Bridging the Digital Divide: A Deep Dive into Rural Broadband Connectivity

In this detailed discussion, host John Barker welcomes Dr. Christopher Ali, an expert in communication policy and rural broadband, to explore the complexities of rural broadband access in the United States. They cover the challenges rural areas face in gaining broadband access, the implications of the infrastructure bill which allocates $65 billion for broadband expansion, with an emphasis on deployment, affordability, and digital equity. Christopher shares insights from his research and his book 'Farm Fresh Broadband,' discussing the political and economic terrain of rural broadband policy, the importance of local initiatives, and the role of states in creating broadband plans. They touch on the technological aspects of broadband, the significance of upload speeds, and the potential and limitations of various broadband technologies such as fixed wireless and fiber. The conversation also emphasizes the importance of local governance, like boards of supervisors, in advocating for and implementing broadband solutions, and suggests mobilizing local business ownership as a key strategy for community-wide broadband improvement.

00:00 Meet Dr. Christopher Ali: The Broadband Policy Expert

01:35 Unpacking the Infrastructure Bill: A Deep Dive into Broadband Funding

04:07 Defining Broadband: Speeds, Needs, and Policy Debates

08:05 The Human Side of Broadband Policy: Road Trips and Real Stories

10:32 The Battle for Local Broadband: Municipal Networks vs. Big Telecom

14:10 Navigating the Complex World of Broadband Mapping and Infrastructure

19:09 The Future of Broadband: Infrastructure Bill and Consumer Rights

21:19 Exploring the Mysteries of Hidden Infrastructure

22:01 Challenges in Broadband Access and Infrastructure

26:17 The Impact of the Pandemic on Broadband Needs

27:27 Evolving Broadband Solutions and the Future of Connectivity

37:27 The Role of Local Governments and Communities in Broadband Expansion

Check out https://titanof.tech

Check out https://twitter.com/Ali_Christopher

Buy the Book: https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Fresh-Broadband-Connectivity-Information

I'm your host, John Barker got a special guest today that I met, forget several

years ago, pre COVID pre everything back in when my Culpeper days when I

was working on the broadband steering committee, trying to assist them is Dr.

Christopher Ali.

He holds a Ph.

D.

in communication studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

His research interests include communication policy and regulation,

rural broadband, critical political economy, critical geography.

Media localism and local news.

Christopher's work has been published in the New York times, the hill and realtor

magazine, and is a frequent commentator on the subjects of broadband media

policy and local news with interviews in the Washington post, Los Angeles

times, NPR, CNET, CBC, Bloomberg, and a whole bunch of other major national

and international news outlets.

Christopher's current research focuses on broadband policy and the

deployment in the United States.

Specifically in rural areas.

His recently released book, farm Fresh Broadband.

The Politics of Rural Connectivity examines the complicated terrain

of rural broadband policy in the United States Farm.

Fresh unpacks the politics of broadband policy, asking why millions

of rural Americans lack broadband access and why the federal government

and large providers are not doing more to connect the unconnected.

And I felt like that was a mouthful as I was saying that,

but that extremely impressive.

Christopher, thanks for taking the time to be here.

Thanks for having me.

This is great.

No, this is awesome.

And because I have had that experience working in a local community and trying

to get some inroads and it's been some time since we've got connected.

And of course, there's some stuff in the infrastructure bill that that's

been released wanted to kind of, Lay the groundwork of where things are

having watched a recent presentation.

You did a uva Looks like some of the stuff still a little stuck, but maybe there's

a little light at the end of the tunnel

Yeah, I mean there is there is a lot going on.

And a lot of buzz obviously around broadband.

The highlight here is the infrastructure package and the infrastructure package

allocated 65 billion for broadband 42 billion of which will go to deployment,

and then 14 billion of which will go to affordability called the the

affordable connectivity program.

And then another three billion will go towards digital

equity and inclusion projects.

So this is, this is amazing.

This is the largest public investment in telecommunications

in the country's history.

And and so, so it's going to take a while to get down the pipes, right?

So the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the NTIA,

has jurisdiction over all of this money.

So right now it's crafting the rules around how states will

be able to access the money.

So what's going to happen is that N.

T.

A.

Kind of holds holds the piggy bank.

Then it gives money to states, and then it will be up to the states to decide who

gets that money for broadband deployment.

So all eyes will, of course, be on Virginia and one of the

really interesting things.

I should say Virginia eyes will be on Virginia.

But one of the really interesting things that the infrastructure bill requires

is it requires every state to work with localities and regional entities

to create a statewide broadband plan.

Mhm.

And this is gonna be really important.

I mean, here in Virginia, we've had one.

It's the Commonwealth Connect program but a lot of states don't have them,

and it's gonna force even us to revamp and reimagine our broadband

priorities for the next five years.

So I think this is gonna be really important and every state's gonna

craft these plans differently.

So, you know, for those who, who are interested in the role of

counties, for instance, in broadband, which is something that I'm really

interested in, I think we're gonna see counties play a tremendous role.

In the allocation of this money and even getting some of this money to do some, to

do some really great broadband projects.

So really exciting stuff to be following right now.

In, in the broadband policy world.

No,

that's, that's good to hear.

And I wanted to figure out, figure out a flow through the conversation.

So it kind of makes sense, but I'll integrate my experience having

worked with representatives of the County, some contractors that have

come in back in years past, as well as making sure everybody comes.

this conversation going, Hey, I live in this real community.

We don't have internet, you know, kind of why not?

And I think probably the best starting point is, you know, let's set up kind of

what you did with the study for the book and on your road trip, trying to, trying

to get your hands wrapped around that and kind of really defining what, what, when

people say broadband, what do they mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, okay.

So.

So let's start with the second question first, just to lay the land a little bit.

What is broadband?

Okay, in, in, in lay speaking everyday, broadband is simply

high speed internet access.

Internet access that will allow you to do, for instance, what we're doing

here, a two way video conversation.

That's, that's broadband.

If we start to get technical the Federal Communications Commission defines

broadband as an always on internet connection of 25 megabits per second

download, 3 megabits per second upload.

Outdated.

Totally outdated.

So, so you know, and it's often depicted for those of you watching it

as 25 You'll see this number a lot and it is absolutely an outdated speed.

So at 25 three, if this is a service you're legitimately getting, not

this, not what you're paying for, but if you're actually getting 25 three,

someone living on their own probably won't have a problem streaming Netflix

or playing some games or, you know, doing this to a video conversation.

The problem becomes what happens when you don't live alone.

What happens when you've got your family, your partner, Your partner.

You've got kids.

You're living in an apartment building.

You're living in a sorority.

You're living right when you've got multiple users on the network.

25 3 will collapse pretty quickly.

And this is what we saw, particularly during the pandemic, where, you know,

everyone was thinking, Oh, we pay for good broadband, so we won't have a

problem working or studying from home.

And then, you know, in our case, you know, my husband and I get on zoom

call two different zoom calls in the house, and we're buffering right?

Even though we're paying an arm and a leg.

Our broadband was not good enough for what the pandemic forced us to do.

So that's broadband right in, in, in the way in which we're having this debate

around speed and, and I, for one I'm a big fan of what's called symmetric

speeds so that upload and download should match because as it was described

to me, and I love this idea that.

Download download speeds are is about consumption, right?

It's about binging Netflix.

It's about pulling content to you.

Upload is about production.

Upload is about conversations like we're having right now.

Upload is about business.

Upload is about credit card swipes and doctor's records and massive

amounts of data being uploaded.

This is what influencers I wish influencers got more

into broadband because they're uploading data All the time.

So we need to think about high capacity upload networks.

And so the big push right now is for megabits per second download,

100 megabits per second upload.

And that's a big political fight right now at Congress.

And that's something I had not heard that specific number because

I know over years, so I pay for.

Business Comcast internet here.

So it's, it, it's like four times as much as your normal home, home

connection, but I get a couple of things that are supposed to be guaranteed,

but the upload services you just mentioned is, is absolutely atrocious.

And they keep saying they're going to upload it.

It's a, I'm at 200 and 200 down 30 up.

Wow.

And, and it's, and, and, but 30 for Comcast, if you're on a co axial non fiber

connected line, it seems to be the best that they've done and it's been stuck

there for,

I forget how many years, a decade, but anyway.

And part of that is you raise a really good point here, John, which is that

in the infrastructure package The build out the lowest amount that I,

that if you got money, if you're an ISP, like Comcast, let's say you got

money from the infrastructure package, you're expected to build out networks

that can meet 120, not a hundred, a hundred w why that particular number?

120?

My gut says, 'cause that's what coaxial cable can do.

Right.

So we're making sure that these kind of outdated technologies remain in this

in, in, in this eligibility for billions and billions of billions of dollars.

And I think this is a good segue into the research I've done from my book.

So, so I'm a policy scholar, and so I started off this book, reading

a ton of policy, reading a ton of broadband policy around, you know,

obviously, what is broadband and some of the debates and why is it that

we've been you know funding broadband.

The federal government has been funding broadband for the past decade and a half.

And yet, or, yes, it's about, yeah, 2000, 2009.

Why hasn't the rural urban digital divide shrank?

Why haven't we gotten further in this?

And what I, what I found in this kind of, this policy analysis is

that it's because we favored the largest providers, always favoring the

largest providers, who are deploying rather outdated technologies, right?

Who are the ones pushing for that 25 3 definition?

Because it means that digital subscriber line still counts.

It means that satellite still counts and obviously it means

that cable still counts.

So the the lobbying efforts there were huge But one thing I found, in the book

about halfway through my research Is that maybe my readers will not find

broadband policy as absolutely captivating as I do And maybe, you know, maybe

I need to spice it up a little bit.

Basically, maybe I need to humanize it.

And this is something I realized that wasn't also happening on Capitol Hill.

No one was talking about people, right?

We were talking about dollars and we're talking about technologies

and fiber versus fixed wireless.

And we're talking about numbers like 25, 300, 100, but no

one was talking to people.

And so in, in the summer of 2018, my hound dog, tuna, and I drove

3, 600 miles across the Midwest.

Talking to folks about broadband and getting stories.

And, and what it allowed me to do was all of this technical and

technological jargon that is kind of filled broadband policy, right?

Cause broadband policy isn't written for, for you and I, it's not written for boards

of supervisors, it's written for lawyers at AT& T and or Verizon or whoever.

So it allowed me to humanize and tell the stories of how these

policy decisions are actually lived.

On the ground throughout, throughout the Midwest and had to, you know, so

there's a whole chapter in my book.

Chapter four is all around this one community, Rock County in Minnesota

and how they deployed a lot of local solutions to broadband and I'm

and a spoiler alert for the book.

I'm a big fan of local broadband providers, cooperative providers local

investor owned Providers, utility providers, because these are the

ones, these are the companies, these are the entities that are trusted,

they're accountable, and they're the ones who are actually deploying

those high speed and affordable broadband networks in rural communities

with that.

And now you're starting to get into, and I appreciate the backstory

because that that helps set you up as.

As obviously the expert in the field and then me coming into it from a very narrow

scope when I worked with in Culpeper County, how much of it when you start

talking about the local municipalities getting in the getting in there, was it

the lobbying is trying to shut that stuff down because I used to read, I used to

read news stories and again, I'm going to.

I'm probably gonna get some facts wrong, but I think the sentiment

will be, will be correct just because it has been a little bit of time.

You know, North Carolina would come in there, they would build up these, these

public infrastructures for broadband high speeds affordable for people.

And I do want you to touch on that being an also an issue with the

affordability of what you saw.

Not just lack of infrastructure but I want to say in Virginia it was like

they got it somehow in through Virginia.

Like no, if you start talking about that, you're shut down.

Is that, is that a little bit of what you

saw as well?

Yeah.

So right now, 18 states either prohibit or inhibit municipalities from funding,

owning, and operating broadband networks.

And why is this important?

It's important because for a lot of these communities, the private

market has failed in broadband.

If there was an active private market, we wouldn't need to think about a public.

We wouldn't need to think about public investment.

First of all, we wouldn't need to think about a public network.

But they're either the incumbent is not doing their job.

Or there's just no incumbent because the you know, the maybe

the community is too small.

Maybe it's too low income maybe it's too spread out and it's too expensive, right?

So they're the these private companies are not seeing the return on investment

And so about about 20 years ago, you started to see these towns municipalities

and counties say hey, you know What comcast isn't coming to us anytime soon.

We're gonna figure out a way to fund A network by ourselves and immediately from

there on and you saw massive lobbying by telecommunications companies by

cable companies to state legislature saying this is this is a bad idea.

This is a quote unquote distortion of the free market.

That municipalities don't know what they're doing or counties

don't know what they're doing.

It's going to waste money it's going to put taxpayers on the hook and

unfortunately, this was bought by a lot of state legislatures in virginia,

virginia is one of those states that doesn't prohibit it but inhibits it

makes it very difficult Okay for for a public entity like a municipality or a

county, to provide broadband So one of the things for instance, it does it says

that you have to match the prices of the incumbent, which is ridiculous because

how are you supposed to get subscribers?

Right?

And one thing we know with municipal networks is that

it does drive competition.

It lowers prices and it raises speeds because oftentimes municipalities will

be deploying fiber whereas the incumbent maybe was relying on DSL or, or coaxial

cable, which is, which is, you know, cable networks like if you have Xfinity.

But no one wants competition.

No one, you know, the incumbents don't want.

Competition.

And so, you know, one of the big, which to me goes against free market.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Right.

Competition competition should be the base of this, except, you know, something

somewhere around only 30 percent of this, this fact could be a little bit

off, but there's, there's a small, only a small portion of, of the American

population that actually have a choice.

In broadband provider, in rural america, it's about 19 only 19 of rural

americans have a choice in broadband providers Legitimate choice, right?

So yeah, we might have a couple of companies at the national level

doing this stuff But at the local level, there's usually only one or

two and dollars to donuts if it's a local company They're doing better

than if it's a national company.

Oh, no question.

And I think what's interesting that a lot of people don't realize is how they

go about some of those measurements to see if an area is served or not based

on census blocks.

Yeah.

And I've

seen the map.

I saw the map and.

And on top of it being used by census blocks where and you can correct

me if I get this off, but I want to say it's if Comcast is in a census

block and they have like one house out of the 200 that are there.

Hey, we're covered.

We're good.

Checkmark checkmark on us.

But they were also on the map that I saw it was literally a Gestapo

style set up where if Comcast was the 1 on that map serving it.

Verizon could not and would not go in there to go get the other

ones served, even if they wanted

to.

So there's often handshake agreements that go on.

So Comcast gets one town, Verizon gets another, Charter gets another, right?

Or sometimes you just get an entire state, right?

I mean, Comcast is from Philadelphia.

So you can't, it's very difficult to buy a Verizon product in Philadelphia.

Um, you would think that this would violate antitrust regulations, but

somehow it hasn't and it's about a larger conversation about how we define

antitrust in this country But yeah, you're absolutely right because of the handshake

agreement and not right now, right?

And so so you're you're right if there is an incumbent another Big

carrier probably will not move in to try and drive up competition.

The other thing you mentioned about mapping.

So, yeah, it is ridiculous.

One building in a census block is served the entire census block.

100 percent of that census block is considered served.

Two other problems with this.

One, that building doesn't have to be served.

It just has the potential of being served within 10 business days.

So it would mean that maybe you're not even, maybe, maybe a Comcast

or CenturyLink isn't even in the century or in the census block.

But so long as they can claim that a building can be served within 10

business days, they can say that that census block is 100 percent served.

The other thing that, when we talk about service, we're not

talking about actual speed, we're talking about advertised speed.

And that's a big difference.

And I bet you dollars to donuts that a lot of people on this call are not

happy because they're not getting the speeds they're paying for.

Because ISPs, Internet Service Providers, do not have to publicize

the actual speed you will get, only the hypothetical maximum of the network.

So yeah, if it's two o'clock in the morning and you're on a digital subscriber

line and you're two, you know, you're two houses away from the DSLAM, which is the

neighborhood node, then yeah, you might be able to get what you're paying for.

But if it's the middle of the day and a lot of people are using the

network You know, you're going to be S.

O.

L.

So to speak.

So, so the kind of advertise speeds and and the census box

has really been detrimental.

It's meant that.

The Federal Communications Commission has drastically overestimated the

number of connected households in this country, upwards of about 50%.

And the other problem is, you know, if you're in a census block that is

considered 100 percent served, right, that one building means you're 100

percent served, you are ineligible.

For federal funding, right?

So you're if you're miscounted on the broadband map.

Now, in the FCC's credit, they are redoing it, but it's going to take another year.

We'll see a new broadband map in about in summer 2023, you're

going to be ineligible for money.

So these maps are absolutely crucial to the success of the infrastructure plan.

And we just have to hope that history does not repeat itself in this regard.

So the one thing that I found interesting, you talking about maps, when I first

started out working on the broadband committee, and I actually found they've

taken this off of the website because this was, we did this in 2015, 2016.

And if you're happened to be watching this or listening to this, I've got

are the Culpeper's Broadband Study Report, which is public information.

And if you go to page three, you will actually see my name in the in the bottom.

But we, we also found it interesting that when you were trying in the early stages,

That even the broadband that's, or the fiber that's buried in the area in a lot

of cases was considered private IP and they didn't have to publicly disclose it.

So when you were going out there trying to map going, Hey, guess what?

This section of the county on the West side across these streets, but you

couldn't gauge the level of effort and the level of money necessary

because you didn't know accurately what was already in the ground.

Thank you.

Right.

And is that across the country from what you saw, or is that just a Virginia

thing?

No, it is across the country.

ISPs are under, under no obligation to report their fiber optic lines.

And this is why, so we don't have a good nationwide map of fiber deployment because

there's also a tremendous amount of what's called dark fiber fiber that may have been

laid in the ground, but was abandoned.

I mean, we've been laying fiber since the 1980s, right?

There's a ton of fiber in the ground.

The problem is we don't know where, like you said, we don't

know where a lot of it is.

And so oftentimes people will be surprised that there's a fiber optic line running

down the street, but not to the house.

And that obviously is causing a lot of frustration.

But no, ISPs are under no obligation to report their deployment in terms

of technology, in terms of the actual wires in the ground are kind of strung

up on, on those telephone poles.

So there's no public pressure or with some of the infrastructure bill that's

coming new, is that going to mean that these, these guys may be willing

to play and maybe some of the dark fiber that's not turned on be lit up

finally for expansion with this, that they may have an economic interest in

turning some of this on if they think they're going to get free hands out?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we're not really sure.

I mean, one of the interesting things that is in the infrastructure

package and the FCC is just rolling out now is a Yeah, like a nutrition.

They call it a nutritional guide for broadband so that now when you subscribe

to broadband, you will actually get a rundown of actual speeds in different

times, and you'll actually get a cost breakdown for the first time.

Because that's the other thing, ISPs were not required to declare prices.

And Americans pay the most out of any developed nation

in the world for broadband.

So they're calling it in kind of an informational guide.

Like you would look at the box of the back of a box of cereal, right?

You'd see the nutritional values and here you'll have how the how

the network is actually performing.

So that's going to be huge.

We have to make sure that with that there is consumer education around

what these numbers actually mean.

To make sure that that consumers are are empowered to make the

right choices for their household.

If, of course, they have a choice.

But yeah, and and then with regards to to dark fiber, I am hoping

that 1 of the things that the infrastructure bill does do is it.

Allows new stakeholders to come come kind of out of the woodwork, right?

I think that's a result of the pandemic certainly We saw a number of organizations

and industries who hadn't really gotten involved in the broadband fight realized.

No, holy smokes.

We all need broadband we need broadband for work.

Our employees need broadband.

So have you and and so and they might be owning Fiber optics.

So they don't even realize.

So, you know, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of, there's a lot of coalition

building around this, and so hopefully we will be seeing some of the

mobilization and mapping of some of this dark fiber or underused fiber.

That's that that's been just sitting here.

I know in Virginia, there is a tremendous amount because we've got

so many server farms here as well.

There's a tremendous amount of unlit fiber running through the

high running up and down highways.

We knew there was a bunch around, you know, it, it.

In Virginia in Culpeper is located around route 29.

Yes.

I was just going to say up and down.

We knew

up and down because you've got that, you know, they call it the

outside that for anybody not familiar outside the blast zone of DC.

So they want to be able to kind of be able to move operations.

It's one of the reasons why library of Congress has one of

their facilities and Culpeper.

Yep.

For, for protection.

But you know, it was, we, when we first started, we're like, we know it's here,

but we don't exactly know where it's here.

And we also don't know exactly.

What the intention of it is

here.

And I would say you probably also didn't know who owns it, right?

Which is the other thing, so much fiber that, that we don't know who,

who's, who's in control of this.

So then even when you want to tap into it, you're not exactly, especially if

the fiber has been abandoned, you have no idea who actually owns those lines.

So the other thing I want to stick to the budgeting things piece because this was

another thing I ran into as we further got further along in the process and talking

with members of the Board of Supervisors and even beyond when the kind of our

group kind of disbanded, but I was kind of keeping tabs, you know, for a period

of time until I realized it was D O.

A.

To be honest, my 1st initial meetings were the local, the local board, at

least in our area was a very aging board and I don't want to sit there

and, you know, so technical competency was probably not at the forefront.

To be honest with you on top of that.

They looked at it as a, you know, a free enterprise solution.

Magic fairies are going to come in and sprinkle.

Internet's on us.

It was kind of the thing.

I don't remember my exact conversation.

One of them was actually in my yard And I and I just remember being able to

flip Whatever he said to me back on him in five seconds and it made him pause

it did not make any change But it made him pause and I I just remembered the

effect that had but Some of the grants that had been out there previously

again Not knowing the details of the new infrastructure bill required a skin

in the game kind of component for the counties Yeah The Culpeper the time was

not willing to put some skin in the game.

So how much is, how much does that affect when you've got those

communities that think free enterprise is going to come save the day they

can't do a public option because.

They can't turn off the support and yet you're still stuck in

this lack of broadband because of lack of infrastructure

I mean, that's a great that's a great question And and what I see, you know,

as you know, I like how you said like the sprinkle be internets Around it and

what my concern kind of piggybacking off of that is when I talk to counties

and they say well 5g's just around The corner or we hear star like it's been

a job And so we're going to pause, or we don't need to think about this,

or we don't need to, we're going to pause our broadband deployment plans.

And, and this is kind of things that keep me up at night

because this is the hype, right?

I mean, the new and the next and the largest and the loudest.

But to be 5G, at least the 5G that would replace a home internet

connection is not going to come to rural America anytime soon.

If at all just because of the infrastructure required to deploy

that type of network, Starlink is also picking and choosing really house

by house who they're going to serve.

So, you know, in 2018, yeah, Elon Musk says, I'm going to connect this world,

then a few years later, he's saying, I'm going to connect rural America.

And now he's saying, I'm going to connect just a couple of

houses here, here and here.

And, and the buy in of course is also very, very expensive for Starlink.

And, and the network connection is, is uncertain.

It's, it's certainly been dialed down.

Originally it was promised it would compete with fiber optics and 5g.

And now it's looking more like it will compete with cable.

So not bad if you've been living off satellite internet.

And it

keeps getting pushed off.

I got two clients now that need it.

Yeah, yeah,

horribly, but they

it just keeps it gets so there are options next quarter next quarter, right?

There are options on the ground right now.

And this is, I think, where we need to be, you know, encouraging our

boards of supervisors to look at and then then you bring up the point

that yes, a lot of these programs.

Especially from USDA require collateral or a matching component sometimes 25%.

But this is where we're actually seeing some really great use of cares act money.

You know, every state's got buckets of money from cares act.

And then county's got a lot of money.

And so for a lot of these grants Nelson County, for instance, was

able to use the cares act money.

It got as that down payment to receive other loans and grants.

So that's why we saw here and here in central Virginia.

We're seeing the massive deployment of, of Firefly broadband with the

central Virginia electric cooperative is because Nelson County was really

able to parlay it's coven money into.

Kind of championing this one, this one provider, which I think is,

which I think is really great.

And there's a lot of counties who have used cares act money in this way to use

it as the matching the matching component.

So it's, it's, it's awful that it took a pandemic with colossal loss

of life for us to, to realize that that this is not a, you know, Luxury.

And that it's not just about getting some broadband or some Internet

out to people, but it's about those high speed, affordable networks.

And and hopefully that energy and that commitment to connectivity will extend to

this next round of federal funding now.

And it's crazy you mentioned that, because after having.

Went through this pretty, pretty close with some people, you know, in Culpeper.

My wife is a assistant principal in Stafford.

And when the pandemic started I remember her, you know, they sent everybody

home and then her first thing was, I don't know how we're going to function.

And then I heard through the grapevine about the, you know, the technology

director of the county kind of going, I've got to figure out how to solve the

broadband internet issue for everyone.

And it's like, I did not know him.

I still don't know him.

I hope to meet him soon.

And I shot him a note back then.

I said, man, I live with this.

Do not try to do this on your own.

You're going to break yourself in half and you need to go get every

political person involved to try to figure out some resources.

So then you get the mobile hotspot thing that's going around there.

But to me.

That's a stopgap solution versus a versus a long term thing, and I just don't see

anything else having changed at least

dramatically aside from a national shortage of hot spots.

Now.

Yeah, right.

Right.

So you're absolutely right.

I mean, these are, these are definitely stop gaps so that particularly school

children could get something right?

Now the question is, is what types of technologies are we

going to be looking to deploy?

When the president first announced the infrastructure package, he

used this term future proof.

And he said we wanted future proof networks and typically the word future

proof is a metaphor for fiber, right?

And I have to admit that, you know, when I wrote my book, I was like, everybody

needs fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber.

I've softened a little bit.

On that, and I'm not, I would certainly, I'm not endorsing DSL or coaxial

cable, but I am seeing particularly for agricultural communities, the

value of fixed wireless so long as and what fixed wireless is.

Sorry, I should back up is that when you receive you.

Your home Internet wirelessly from a tower that might service your

neighborhood or even your entire town.

So long as that tower is connected to a fiber optic network on the back end.

Right.

Consumers are going to get some pretty good speeds.

It's gonna be comparable to cable which is gonna, which could be a game

changer for a lot of these agricultural communities, which are, which are

incredibly spread out, where fiber to the home is gonna get incredibly expensive.

And so what I'm seeing a lot of communities do is, is let's say

you'll, you'll, they'll do fiber to the curb, maybe fiber to the business.

And then set up a ring of fixed wireless for residential

and that's a good stop gap.

As you look to deploy further fiber into the into the community.

And so I'm I guess I'm softening softening in my old age about about that.

The fact that we also need to make sure that communities are making

the best choices for themselves because fiber is expensive between

27, 000 and 100, 000 dollars a mile.

So, you know, if you're a super spread out county.

You know that it's going to run you tens of millions of dollars,

whereas a fixed wireless network.

So long as you have a good line of sight, and there are no pine trees in the way

You you know, it will be a good stock gap and I, and I'm hoping that, and,

you know, I think this back up and say, this is part of, you know, the job that

folks like you and I can play, which is to make sure that communities have

the right information to make the right choices for them, rather than AT& T or

Verizon or Comcast driving up with a briefing book to a board of supervisors

saying, here, we'll do it for you.

Cause that's the stuff that keeps me up at night.

Well, I want to, I want to tell you one thing and I'm not supposed to

know this, but this is something I saw kind of as things had dropped down

is kind of a difference in public and private positions from some of the big

telecoms where you'll read a new story.

Hey, guess what?

You know, one of these guys, we're going to partner up and

we're going to make this happen.

We're behind you.

We know you need this to happen.

And Then the next day you get a cease and desist letter from

pretty much the same people.

Is that pretty prevalent for them?

I don't and I don't understand.

I mean, I, the, you know, particularly if you're getting grant money

or federal funding, so it's not completely on the telecom itself to go.

All right, you're going to scale of economies.

You're going to make some money off this long 1.

You don't you're not footing the bill.

Why do that?

And then I don't think people realize that either.

And I didn't until

I saw the first thing.

I think that what we see a lot of times is, you know, yeah, there'll be some grant

money and a large income will come in.

They'll end up connecting just the highly populated area, probably usually

the county seat and then nothing else.

Right.

And, and because again, there's not that return on investment,

they didn't apply for money there.

And, and this is a stuff that's really worrisome or on the flip side, and I've

seen this happen with multiple counties in Virginia that they've got grant money.

They can't find a public or private partner because no one wants to

come into these counties at all.

They'll might come around and kick the tires.

And this is this is why we need to in those situations.

Why not encourage a public option, right?

If there's literally the absence of a private market Because no one wants to

come in and connect that rule of an area.

Do you see this

at any point, and it's something I've kicked around for years, at

some point getting classified as a legit utility, like water and

electric?

You know, I think, yes and no.

And I think one of the things that poisoned the water around the word

utility was, It often gets attached to the other political issue in

broadband, which is net neutrality.

And, you know, you want to make the internet a utility.

And first of all, I am a big proponent of network neutrality, but I've noticed

that in the net neutrality debates, the word utility has dropped off because it

like, it just, we weren't getting any traction with calling this a utility.

Ohio had a really interesting case recently where they tried

to classify Google as a utility.

Didn't go anywhere, but they made a really interesting argument in in their

legal Memorandum, so it's going to be up to states right to determine If

broadband oftentimes it's regulated by the utility commission or at least it,

you know, that's maybe where the broadband office is housed but whether or not a

state will go for it So far as to say we are going to call this a utility and

therefore do things like rate regulation.

You're going to get into a battle with the Federal Communications Commission

and this actually does have something to do with network neutrality because it's

under the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

And are you title 1 or title 2?

Are you an information service where you have no regulation or

are you a telecommunication service where there's more regulation?

So we need, if it's going to happen, we need to see an effort between

states and the FCC to make it happen.

And I'm not sure.

I think it works very well in politics, but I'm not sure if there's a lot of

political appetite among states to really make the push for it being a utility.

I'm all for it.

I would love to see rate regulation because we pay too much as it is.

But I, I just don't think that there's a, there's a political appetite either

amongst states or at, at the FCC to, to fight that fight, which is unfortunate.

Yeah, because because my concern and it's probably 1 that you share 2 is if we don't

solve the broadband issue, you're besides having a generation of people that won't

be in touch with truly what's going on.

You're going to lose their creativity.

Their educational aspects.

You're also going to start getting.

You know, pushed away from the rural environments where in my

mind, you're going to have a little bit of a population migration into

the places that have internet.

I mean, when we were starting this out, I mean, your husband's a realtor.

Years ago, the first question asked was not how good are the schools?

Not what is the crime rate?

Hey, is this house got high speed?

Is Comcast

here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is Verizon

here?

Yeah.

Number one question and probably number two question.

Yeah.

And if we don't fix this, we're going to see this, this slow migration

to the, to more population centers.

Well, and I think we saw the inverse of this during the pandemic where we saw out

migration in urban areas, but people were not asking that question because there

was this presumption of connectivity.

So Ben, my husband certainly saw like, and he obviously knows the

broadband conversation in and out.

So, you know, he's, he often has to volunteer some of this information

and say, like, let's talk about how the, what the Internet is.

What do you need in terms of your, your, your Internet connectivity?

Are you, for instance, in the tech sector and you're looking to remote

commute, that's going to really limit the places, for instance, in rural Virginia

that you can actually move to, right?

Again, you're, you're probably going to end up in Nelson County because

Firefly is almost everywhere in Nelson.

But it's, you know, but how do we make sure every County is like that?

How do we make sure that you can move everywhere in Virginia and still do your

job that I think is, is, is so crucial.

So we like to say that, you know, in real estate, it used to be

location, location, location, now it's location, location, broadband.

But yeah, I do agree 65 billion.

Folks are going to go to where we've learned how to work from home.

We've learned how to work from coffee shops.

We've learned how to not be in an office.

And so there's going to be, there's a moment right now for rural communities to

attract investment, to attract business, to attract education, to attract young

people or to keep young people there.

But, you know, internet connectivity is a crucial factor in making, I'm

not saying it's the decisive factor.

I'm also not saying, you know, just because there's a wire on the ground, it

means it's going to be so much better.

But it's a crucial factor.

In in in rural economic development and and we need to make sure that

that counties and communities really understand that point how

with reading tea leaves.

Do you think we're going to get it right or fall into the traps of old

behavior, where we're going to just start giving these places money that

they're going to misappropriate misuse?

And then nobody's actually going to actually hold them

accountable for doing.

Right?

So, I think there is there is hope in that Congress gave the

money to the and not the FCC.

The FCC has proven to be.

To have not done its due diligence with a lot of grand money and we saw

this particular at the rural digital opportunity fund that is going through

some kind of colossal hiccups right now when like parking lots got funded and

traffic circles got funded because because just because of a lack of due diligence.

So, so I think there's a good.

There's potential for NTA to right these wrongs.

Now the question we need to make sure is, is NTA staffed enough?

It's a small office, and it's on the executive side, so

it's in the presidential side.

Is it staffed well enough to be able to, to write these rules to work with states?

And that's the other thing we need to make sure.

Every state needs to have a well staffed broadband office.

Because if states don't have the capacity to access the N.

T.

A.

Money the 65 billion.

Then other entities can start bypassing the state and just

apply on the state's behalf.

And that's gonna be really problematic.

So we need to make sure that states are well equipped, that these offices are

well equipped and well staffed to be able to handle, you know, what's at a minimum

going to be 100 million dollars per state.

But it's probably gonna go a whole lot more.

I mean, when you're doling out 42 billion You know, it's you know, what is that?

It's less than a billion a state but not that far off, right?

I mean virginia for instance is poised to get a lot of money.

We need to make sure that we are well positioned, to access it or history will

repeat itself And the incumbents will just come in and say, trust us, we'll do it.

And they'll get the money.

Sounds good.

Well, as a rewrap up, what would you advise those that know there's an

issue within their community want to start trying to make an impact or start

making this a higher priority issue?

Where would you recommend them go?

Boards of supervisors.

I think boards of supervisors have a tremendous amount of

untapped power in this regard.

So if your county doesn't have a broadband plan, if your town doesn't

have a broadband plan, you should be talking at the local level because

this is going to be crucial then to access state money and federal money.

You need to start with that broadband plan.

You need to get your boards of supervisors on board.

And it often starts with just like, you need one digital champion.

He's going to, you know, try and champion this through.

But as you said, you need to get the other elected officials on board.

And to me, that's board of supervisors at least.

And, and in Virginia, obviously, since cities are different, like

you'll need to get, if you're in a city municipality, you'll need

to get your local officials there.

But I think.

That is going to be absolutely crucial to develop a concrete broadband plan so that

when, when the Commonwealth of Virginia saying, Hey, we've got whatever, a billion

dollars in in broadband funding, the communities and counties will be equipped

and ready to apply for that money.

So that's what I say.

Go local, go

local.

No, absolutely.

And I would, I would throw in if you're an elected official, have to

be listening to this, that find some other technical resources within

your community that are already other business owners to get involved.

I saw that lacking.

I was the only 1 on the entire rural broadband committee for Culpeper

that had Any technology experience.

And I, I appreciated, don't get me wrong.

I really appreciated having the other people going, Hey, this is a problem.

I get you.

Not every single other one was a real estate agent.

And in the case that I was in, because it's death, it's

directly impacted what they did.

We have, this is a, we've got to build our stakeholder coalitions, right?

Everybody, every business is a stakeholder, right?

So if you're, if you're doing credit card transactions, you have a stake in

broadband deployment in your community.

So let's mobilize all of these actors to make sure that everybody is connected.

Absolutely.

Well, if anybody wants to reach out to you, connect, I'm going to have all the

links to your previous presentations.

If you want all of the facts and figures, the links to the book in the show note,

but if anybody wants to reach out to you directly, what's the best place?

You can also find me on twitter at at alley underscore Christopher.

Awesome.

And yes, and this is a You can see pictures of his dogs and everything

else.

Yep.

It is not just broadband, broadband and not just broadband.

So no, I appreciate the time.

This

is great.

Catching up.

Thanks for having me.

This has been great.

Yeah,

no, appreciate it.

Let me,