This morning I attended an abbreviated Task Force meeting. They spoke about upcoming legislation, to a couple of legislators and talked about plans for 2017 meetings, committees and streamlining the report writing.

I’ll post video here and follow with notes..

Update from Office of Broadband Development

• We announced the awards from the third round of the grants.
• 42 awards announced

The focus on a practical basis was unserved – most of the underserved locations were included in a larger project.

• 62 – applications
• $55M – total request
• $34M – total awards
• $40.3M – total match
• 18,989 locations served
• 18,370 – currently unserved locations
• 568 – underserved locations
• Challenges submitted – 44
• Number of challengers – 13
• Number of projects challenged – 28
• Numbers of challenges results in non-funding 6

Reasons to challenge:

1. Services exist
2. Services are planned
3. Construction is underway.

A mapper has been chosen for the next round of maps.

Estimated goal number: 209,000 households do not have access to 25/3 broadband.

OBD is looking at Sunrise township, Mill Lacs Electric and fiber/wireless hybrid.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on the Hennepin County project

Update on the education awards: 12 school districts (our of 33 applied) each received about $50,000 to deploy wireless programs in their school – for wireless routers to check out for home use and/or outfitted buses with wifi networks.

Some schools have had trouble with filter and security measures – maybe Blandin can help us since they have funded projects that have solved these issues.

Legislative Update:

Governor has suggested $60 million in funding ($30M per year)

Working on prevailing wage issues – the problem is that there isn’t a good fit for contractor who work on fiber and the types of hours they work. (projects funded with more than $250,000 state funding need to adhere to prevailing wage)

Working on the ability to place wireless equipment on agriculture preserves. Normally no commerce-type items can be placed on such land.

Governor suggestions $74 million on cyber security

Talking about future meetings

• 5G – what can it do and how is it being deployed?
• Where are we with IoT?
• Large scale rural deployments (county and larger). How publicly traded companies
• ROI for communities that got funding and those who didn’t?
• TAP – and changes to TAP
• Education superhighway and new K12 initiatives
• Cybersecurity
• Update from emergency services and use of the Internet (Public Safety)
• E-911 – and text to 911
• Connect Nations on Adoptions
• FCC participants in ACAM programs – Arvig is one of the largest users of ACAM in the country.
• Planning a road trip

Let’s try to start writing the report earlier this year. The committee work was really helpful last year and made the report writing much easier. Choosing topics/speakers that feed into the final report will be helpful.

Last year’s committees:

• Adoption & Affordability
• Emerging technologies
• Accessibility

New ideas for committees

• Regulation and policy change
• Get economic impact of funded projects
• Public safety – cyber security focus for a year
• How broadband replaces what landlines used to do

Let’s look at 5G first -there’s a small cell bill right now and we might get called to testify.
Maybe we could look at FirstNet 911 first.

Rep Baker

• If we get out work done the private sector can do what they do.
• Spoke to Ways & Means and get folks on board.
• I like the 2-year approach but we’re not mentioning numbers yet.
• I understand that $60M would help boost fiber.
• Spoke to Garofalo already – thanked him for his support for Greater MN and help keeping the topic relevant.
• So much more work to be done.
• What can we do to make it more efficient for the office?
• How can we get more miles (of broadband) for the money?
• I want to be a champion. Been talking with Kresha and an approach. We have some telecom issues we need to work out.

What makes a difference with your colleagues?

• Show us the results – outcomes
• Testimonials – from city officials
• What is going on with telemedicine?
• What’s going on with education?
• Efficient spending of money
• Working with CAF 2 funding with friends at CenturyLink

Rep Johnson

• This is a good bipartisan topic.
• I express my strong support.
• Leveraging works.
• Governor proposed $30M/30
• Sen Simonson – proposed $100M
• We may need to be tweaking of current process – maybe in terms of challenge process.
• Need to make sure there’s sufficient operating funds.
• Working with MNIT – need to work on cyber security. It’s an increasing issue. State of MN is very concerned.
• Computer donations are good
• Need to publicize low cost programs – like that from Comcast.
• Computers at the libraries are getting used – esp by kids of color. Need library access!
• Used to ride a school bus to school for an hour a day – glad to see bus time being used well with broadband.
• IN regards to transportation – we need to prepare for driverless cars.
• Regulatory reform – need to find compromise work with Andy Shriner (CenturyLInk) last year on some regulation.
• Need to balance regulation of industry with consumer protections
• Small cell wireless – rights of way is an issue.
• Need MTA and local telecom companies need to talk to their representatives – that would be helpful

Maybe it would be helpful for Baker & Johnson t talk to Freshman legislators about broadband. We have 25-30 people that we could talk to about it.

CONCERNS:

A concern with the challenge process is that there isn’t much accountability for incumbents