cracks so um that is what's really pertinent to um you know sort of the where we stand now during covid so pre-covet and post covid rural maine is often at a disadvantage in their school systems in regards to what they can offer their students for courses and being able to access programming online we did a lot of work when i was in the legislature and increasing those in fact i think there's you know even a couple of charter schools that came online uh in my tenure connections academy and k-12 that offer online courses so i think going forward you will continue to see schools that will look to you know maybe add more online programming to their offerings to be able to do you know higher level courses um and so this even if you know and when covid somewhat goes back to normal the need for for broadband is going to be greater and i would also say that you know as we talk uh sort of a you know policy issues i think three areas that we would need to look at would be technical infrastructure and then it goes into active learning content our educator training and then you know ongoing um communication and coordination so um you know our work with the bridge academy puts us in touch with a lot of different schools from around the state and we're really focused on workforce development and that is getting students into high wage high demand jobs here in maine at little or no student debt piled up i will uh end my remarks there because to try to help dana get back onto his time frame but certainly but certainly what i think would happen uh as as people are listening to this my guess is that they would take and break out each one of these into its own topic at some point in time because education is just really tough to do in about you know five or ten minutes there's so much that's involved in there but we've entered into a new era in education and uh you know the online and broadband is gonna be the equalizer in my opinion and state in this state between the haves and the have-nots so i really look forward to those discussions going forward and certainly be able to take any questions when the time frame comes thank you very much brian uh lori tell us why broadband matters so much to those of us over 50 sure thanks dana and it's great to be with you all today so for those who may not know aarp is a non-profit nonpartisan social mission organization for people over 50 we have 38 million members across the country and over 200 000 here in maine and our vision is really a society where everyone can age with dignity and purpose you may wonder why broadband matters to aarp although you may realize it now because of covid 19. there are a number of social and economic reasons why we view this issue as so important and many of those were really highlighted more than ever when the pandemic hit maine especially in our rural areas so i'm just going to go through a few you know first social isolation this was a huge issue prior to the pandemic we were seeing a large increase in the number of people across the country who are experiencing social isolation and loneliness reports are showing that it can be as deadly as smoking if you are disconnected from family and friends in your community and because of covid because many people who live alone don't have the ability to get out to see family or friends they are very isolated and if you don't have access to internet or if you can afford access to internet this becomes a real challenge or older mainers it's also been hugely important the internet has been to caregiving many of us have heard uh read about the tragedy in our nation's nursing homes for many families the only way they've been able to be connected during this time is via video my mother-in-law lives in florida and assisted living and she hasn't been able to leave her floor since march our weekly video calls with her are hugely important to staying connected and to making sure that she's getting the care she needs and for many families they haven't had this kind of opportunity it's also important for long long term learning brian talked about uh kids it it really crosses the spectrum our senior colleges around the state that are such an important part of community in maine are moving online they're doing virtual zoom trainings and they're really trying to make sure that retired mainers are connected across the state but not everyone has access to now join those classes online on the economic side i mentioned education but access to to internet for older mainers is hugely important for accessing jobs and searching for jobs as well as getting additional training skills training especially at a time when we've seen more people over 50 out of work in large part because of the pandemic and having to search for work and different kinds of opportunities health care in good news we've seen for medicare beneficiaries a 300 increase in virtual visits among medicare seniors this is very positive there were changes that allowed reimbursement under medicare for these virtual visits and that has really helped but about 26 of medicare beneficiaries lack digital access at home and so um you know this on this health care issue it's not just about older meaners it's also about folks in very rural areas who may have a critical care hospital but have to travel long distances to get their cancer care for example and so what can we do to make sure they can access their oncologist for check-in visits if they don't need to be seen in person uh from away and it's estimated that going forward about 20 to 30 percent of all of those visits will move to a digital platform for good so we really do think this is going to be the future and then um a lot of folks don't know that people between the ages of 55 and 64 are the largest growing age group of entrepreneurs across the country i'm sure we all know someone in our community who's running a business who's over 50. and we have seen how many small businesses have really had to change their models in order to not only serve their neighbors but to be able to sell across the country and internationally and high-speed internet is hugely important for our small business owners as they um and i think in some cases some of the changes we've seen because of covid and some of the innovations we've seen may continue in the future but we need that internet to be strong and i just want to end on this economic note we have released our second longevity economy report in collaboration with the economist and it really highlights state by state how important people 50 and older are for economic growth and so just a couple quick notes as i wrap up in 2018 the 50-plus population accounted for 43 of maine's population yet contributed 48 or 34 billion dollars of the state's gdp their activities also supported 442 000 jobs and generated 23 billion dollars in wages and salaries these contributions are going to grow and they're forecasted to be 102 billion by 2050 almost 51 of the state's projected gdp so we have to remember um that this is an important demographic for maine their purchasing power is huge the amount they pay in taxes and they give charity and give charitably the numbers are large and growing and as we look to attract people to retire here as we hope that people will stay here it's going to be very important that we build out a strong internet system statewide so thank you so much thank you lori and mike now we turn to you to tell us about some of the advancements some of the deployment efforts that you've made in our state recently and what lies ahead perhaps great um thank you dana good afternoon uh good afternoon everyone uh pleasure to be on the panel this afternoon um again my name is mike chowanik and i'm with charter communications um i'll i'll start off i'm going to react to a couple of comments from others on the panel dana in the hopes of maybe setting the stage for the questions as i wrap up a couple things you know just by the numbers who is charter communication so we've got about 425 000 customers um in maine we serve about 290 communities we have about 700 employees um you know nick mentioned the the investment number just in the last year we've invested 55 million dollars in technology and infrastructure you know here in maine and you know that that's a pretty significant number right when nick mentions trying to leverage the 15 million dollars that was recently adopted you know in the ballot initiative but the 15 million dollars is important right uh because it's not just a matter of of the state or policy makers trying to figure out how to um cover the entire cost of a build out rather it's more i think associated with leveraging in our case private sector capital right so that 15 can 15 million dollars can get multiplied right by several factors right if there are circumstances in particular places in maine where the costs are just prohibitive right and the economics don't work and some amount of federal dollar some amount of state federal local dollars can help us bridge that gap so i think those dollars are are important and we've had success uh we're partnering with connect maine you know over the years uh in working with some of the neighboring states whether it be uh in vermont most recently and and some long-standing build out that we've been doing in massachusetts so there's a lot of models out there um just here in new england right that that maine can look to as as nick and his colleagues kind of look to round out or build out what a connect main program looks like uh with a more robust funding structure so i think that that funding piece is clearly an important part of it um the other part i would i would underscore to kind of dovetail with what uh commissioner williamson said at the beginning is there are certain things in the regulatory space that have implications for both the cost and the timing of build out right and those things that we drive by all the time that i sadly look at probably more closely than most people namely utility poles are are very much a consideration and end up in many cases very much becoming a barrier uh to build out um and you know in some cases it could in fact be underground deployment right obviously depending on the circumstances but more often than not especially in rural areas it ends up being aerial or or overhead plant on utility poles right and and i think the commission you know is to be commended uh you know we often look to maine uh in all seriousness as a leader um in the poll rule poll regulatory space uh we often reference the state you know when we look elsewhere uh for uh other regulatory agencies to consider changes in their rules and you know commissioner williamson talked about a variety of things including you know the rates that people pay for attachment which are obviously important but i think at a very basic level the relationships between broadband providers um and poll owners are are critically important and ensuring that there are clear rules right that end up avoiding disputes right i happen to be a member of the bar i'm not going to pick on attorneys but to the extent that we can in fact facilitate efficient communication and efficient contractual relationships right that's going to speed up build out right and that's going to avoid disputes um and ensure that that those attachments happen efficiently and i think making sure that just uh costs to the extent that they have to be born are done and distributed equitably right for us even in particular issues like replacing polls and often arriving on a scene where infrastructure may be decades old and it then ends up becoming an issue where our deployment ends up triggering um a change and we almost exclusively um run the risk of bearing those costs right so i think all of those things together and and the commission is is working on some changes now um i think we'd like them um to go a step further and we've proposed some changes that we'd like them uh to take seriously um on issues involving pole replacement but i think to wrap i think there are in fact you know two i think important policy drivers uh one being creating an opportunity uh for additional public sector dollars to to to leverage private investment and the others to ensure that the state regulatory uh climate most notably in in poll attachment issues um is fair is efficient um and enables providers uh to deploy uh broadband in a cost-effective uh and timely manner so i'll wrap with that dana thank you well thank you mike and we do have approximately seven minutes left for some questions i do have one in the chat room that probably goes to bruce because he referenced this at the outset it says i understand that the idea of a database for poll real estate is being discussed in 2021 but is there a timeline for completion of this project um that's a very very good question um the it depends on the cooperation of the parties and what we have to start with so just as a short answer i would say we're looking at some software that the electric utilities use and trying to determine it's a licensed software we don't own it um the utility does uh trying to determine if that could be adapted to build in the kind of information we need to add for characteristics of fiber or cop repair or whatever so that it becomes that database of the future we asked me this question again about may we have a docket we have a docket to finish on it it's an open docket so i can't say too much more but [Music] we take this very very seriously and it is the key to unlocking uh the cost of build out on utility poles thanks bruce i do not see another question in the chat room angie or or ben do you have any that i may be missing um i i do have a question that i would pose to any of you that are willing to respond to it and that has to do with the the essential need for this um broadband expansion is to me indisputable i would think that the answer lies in part large part due to the ability of the private and the public sector to work together to avoid duplication over build or those types of of efforts that can that can work not necessarily in the best interest of being being expedient but also efficient in the process what would your answer be in terms of the partnership that would best serve what i just tried to describe is there a model for that is there an experience for that in some other state that you could advise us as we look to this issue i i've got ideas but if anybody else in the panel wants to go first that's fine i would just say that that what michael said about you know the state leveraging private sector investment is really important that 15 million dollars doesn't doesn't go very far in just building you know miles of infrastructure it can go a lot further when it is you know helping charter or helping you know some of the other other companies that are represented on this call um expand their infrastructure and and maybe make something that is a marginal investment a little bit more uh viable and so you know these projects do return some revenue and so the it's not it's not like building a road it's it's building a revenue generating asset and so a little bit of state money can go a long way yeah and and and dana i i would just add to that i mean i i think the connect main model is is a good starting point right there are always refinements you know that can be considered right there's opportunities to grow there's opportunities to learn from others experience you know in other states or other jurisdictions i mean i i do think it's important that you know there be some predictability and some stability in in how programs get managed um as with everything you know these are infrastructure projects that have you know a long um you know horizon in terms of of how our businesses plan out right and so kind of you know knowing you know it's as simple as here's what the time frames are going to look like here's what the funding streams are going to look like here's what the rules are going to look like right so that if we're investing time and money into developing an application we have some expectation not that we're going to win but that we kind of know what they're looking for right and how we craft an application that has the potential to win right i mean it's ultimately a competitive process and and nick and and the commissioner and others and quite frankly the taxpayers of maine have an interest in not wasting money right and goal is to leverage the dollars as far as you can stretch them right um and so that that becomes a funding issue and then on something like poll regulation you know the issue is to operationalize efficiency right and so you're going to stretch those dollars even further right if the cost of projects ends up being brought down because poll related costs are are reasonable and quite frankly deployment can happen quickly right because time ends up becoming money and it becomes a factor in the planning process and certainly underscores the need to work together this is an issue that involves all of us private public federal state and local dollars as well as private dollars so any other questions we've got a couple minutes i do want to take the opportunity to thank our panelists again but does anybody have a whoops we do have some uh um nick this goes to you how many projects do you anticipate funding with the 15 million dollar bond that is a great question the connection authorities undergoing a stakeholder process and really developing those clear program rules and guidelines that some of the things that michael was talking about the number of projects will very much depend on how expensive the projects are um yeah and so you know i think that's that's a fair answer i have two more questions we may have to we'll take all of your questions and be sure we get answers and get back to you on it but one question comes from um the county i recognize the name it says with take rates and density so critical to service provider decisions to build or not to build how will rural maine residents get a fair shake on broadband access i know you're all rushing to answer that question well dana i'll just know um it kind of goes to the last question too um that we um we did some polling on this issue and overwhelmingly um voters in maine and this was 18 and older not just 50 and older uh supported state incentives to intercept internet service providers to help expand and so i think that's an important point to note and that you know there there's a recognition that it is more of a challenge in some of these areas absolutely um and then also um the real real strong uh favoring of partnerships as well and the recognition that and really in order to do this there is a government role that the private sector and the government need to work together so i'll just throw throw that out as a start and then let me know i think i think that speaks to it and with about a minute to go the other question had to do with um have we looked into micro trenching and nick did respond and says that there are a couple of coastal communities that have done some micro trenching as part of their projects but also acknowledge that maine has a lot of legend that is a barrier um with that let me once again thank our sponsors which are bangor savings bank central maine power eaton peabody memic northeast delta dental and rudman winchell the one of our series sponsors our supporting sponsors for today's event is first light lincolnville telephone company person power university versus power in the university of new england i want to thank our panelists uh you have been superb in your presentations i hope our audience uh participants have taken a lot away from them uh to mike johanneck to laurie parha to brian langley to nick batista and to bruce williamson our appreciation thanks well to you and to all who have participated we thank you for listening and this will be the first of several series on this subject because it is one that we need to keep in front of maine's public and maine's legislators in order to be successful in our efforts i thank you all and have a wonderful holiday we'll see on the other side thank you you