Join us online or in-person in Washington, DC to welcome special guest Alan Davidson, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Broadband Breakfast’s Drew Clark will host Alan for a fireside chat where viewers will have a chance to hear Alan’s vision for the $42.5 billion BEAD and $3 billion tribal funding programs and get a preview of the Broadband.money platform for broadband grant application research, development, reporting & compliance. 

<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">About the Event</h2>The broadband grants community welcomes special guest Alan Davidson, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).&nbsp;Broadband Breakfast’s Drew Clark hosts Alan for a fireside chat, getting a preview of the <a href="https://broadband.money/">Broadband.money</a> platform for broadband grant application research, development, reporting &amp; compliance.&nbsp;Hear Alan’s vision for the $42.5 billion BEAD and $3 billion tribal funding programs. Get his perspective on important matters, such as:<ul><li>What does success look like?</li><li>What is the timeline from here?</li><li>Will states view the 25% match requirement as a ceiling, or a floor?</li><li>How should local governments, providers, and infrastructure builders – public and private – prepare while waiting on maps and state plans?</li></ul>And more.&nbsp;

 Jase, thank you so much. We are so happy to have each of you here and to join with Alan Davidson to address the topic of the day, Preparing for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and I really couldn't be happier that we have a speaker of this caliber. We've been doing this Broadband Breakfast Live Online for more than two years since the pandemic started. Of course, it built upon the Broadband Breakfast Club before. I suspect you've heard of, or at least been around for...

 A member for, how long has it been? How many years? 

 We're not saying how many years [laughter] We were teenagers at the time.

 But Alan, it's so delightful to have you with us to talk about, the way I said it in that recent article, the bottom of the stack internet, and you've, of course, worked at the top of the internet stack too, but your career has been throughout the domain, from Center for Democracy and Technology, where we met 24 years ago, to working with Google, indeed setting up Google's office in Washington DC, working in the Department of Commerce, the same place you're in now, but in a different portfolio, and then, of course, with the Mozilla Foundation. So just briefly, Alan, what do you take from those experiences that you hope will be most instrumental in implementing the most significant NTIA program ever? 

 So no pressure, right? Yeah, well, let me start by saying, first of all, thank you for having me today. It's great to be here. I have been a long time follower and fan of the Broadband Breakfast Club, and then the Broadband Breakfast for Lunch Club.

 Yes, it is great and it's hard to believe it's been 24 years. And I will say, I remember very vividly, those early conversations we had at a different, simpler time in the internet, but also over the years, I have really come to value people who really dig deep and understand the issues and then ask, even report or talk about it from that perspective, and Drew, you have been for years one of those people who gets it and who, even in those early days, I always value talking to you because you were somebody who really took the time to understand the issues. So it's great to be here with you here today.

 Yeah, no, I really... It is... And I'll also just step back and have something to say. It's an exciting time at... To be at NTIA, a historic time, and as you said, we've been given this opportunity. It's hard to think about the fact that we've been talking about the digital divide in this country for over 20 years, and there's been a lot of work done, but we finally, thanks to this bipartisan infrastructure law, we've finally been given the resources to do something really serious and structural to close the digital divide, and that is a massive opportunity, is people talk about once in a generation, once in a lifetime. But to do something, this is like rural electrification, this is like building the interstate highway system, this is a moment. As we were saying earlier already, and thank you for that introduction, this is a moment to really bring opportunity to everyone in America to think, how can you thrive in the modern economy today without being able to get access to the internet.

 And we know that also the set of programs we've been given is giving us an opportunity to think not just about access, but also about affordability, about adoption. How do we make sure that people are meaningfully online? So that is a massive and amazing opportunity, and we're extremely excited to be working on this. And for those of you who've been in this space for many years too, how incredible is it that this is one of the top priorities now for our President, for our government, for people in Congress? I will say that we're also trying to walk and chew gum at NTIA, at the same time...

 You have many other responsibilities. And we said, "We're not gonna talk about those because there's so much on IIJA, but just say words about other things.

 Among the other top priorities for us we've got, we're doing a lot of work on Spectrum, we have this statutory mission at NTIA to coordinate Federal Spectrum Policy, to coordinate and manage Federal Spectrum, figuring out how we make sure that there's an efficient and effective use of that federal spectrum while also fueling the needs of commercial industry of the private sector to have access to spectrum. That's a huge ongoing challenge, and we're right in the middle of that. We're doing a huge amount of work around the policy issues, having to do with the internet, both internationally and domestically. We do a lot of work on cyber security, privacy, 5G vendor diversity is a very big initiative for us, we're doing a lot of work around the ITU, International Telecommunications Union, there's an election this year for the head of the ITU, there's an American Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who we're quite excited about it. It'll be really historic, first woman to ever head the ITU, which is amazing. Anyway, so there's a lot on our plate and Public Safety Communications, FirstNet managing, doing the oversight of FirstNet, and that's an amazing project. So we've got a lot.

 But we have a lot going on, but this, to come back to it, Broadband is job one.

 So how are you managing that? How are you staffing that to deal with... This is a program that's 10 times bigger than the... More than 10 times bigger than the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for Broadband. And your agency is getting the lion share of those, 42.5 billion plus one billion, three billion, we'll talk about those. So how are you prioritizing the staffing and the administration of the program? 

 We're... Well to start with, we're hiring, if you know good people.

 We are and that's really actually probably been my biggest focus in the near term, has been trying to get... Is the talent surge that we know we need to be able to deliver on this. And there's a core group of great people who've been at NTIA for years, and that's partly why I think Congress felt that we should have this support and this funding, but we now need that surge. One of the key places... And so we're building out across the board. We're building out in our digital grid. We recently hired a new head of Digital Equity. Scott Woods, here, is in the audience. He heads our Office of Minority Broadband Communicate... Yes, there you go. He's building his team. We're doing work... I think one of the biggest places that we're investing is in the folks, we're gonna be working at the states.

 And you all understand this, the way that the Infrastructure Bill has been written to the biggest program where overseeing the State Grant Program is really gonna require us to partner with states. And it means we need to have a good partner in the state. One of the things that we can do to support that is, build out and we're building out a pretty big team of folks who will be one stop shop for states. Every state is gonna have a person at NTIA who they know they can call. And a person who wakes up every day and thinks, how do I make sure that Texas, succeeds here? How do I make sure that North Carolina, is getting its letter of intent in, knows what it needs to do for its initial plans? So we're gonna have that kind of customer service mentality and be able to create that. And that I think, is one of the most important thing we're doing.

 So Alan, I have to put my personal hat on, because as I believe you know, I ended up working in Illinois, as the State Broadband Initiative Director for that state. It's kind of 1.0, right? 

 Now, that program gave money to state mapping entities to map but also, what I discovered there is it was much more than mapping. And it was really more about coordinating and interacting. So talk just a little bit more about the role of the state broadband officials. Why they're so important and how much discretion are you gonna give them when you put out the notice of funding opportunity rules, next time? 

 Well, I think the broadband offices in the states are gonna be the key frontline for a lot of this work, right? And again, the way that the $42.5 billion State Grant Program, the BEAD Program, as we call it. Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the big ticket item that we've got here, the way that works is it really is about us, doing allocations to states and states will do the grant making. So that means we need to have states in a position to be able to run those grant programs, we expect there will be flexibility, different states are going to run programs in different ways. And our goal is to give them in the statute, gives them that flexibility. It's not a one size fits all at all. So that means you need state broadband officers that are in the position to run these allocations and to do it well, because to do it well only could probably make a difference. The statute requires and we will require that they do this in consultation with local communities, because we know that communities are the ones who really understand, where are the gaps? Who are the communities that are unserved? How do we get local partners involved.

 And so that communication, just as we said, it was gonna be critical. So it's gonna place a lot and also mention that there's a Digital Equity Program that we're gonna be running. The states, we're gonna be very involved in that, as a component of that so there's a lot for them to do.

 Right, Jase Wilson here, of Broadband.money highlighted the really importance of local and that's why we're so excited to be partnering and working with Broadband.money because it is about making sure that funds go to local entities. Now, again, I know there may be some preferences for local, right? But there's no bar, against local cities or communities or coops getting funds, correct? 

 That is absolutely correct. The statute is very clear on that, and that there is no bar on those entrance into the program. But like I said, there's also going to be requirements for consultation, states will need to consult.

 So how does that work? How does that work? What do they need to do exactly? 

 Well, it's something we've actually asked for comments on and we're thinking about how we would put this in. But the statute, again, is pretty clear that it has to be for the initial plan that gets submitted to us the final plans about how money is being spent, that needs to be both of which need to be approved by us, need to include a local consultation component. And so that's been a very active area and we've gotten a lot of comments about that.

 And so these are consultation for the sub applicants who are applying for the states, right? Or is it a requirement for the applicants meaning the state broadband? 

 It's a requirement for the state broadband entities in the statute.

 And that's what I was talking about. But we're hoping there'll be a lot of constitutional along the way.

 No, you said several times here and in other forums, that the statute is very clear. Of course, it's complicated. It's clear. So what are the open questions that you all are in the midst of finetuning as you prepare the notice of fine opportunity? 

 That's a great question. I would look to, as a good answer, the requests for comments that we put out, and we received a lot of them, and no surprise, I mean, there are areas that we do want people's input on and I've gotten a lot of input on. One area of course is around affordability and the low cost option, there is a requirement in the law that states include a low cost option as a requirement for their grantees. How that should be defined, who should be eligible? That's an active area of conversation we're quite interested in getting input on. This issue of local consultation, which is a requirement of statute but not heavily defined. So how would you think about that? Those are the kinds of issues that... And then we're also kind of really working through the questions of timelines and processes. Some of it is kind of mechanical pieces, but they make a big difference about how we help with as well.

 Do you have any more insight into timelines other than that May 16th date that is the deadline? 

 Well, and I should say at the stop, I certainly not able to share any nonpublic information [chuckle] here. We stay tuned for more.

 I could make news but we're being quite careful. You know, the biggest thing is, the starting gun for us will be May 16th, right? That's our statutory deadline for putting out these notices. And it's not just the notice on the B program on the state grant program, but our digital equity program, our middle mile program will also have notices coming out. I know our digital equity program is due a little bit later. But that's gonna be the starting gun. And if you look at the statute, it does spell out a process where we get letters of intent from states. We hope they'll be submitting them very quickly, we expect that some of them will. Then immediately, we're able to give them $5 million planning grants so that they can immediate that, which like, it will... Such a very wise thing to add into one. We actually have money for planning, so states can do that. I'm sure you would have liked that back in the day and then we go from there.

 When we had money for planning was just called mapping, right? It was called mapping and we... I mean, we used it. We did mapping too, but planning was part of that. Whereas now we've got this bifurcation where the mapping, so to speak is going over to the FCC and yet the planning is being done by the states. Do you want to comment anymore on the mapping piece? 

 Well, I'll just say, when you think about the timeline, and again, this is spelled out in a statute, but it's always not... It's not necessarily clear. And this is the way we... Is that, there'll be this letter... These letters of intent, we'll give out the planning grants, states immediately will be working on their five year plans and then they can work on their initial plans for... That they'll submit to us. But a lot of this is ultimately dependent on the mapping that's being done, as you said, by the FCC. And so our allocations, the way the statute works is, the way we will ultimately decide how much money each state gets depends on those maps, because those maps will tell us how many unserved locations are in each state. And that is the formal function.

 Well, that's kind of the definitive word, so to speak on what's unserved, but there are mapping tools, obviously we've heard and seen about them that are available right now for people. So it's not a requirement for applicants to... I mean, this is more kind of a check, or is it really more central to the process, those maps that the FCC is doing? 

 I think the maps are pretty central to the process from our... I think the way we read the statute, we've all been tasked with using the FCC maps and there's a good reason for it, right? Which is that in the past, as many of you all followed this know, the maps have kind of sucked. Actually, that's a term of art, but the maps haven't been great and using census blocks as our basis has been kind of granularity that we need in this day and age. And so there was money given to the FCC, there's an approach, and we're gonna use the map, we'll have a source of truth in those maps, but it's gonna take a little while and that's where the... One of the gating items are. And so they are central by the way, because that's gonna be how we decide... How the government decides how allocations are given.

 Every state gets 100 million and it's everything above that? Is that right? 

 Yeah. A $100 million for every state, less for territories are $25 million... Split, 100 million basically and on top of that, it will depend on a formula that is largely based on how many unserved locations there are relative to all the unserved locations in the country. So states with a lot of unserved locations, relatively speaking, will get more and money, will get well more than a $100 million.

 What do you think the high amount will be? 

 I don't know. I have nothing definitive to add. People certainly... It will certainly be a lot. It'll be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

 There are a lot of good estimates out there, I'll refer you to them.

 We have a great opportunity here to have questions. We've been compiling questions at broadband.money. And of course we have the opportunity for each of you to ask questions before I open it up to you and to others here. I just want to quickly touch upon the unserved versus underserved distinction, Alan, okay? So the statute of course defines unserved as not receiving 25 megabits per second down three megabits per second up and underserved as not receiving 100 megabits down 20 megabits up. And of course again, the statute requires the 25 three areas, with lack of 25, three being filled in first and then the 100, 200 areas. But a lot of projects are gonna cover both unserved and underserved areas. So what's the current thinking on how you design a project that's going to serve underserved and unserved areas? 

 I think... Well, I'll start by saying you... I don't now. It's a really interesting area and it kind of gets to the complexity of the entire problem because we do... We are committed. Our goal is that 100% goal, right? Our goal that has been expressed, the president has said it, secretary Armando at the commerce department has said it, we are eager to get to our goal, is to get to everyone in America and to have access to high speed affordable broadband.

 Everyone to have access to 120 broadband? 

 When we are done that is the mission we have been given. Is that, when this program is done, everyone in America will have access to high speed affordable broadband and that is defined in the statute as 120.

 So, I mean, that is... It's an ambitious goal.

 It's very encouraging, very encouraging.

 That is... And so we are looking at it through that lens and it is about how can we use this money well to get there and it's ambitious, it's hard. And we all know that and we... So we're thinking about it and we wanna make sure that the projects are economical, but where our laser focus is on making sure that the unserved, those unserved areas get that upgrade or are reached.

 Okay. We got a question here from Darren Farhan, "Alan, how will the intel preference specific groups, namely electric cooperatives?"

 Well, I think the short answer is that we're not gonna be preferencing specific groups. I think our statute is very clear. And we are open to all commerce. And I think different states will build this in different ways. But what we're gonna be making it clear because the statute makes it clear, is there's a wide variety of participants that are desired. And in some places, it could very well be electric cooperatives. And in other places, it might be other new entrants it maybe existing players and maybe municipal partners, as we were saying its beginning. And the statute is very clear about this. Congress expressed its intent, and we wanna make sure we're making sure that there's space for all those folks because it will be different in different places.

 Do you have any indication that some states won't file an acceptable plan? 

 Our fervent hope, we are gonna be working to make sure that every state is a participant here. And we can't get to our goal. We can't meet our mission if every state is not there. So when I talked in the beginning, and that we're investing and the fact that we're investing so heavily in that work with the states, it's for that reason to make sure that we're working directly with the states, that we're bringing them on, we're giving them the technical assistance that they need to be able to be participants.

 What would you like them to know or to do? What should states do to be as prepared as they could be? 

 And actually, I don't think they need to say that because I know that our teams are in touch with them. We had a state Broadband Leaders Network meeting. Last month, we had 46 of the 50 states participating. I think maybe all the territories participating. We've got a network already, that we've built. But I do think there is a need for, probably for political leadership to be engaging too and understand the importance of this. This is a win... This is such a win I think for... There's not a state in this country that's not gonna win in some way from this project.

 What do you say to those who believe that the NTIA is gonna have to inevitably step in and put really strong guidelines at least? You have to emphasize this is not a one-size-fits-all, maybe more rural states might come in with more acceptable use of wireless whereas Rhode Island, for example, was probably not gonna... Could you just talk a little bit about this state versus NTIA federal role? 

 Well, I mean, we expect that there will be the flexibility that it's not again, not a one-size-fits-all, we know you said it well, the needs of a state like Rhode Island, which we talk about a lot in our buildings. My boss was a former governor in Rhode Island. But the needs of a place like Rhode Island probably isn't gonna end up having a lot of unserved, right? Are gonna be really different... The way they use their $100 million will be very different than the way, I'd say $100 million, it could be more, but I suspect that's probably what they'll have. Fortunately, our formula is very clear. So how they use the money in Rhode Island is gonna be vastly different than we expect in Alaska or my town. And so we just have to, we know we have to give that flexibility. At the same time, there are a set of requirements in the statute we've got. And we expect states to meet those requirements. If they submit plans that don't meet those requirements. We won't be approving.

 Let's just talk as well about the issue of the match right now. Is it 20 or 25%? 

 Twenty-five. And I think you've said that that's a floor, not a ceiling. Could you elaborate on that, Alan? 

 Well, you may have heard me speculate on this question, I should say, but it is an interesting thing. And in the statute, the statute talks about the match requirement. And it's a 25% match requirement for projects funded, again, by our state grant program. And a lot... There's been a... We noticed that we've gotten a lot of comments about when we might leave the statute. So there is a lot of commentary about that. But we also got a lot of comments about, and have gotten input on the fact that in some cases 25% match might not be the right number maybe it shouldn't be more. Maybe state should seek a high... That 's what states really should be thinking about 'cause, well, I say the backdrop for this is we are keenly focused on the fact that $42 billion doesn't go as far as it used to.

 No, I shouldn't say. That we wanna be good stewards of this money, but also we are really clear-eyed about that fact that the money we've been given, it's gonna be hard to do that 100% mission. And we wanna get every American the best broadband that we can. So to do that, we have to use this money wisely. And we have to make it go as far as we can. And we know that in some places, a provider might be willing to do a build-out with less than a... With more than 25% match. They might be willing to pay half, if they could get half the cost of the project covered by the government, they're more than willing to do the other half of the project, which makes sense, there's projects that are not happening now that are very close to economically viable.

 It's almost like a little reverse auction thinking here.

 Well, I'd say the reverse auction, which the FCC did...

 In the rural digital Opportunity Fund, right? That has been much criticized.

 It has been much criticized. But one of the interesting takeaways from this as just an observer of that is it gave us some interesting data about what providers that we said they would be willing to do. And I don't know the exact number, but I've read that it's somewhere north of 50% match on average in that part of program in that FCC program. So that tells you that there are a lot of folks out there who if you just gave them a little bit more support, they would be willing to do that next deployment. We know there's gonna be a broad range. So I think you can see how some states have approached this in other settings where they really focused on...

 The cost to the state of getting the project filled out, and I think that's gonna be an important metric. So anyway, so that's where...

 Well, this is a fascinating topic, and I think it's a good one just to linger on for one more moment, which is to say a state could say, "We're gonna set a threshold of 50% match." Correct? The state would be permitted to do that.

 The states are gonna submit plans. I don't know that we're gonna... That's certainly not something where... The Statute is very clear, 25% matches...

 Minimum, is what's in there, but the question of whether different states would approach that in different ways or how to the climbing scales would for work, that's gonna be something you could imagine states could do for sure.

 So that will be interesting to see what plans we get from states.

 And how are you thinking of trading state plans on the separate question of their reliance on the map, the FCC map. So for instance could a state say, "Well, we're gonna go by our map as supposed to the FCC map." Is that gonna be allowed or not? 

 I don't know the answer to that question. I think that may be something that we... Well I just... I actually just don't even know what the... It strikes me that the statute is... I know the statute's clear about allocation, I actually don't know the answer about whether... My impression, I should say from the statutes is that, states will also need to look to the FCC maps for authoritative information about where unserved locations are. Anyway, beyond that I think we've been... This is an area where we've been accepting comment, and interested in... Yeah.

 Well, this builds on a question that Sarah Sterling the Deputy Editor at Broadband Money asked, which is that...

 And you know Sarah, she wrote about you once. She was moved over to Google and of course, at National Journal...

 So Sarah is talking about how if broadband.money were realizing that many community members are worrying about endless legal challenges by incumbents endlessly challenging grant applicants from smaller, less funded competitors. And are there any mechanisms that you can see or can imagine in... Within the constraints of a high IIJA that would limit those challenges? 

 That's an interesting question. I know that it's been raised. It's something that the team is thinking about. I guess I would just say my hope is that will... That it will be very clear to everybody how valuable these programs are and to the state too. And that our hope is that there'll be a lot of participants here and a lot folks who can participate, and it would be a real shame if litigation got in the way. We're of course, gonna do everything we can to make sure that... Again, that's why you hear me talking about the statutes so much. We've been given clear guidance by Congress, we believe we're gonna be putting out a program that fits in that... That follows that guidance, that framework really closely. And I think the law is pretty clear.

Breakfast for Lunch: Fireside Chat with Alan Davidson

Broadband.io is honored to host Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX, as Mountain Connect 2024’s Keynote Speaker.

Now in its 10th year, Mountain Connect has grown into the largest independent gathering of broadband professionals in the United States. Other can’t miss sessions include $42.5B BEAD Director Evan Feinman, leading state broadband directors, and many more.Join <a href="https://broadband.io/">Broadband.io</a> at Mountain Connect 2024 to hear from a pioneering business leader, plans to land Americans on the moon, what it’s like running a rocket business, and upcoming plans for Starlink.Attendance is limited, <a href="https://mountainconnect.org/registration/">register for Mountain Connect today</a> to secure your spot.

<h2>About Our Guest</h2>An engineer by training with a leadership career starting in America’s automotive industry, Gwynne Shotwell has overseen SpaceX’s meteoric rise into a spacefaring juggernaut. SpaceX manufactures, launches and lands the world’s first and only reusable orbital rockets, carries astronauts safely to the International Space Station, and is deploying Starlink, the world’s most advanced satellite system which is providing high-speed, low-latency internet from space to those who need it all around the world.Now serving over 3 million active customers worldwide with constant improvements to speed and capacity, Starlink’s game-changing speeds from low Earth orbit makes it a stellar complement to fiber-extensive infrastructure fortifying the global internet.

 Are you good? Hey we have a very, very, very special guest today, y'all. But first, a quick shout out to everybody that's working to connect families to broadband, and I think that's a whole lot of y'all in the room. So can we give a round of applause to folks working on broadband? 

 And we're joined by 30 of our nation's state broadband directors that are guiding their states to the vision of Access for All. And they have one of the largest and least thanked jobs in all of broadband. So can we please give them a round of applause too? 

 And folks, please join me in welcoming our very, very special guest, SpaceX, COO in President Gwynne Shotwell.

 And y'all, we're honored to get time with Gwynne today. But first she brought something out of this world to show y'all.

 That's some pretty wild and world-changing stuff that you and your SpaceX crew have accomplished, Gwynne. But can you tell us first, what is SpaceX? Why was it founded, and what makes it unique? 

 Yeah, I appreciate the question. First of all, let me ask, before the video, is anyone in the audience not familiar with SpaceX? I live in a very small world. The space community is very small. But is there anyone in the audience who is unfamiliar with SpaceX? Wow, that's awesome. It's unusual. I do a lot of speeches and usually about a third of the hands are like, I don't know what a SpaceX is. Yeah. So my boss, Elon Musk, founded this company in 2002, with a singular purpose. And that was to build transportation capability, rockets and spaceships that would allow people to live on other planets. And it sounded insane. In 2002, when I interviewed for the job, and it doesn't sound insane to me anymore. We are on the right path. We are figuring out the technologies necessary to take people to the Moon and onto Mars. Who'd like to go to the Moon? It's like a weekend. It's just a weekend trip.

 And then there's Mars, which is a longer trip. Who wants to go to Mars. Left? Oh, kind of. That's a long trip. That's like a six month submarine voyage. I really wanna go to the Moon actually. I hope when folks get to go regularly, I hope that's less than 10 years from now and I'll be 70. Hopefully I'll be a fit 70 and I wanna go to the Moon.

 Yeah. We're Moon nights. We realized that in the green room. Yeah. So Elon founded the company to make human life multi-planetary. And we've been lucky. We've expended a lot of energy. We've tried really hard. We've fought foes, we've taken hills and we've failed too. And it's all led us to the place where I definitely see that humans will be able to go live on the Moon and Mars.

 That's beautiful, Gwynne. You, I think underestimate your role in all of that. So I would like to talk through something real fast. Like you helm a company that's launched and landed hundreds of reusable rockets. You are launching satellites all the time. You've built a multimillion subscriber internet service provider. You're working with NASA to put Americans back on the Moon, and you're recognized all over the industry. Your Time Magazine, one of their 100 most influential people, and I'm paraphrasing you here, but you once gave the career advice that one should aim high and think big in their career. And I have to ask you, Gwynne, like when the hell are you gonna get around to following your career advice? 

 That's great. SpaceX is fantastic and great because of the people that work there. We have nearly 15,000 employees and they're the ones that are building the rockets and they're launching the rockets. I'm really there at launches to speak to the press in case we have a failure. They don't need me to launch actually. It's pretty great. Another thing I think is in your career you should figure out how to obsolete yourself in your role. That's another, I think, important feature. Just like we obsolete our technology to make the next vehicle system better.

 That's good. Gwynne, last year was a pretty huge year for SpaceX. Y'all launched nearly 100 rockets carrying things like astronauts to the space station, and mission critical national security payloads for the Pentagon. And of course Starlink satellites is nearly 100 rocket launches. Is that normal for a rocket company or what's going on there? 

 Hopefully it will become more normal. I really wanna see people thriving on Earth, on the Moon and Mars. And it's gonna take more than SpaceX launching hundreds of times a year. It's gonna take a lot to do that. But traditionally, I think a big year for a rocket company is a dozen, maybe two dozen launches a year. And the key for us is, we got to start our technology pathway. We got to make all the decisions early on. We did not develop the Falcon system of launch vehicles under a government contract. So we were working to our requirements, our methods, our testing, our approaches. And that clean sheet of paper approach was incredibly valuable to us. We got to think about all parts of the development program and all parts of how we were gonna operate this vehicle.

 If you don't design a vehicle that's operable often, then you get stuck with a rocket that you can only launch once. It goes once and then it dumps itself in the ocean. And we figured a way to not have it be like that. But let's think about the aircraft industry, airline industry. If airplanes were only used once, and you toss the aircraft after that one trip, life would be very different. We probably wouldn't be here chatting today. I don't think we'd know what broadband internet would be. The world would be so different. And we really wanted to take an industry, like the rocket industry and try to make it more like the aircraft industry. So our rockets, currently, the Falcon family of launch vehicles. That was the first part of the video. That was the Falcon and Falcon Heavy. The first stage, the first part of that rocket is reusable. It carries the second stage, drops it off, not quite orbital in a suborbital, and then the second stage lights and goes on to get to orbit. First stage fires a number of times depending on what the mission is and comes back and lands either on land or on a ship. You got to see it land actually. I think there was both a land landing and a ship landing.

 And you are teaming up with NASA to put Americans back on the Moon soon. And so this is a three part question.

 I'm 60, so give me one at a time 'cause I'll forget.

 Okay. Part one is how freaking cool is that? 

 Super cool. We did not anticipate winning that deal and we were very excited when we did.

 Yeah. And part two is, do you have room for one more? 

 I thought we talked about. When the Moon and Knights go, you get to go.

 And part three is, critical to that mission is the development of Starship.

 Which is the largest rocket ever launched. And you recently not only launched, but you landed it. Can you tell us more about Starship? 

 Sure. So as I talked about you obsolete yourself from your job, we obsolete our products as well, 'cause if you don't obsolete your product, someone else is gonna find a way to do that. So as I mentioned, the Falcon family, the first stage is reusable. Starship, our next generation of rockets or the system that's gonna obsolete Falcon, both stages, the entire system will fly, get its payload to orbit, and come back and not just land on land or on a ship out in the middle of the ocean, but it will land back on the pad. So when you land in aircraft, you land on a runway and you taxi to the gate, people get on, people get off, cargo goes on, cargo goes off, and then it goes back to the runway. What we wanna do is kind of eliminate, we're gonna be more efficient than the aircraft industry, right? 

 We're gonna land directly on the runway. We're gonna land on the runway. People are gonna get off on the runway and we're gonna go back, go back and launch from the runway. We've had four flights. And by the way, this one is really hard. We know rockets. We've had a lot of successes. We've had some failures too, by the way 'cause rockets are hard. But the key element of the Starship program is both that it is rapidly reusable, which is why we bring it back to the launchpad and highly producible. It takes us start to finish to build a Falcon probably like 18 months.

 Long lead items, machine the engine components, put the engine together, jam them on the back end of those tanks, which are like beer cans. Starship, we wanna fly hundreds of times a year, if not thousands of times a year. If we have a settlement on Mars and you've got a million people there, you're gonna have to have a lot of transportation back and forth.

 Yeah. So it needs to be very producible as well.

 Visuals might help here. I think we have a clip of Starship.

 So crazy. That's so cool. I'm such an idiot. I love our videos.

 Yeah, you all do a pretty decent job at those. This reusability thing, how important is it to SpaceX and how does it enable Starlink? 

 So, reusability is key from a number of factors. Let's walk through them. First of all, if you want to send people to other planets, you want to be able to bring them back in case they don't like it. Maybe you can send your neighbor, you're not a big fan. Maybe the first trip is one way and you send people you don't like. But the next trip has to be two way, right? So you have to be able to land, relight, come back. Maybe Mars isn't for everybody. Pretty sure the moon is for everybody, but maybe Mars isn't for everybody. You got to be able to come home.

 So, reusability, right? You got to be able to, no one way tickets. You want your return ticket. So that's the first. That's the way you settle other planets. Settle any place, basically. Just make sure you've got return tickets. Second of all, the aerospace industry, at least the launch business, is kind of a crappy business. It's really hard to make money in this business. Because you're building an airplane, let's call it a space plane, and you throw it out after one mission.

 That's not a very good, positive economic situation. And so reusability has really dramatically decreased our costs. Took us a lot of time and a lot of money to get to a reusable launch vehicle. But once we're there, we can use that stage over and over, and we save a bunch of money. And so our launch business is actually quite profitable now. So return ticket, necessary, check.

 Profitability, got to be profitable because we take all our money and reinvest it in our products to make them better, make them more reliable. Speaking of reliability, we think when you reuse a stage or when you use that system over again, you've already tested it. You've flown it. You get to bring it back and examine it. Are you getting cracks in the hull? You learn from it. And so you can make your system better, more reliable, a more robust design to ultimately carry people further and further. So reusability, ticket, return ticket, higher reliability, better economics, and from an environmental perspective, we're not just dumping it in the ocean, which is terrible, like travesty. So reusability is key.

 Key. And you talked about Starlink, right? We're flying Starlinks right now between 20 and 30 per launch about twice a week. Starship will be able to put a few hundred satellites at a time on that vehicle, and it will make it, and because both stages are reusable, it'll be cheaper to fly that giant Starship vehicle than my Falcon vehicle because I do throw the second stage away on Falcon. And it's, like a $10, $12 million throwaway.

 So on a much more serious note, Gwynne, do you all ever make, rocket blast-off sounds when they're the lift-offs? Like? 

 In all seriousness. Or you just play the video, and then you get it.

 Or, like, space laser sounds like pew, pew. You don't do any of that? 

 I don't do that, Jase. You can do that, though.

 We do the five, four, three. We do the countdown, though. We're kind of nerds that way.

 Okay, but, speaking of space lasers and measuring contest latency, as you all know in the broadband industry, is the Achilles' heel of most non-fiber technologies. And laser link between satellites is just one of many latency-reducing innovations that you all have pioneered at SpaceX into Starlink. And curious, Gwynne, what else and how else does Starlink, as a low-Earth orbit system, differ from what we historically normally think of as, like, internet satellite? 

 Yeah, satellite internet prior to the Starlink system and there are others coming as well, was done at geostationary orbit, which is about 35,000 kilometers away from Earth. Starlink is about 500, roughly 500 kilometers away from Earth. So the latency, and it's a ping up and back, right? So it's roughly seven and a half times further to geo and then back. So you're like, it's like 15x.

 Purely physics, if you take away any of the losses, you know that signal travels at the speed of light. And to go from where we are at 500 kilometers up and back is about three milliseconds, 3.3 milliseconds. And going to geo, it's much more than that.

 So now with the laser links and everything in place, are there situations in which you could potentially be faster than fiber from one part of the world to another? 

 It really depends on your networking and how many times you need to go through a gateway or a ground station, 'cause there's losses there, in fact. And what we've been able to do is make the losses between satellite to satellite very low, very low. In fact, we're tracking about 20 millisecond latency right now. We'll never get to the 3.3. So you take your signal from your dish out in the middle of some rural place in the US. You go up to the satellite. It may travel around to another satellite and then come down into our gateway over to a POP. Yeah, and so it's not just the speed of light traveling in a fiber or traveling in space, but depends on how you're gonna land it. And we've been very efficient with the space lasers and we can take a signal from here and get it to Riyadh incredibly quickly with maybe one ground, well, we're not licensed in Saudi yet, we will be soon, but basically with one ground landing.

 We also started putting our gateways on or near the roofs of POPs, so you actually eliminate that bit of latency as well.

 Wonderful. Gwynne at Ready, we have the honor to work with 30 state broadband offices and they're in aggregate about to put around 25 billion bucks into broadband. And we build tech to try to help them solve as many of the problems that stand in their way as possible and we work with them to think of their access for all mandate as a math problem. And it's true that fiber can be very expensive and almost impossible to deploy in some places. And you're widely regarded, Gwynne, as a master of cost structure innovation. And I'm just curious, can we talk a bit about what Starlink might be able to do to help these directors with their access for all versus fiber for some math problem that they face? 

 So Starlink, so think about a constellation of satellites with complete global coverage. And that satellite doesn't care if I'm landing a beam or landing a signal in the middle of Manhattan or whether it's landing in rural Texas, which is where I live. So what's brilliant about this constellation concept is that it is very complementary with fiber. Like currently the beam projection on the ground is about 22 kilometers. We'll keep shrinking that. And you could put a couple hundred users on a beam currently. Every generation we do makes it beam smaller, more people per beam. If you put a 22 kilometer beam down in the middle of Manhattan, you get a couple hundred users, but there's 10 million people in Manhattan. So Starlink can serve people in cities, but fiber is much better suited to highly populated areas. Now it takes, I know it depends on where you are and even what country frankly, but fiber can be 10 to 30,000 per mile, 10,000 to $30,000 per mile. I can bridge that gap with one Starlink kit, which is 500 bucks and service depending, 50 to $100 a month service. So what we really wanna make sure folks understand is yeah, we can serve cities, but we can't serve everybody in cities, right? But we can serve everybody in rural US and semi-rural populations.

 Yeah. And speaking to this, Gwynne, America has sunk over the years billions of dollars into trying to solve the digital divide and the programs like the BTOPS and the CAFs and the RDOFs and the SLRFs and the whatnots, but B, the program that these directors are overseeing is larger than all of those prior programs combined. Is SpaceX able to participate in a program like B? 

 So we're technically capable of serving the need. We can do 100 up, or excuse me, 100 down, 20 up with the latency that's required. There are some structural elements of the B program that we're working with commerce to get through that would make it work really well. So let me explain just a couple of those. If B invests a billion dollars in fiber, if the government pays for that, I could see why the government would say, well, I own that fiber. I want you to manage it. I want you to collect customers, and I want you to make money from that. But if you go away, I wanna be able to take that fiber over and get someone else to run that business 'cause I, the government, paid for that fiber. I've put over $10 billion into Starlink. The government hasn't paid for that. So I've deployed a network. And so for me to participate in B, I don't want B to say, well, if something happens, I get your network, 'cause they didn't pay the 10 billion for that network. So it's things like that.

 But by the way, commerce is very interested in SpaceX participating in this program. In fact, I think it's the only way to get to those super high cost areas. I don't think the math works without Starlink or basically a Leo telecom provider. It's just too expensive.

 Shifting gears for a moment, Gwynne, can you honestly think of a better suited name for somebody that leads a rocket company than Shotwell? 

 Yeah, that's my husband. I married him because he had that name, actually. Don't tell him.

 Okay, I hope he's not tuned in on this. Maybe like Stacey Space or like Rhonda Rocketman, but like Gwynne Shotwell would be right up there as one of the top sort of.

 Yeah, so Erica and Candice from your team recently hosted a group of us out in your headquarters in Hawthorne. And a number of us were blown away and I walked away personally thinking, thank God that you're doing what you're doing for humans, but also that you're doing it specifically here in America. Starlink is a global internet service provider and SpaceX is working to make humankind multi-planetary, but you're building the future right here in America. And that means a lot to a lot of us. And so I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about what America means to SpaceX and potentially vice versa.

 So we are an international company. We serve customers across the globe, both with Starlink and on the launch side as well. But this company was founded in the US in our employee base. We have about 15,000 employees. Most are either US citizens or US green card holders. Not all, we are allowed to hire some international talent, which is great, but State Department, we have to work pretty closely with the State Department to make that work. But we're an American company on American soil, developing, building rockets, spaceships, user terminals, gateways in the US Really proud of that. In fact, when we flew, I don't want to take everybody back to 2020 'cause it was a really horrible time for us, but.

 Maybe we forgot, right? We have a short term memory. Yeah, but in the middle, like the very beginning of COVID in May of 2020, we flew the first astronauts, we flew our first astronauts to the International Space Station and back. And that was the first time that the US had flown astronauts with a US rocket on US soil since 2011 in Atlantis's last flight. So we're proud patriots actually. And I'm just thrilled that we can leverage that technology and it's relevant across the globe as well. But we're starting here at home.

 Thanks for doing what you do. And the SpaceX crew is pretty awesome. Can we fast forward to the future for a few minutes? At Ready.net, we help build technologies that help utility providers connect more families to better services at lower cost. And we're working towards a future in which we've helped those providers and their stakeholders connect tens of millions of families to better broadband and energy and water. What is your vision for the future of SpaceX and Starlink in a few decades? 

 So there is no question that as a team of telecom providers, we can connect everybody on the planet that wants to be connected. Starlink is a big part of that. But we won't do it alone, right? We need fiber, fixed wireless, microwave. We can all play in this role or in this space. But in five years, there should be no one that is not connected to the internet, that wants to be. Some people don't wanna be. But there should be no one on planet Earth that wants to be connected that isn't connected. And that is doable in five years. We can do it sooner than that too, actually. So that's on the connectivity side. Then let's talk about 10 years from now, there should be the beginnings of a settlement on Mars. Moon, we'll be there by then. We'll be on the moon. There'll be hopefully a permanent we. For weekend.

 I have a ranch. I gotta get home and take care of my cows.

 I have some moon ranch art though, actually.

 We need to get into the space banjo collection too the music.

Broadband.io Fireside Chat with SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell

Get the latest updates, along with ways that states, communities, and providers should think about the upcoming programs, including public / private partnerships to make the most of our historic public investment at Mountain Connect 2022.

We’re excited to welcome Alan Davidson, NTIA Administrator, as <a href="https://mountainconnect.org/">Mountain Connect</a> 2022’s Keynote Presenter.&nbsp;The Mountain Connect 2022 conference takes place near the largest single-day event in the history of the broadband industry. Soon, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will release its Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for programs totaling nearly $50 billion of new broadband grants aimed at ending America’s digital canyon once and for all.NTIA’s programs will unleash more broadband funding over the next few years than all prior U.S. broadband funding programs combined. In the right hands, such resources could kick off nothing short of a new chapter in American dynamism. NTIA’s historic announcement is the “starting gun” for states, local governments, and network builders.&nbsp;Join Alan in a lively discussion with Broadband Breakfast’s <a href="https://discuss.broadband.money/u/4c987ac7?show_back_link=true">Drew Clark</a>. Hear Alan's vision for success in the upcoming programs, as well as how the NTIA will work with states and local governments to bring ubiquitous, affordable 21st century access to all corners of America.&nbsp; Get the latest updates, along with ways that states, communities, and providers should think about the upcoming programs, including public / private partnerships to make the most of our historic public investment.

NTIA's Alan Davidson's Keynote Address @ Mountain Connect 2022

More than 22 million households rely on the Affordable Connectivity Plan access broadband at their home. If Congress decides not to provide additional funding, enrollments for the ACP will close on February 8, 2024, and funding for the program will run out in April of 2024.

Gigi is the first Executive Director of the <a href="https://americanpublicbroadband.org/">American Association for Public Broadband</a> (AAPB).&nbsp; She is also a Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband &amp; Society. Prior to joining AAPB, she served as an attorney at the FCC and founded Public Knowledge. Phil has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications sector and during that time has seen over $100 million in funding awarded to his clients. He has participated in litigation and policy resolution at both the state and federal level, including in front of the FCC. He has experience working with RDOF, BEAD, NTIA's Middle Mile, USDA's ReConnect, Community Connect, Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan, and ARPA's SLFRF and CPF programs. Steve has worn many hats over the course of his career: consultant, professor, journalist, editor, and more. Steve is the editor-at-large of Broadband Communities Magazine, a role that he has held since 2004. Our co-host, Drew, has been early proponent of better broadband, better lives, and founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. He presides over Broadband Breakfast, which advocates for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage.

<h2>Details</h2>More than 22 million households rely on the Affordable Connectivity Plan access broadband at their home. If Congress decides not to provide additional funding, enrollments for the ACP will close on February 8, 2024, and funding for the program will run out in April of 2024.Join the broadband community on Wednesday, January 24, for a panel with Gigi Sohn, Phil Macres, Steve Ross, Drew Clark and Scott Woods to discuss the future of the program, and what this means for the industry and the country.&nbsp;

 Good afternoon. Welcome to the Broadband Community and a discussion: Time is Running Out For the Affordable Connectivity Program. I'm Drew Clark, joined here by...

 And we have three experts to talk about the affordable connectivity program, the issue that it's facing right now and what we do about it. Please welcome Gigi Sohn, Steve Ross and Phil Macres. Who should we let go first? 

 I think while people are joining us just at the bottom of the hour here on the East Coast, 3:30 time here in Washington, D. C., aka the center of the universe, for those of you who are not aware, [chuckle] there's a lot of activity, a lot of... A lot going on. You should have been with us in the pre-meeting before we came on, a lively discussion.

 But how about we have the participants do a brief introduction of themselves really quickly, folks are joining, and then we can jump right into how can we save ACP or if we can save ACP.

 So Gigi, how about we kick it off with you.

 Sure. Hi everybody. I'm Gigi Sohn. I'm here in my capacity as the Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband. And also as somebody who convenes a group called The Affordable Broadband Campaign, which not only wants to see the ACP extended, but also would like to find it a permanent home in the Universal Service Fund. I don't know if we'll get to that today.

 But the ACP is a great program, but going hat in hand to Congress every year asking for seven or more billion dollars is just not... As we've seen over the last year and not really a way to make this program permanent and sustainable and something that people can rely on.

 That's great. Gigi, would you mind just explaining the stakes, why is this program so vital? And obviously our audience knows a lot about this, but just underscore for us like what would happen if this is in fact cut off? 

 Well, a lot of things will happen. And I will say, and I'm not overstating this chaos, will ensue. First of all, 22.8 million, so nearly 23 million households, it's about 50 million people, will lose the $30 a month subsidy.

 And for most people, that means either they will no longer have broadband, period. Or they will return to a state of what I call internet insecurity, some people call it subscription vulnerability, where some months when they can afford it, they have internet and other months when they can't, they have medical bills to pay or need to buy more food, they don't have it. So they don't have a continuous connection. And that in and of itself is extraordinarily disruptive.

 Also, to the extent that the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, the BEAD Program that provides money for deployment is more attractive to ISPs considering building in rural areas. The ACP is an integral part of that. The ACP incentivizes carriers who would never dream of going to rural areas, to go into rural areas and build for the first time.

 The third thing, and I don't think people have thought about this, the FCC gave a whole bunch of grants to what we call digital navigators, people whose whole job it is to get low-income communities, low-income people, households, online.

 Well, that money will go away, they will cease to have jobs. So there will be a significant thousands of numbers of folks who will no longer have jobs once the ACP goes away.

 So a lot of bad things will happen once the ACP goes away, but first and foremost, it will be those 23 million households who will no longer have the subsidy to stay online continuously.

 All right, thank you. Let's bring in Steve Ross. So Steve, you are the editor of Broadband Communities magazine, and I know you produced an editorial opinion piece just a week ago, highlighting that only large carriers were advocating Congress to extend the ACP program, but you are calling for more stakeholder engagement on this issue.

 So what are we getting right and what are we getting wrong? And set the stage for our audience of who you are and what you do with Broadband magazine.

 Okay. Well, I'm founding editor and I've been in slow decline into retirement since 2008-2009, now I'm editor-at-large, some say just large editor. And the magazine a business magazine, not really a technology magazine, and I describe my role, and I've done the column since 19... Since 2004, when the magazine was founded. We started the column in early 2005.

 My job is mainly to keep my readers, who are overwhelmingly deployers of small systems, and also owners and managers of apartment buildings, basically, property complexes, try to keep them from making mistakes that could push them into bankruptcy or get them into a lot of financial trouble.

 And my big concern right now, and first of all, and we discussed this in the pre-session, the money goes not to the individuals who are getting the broadband, the money goes to the deployers.

 People who aren't in the financial community have no idea how much the financial community loves that, and how much the grant givers love that. That's some security. And the more you mess that up by making it, by providing disincentives for people to keep the broadband, the more trouble you get.

 The other thing is, it's not just people, it's the whole economy. We need resiliency, we need it for education, we need it for healthcare, particularly in rural areas. We need it. And we'll get back more money than we spend, we'll save more than we spend, by any stretch of the imagination.

 But what's been happening, three or four months ago I thought this was pretty much a slam dunk. I thought we were gonna get it. Now, over the last couple of months, the people I've been talking to, and who've been calling me panic, because they use my financial models, which by the way, are free on the magazine site.

 They've been calling me very, very nervous, and I said, "Well, have you talked to your congressperson? Have you talked to your state BEAD office?" The answer nine times out of 10 is no. [chuckle]

 I says, "Do you know them? I'll send you the... I'll send you the coordinates. I'll send you the right... I'll send you the emails. I'll send you... " You know? That I don't understand. This is important, and it's more important than most people, even many deployers think.

 Thank you for that. And then last and certainly not least, we have Phil Macres. Phil is a Washington, D. C. Regulatory attorney, been in the field industry for years. Phil, I want you to come on and explain to folks what you do.

 And then just highlight for us because the FCC issued this wind-down order very recently that have some dates here that folks should be aware of, and I think this is what is adding to here in Washington, D. C. The craziness of ACP, is that our providers are now actively notifying their subscribers that this benefit is no longer, and have to actually roll folks off in a few months.

 Can I just actually add something about Phil, because Phil was quite instrumental in the pushback to the letter of credit requirement, and we actually had a session here in the Broadband Community a few months back about that. I think Gigi was part of that too.

 And so that's a great example of a success story, right? And so now, are we looking at the opposite thing, are we looking at something that's kind of gotten out of control? Help us, alleviate our concerns, Phil if you can, but if not, tell us what we need to know to react? 

 Oh, absolutely. And thanks initially for inviting me and being part of this panel, I appreciate it. I'm with the Klein Law Group, my firm's here in DC. I just advise clients and I help them navigate through all the various programs, whether it be the FCC, NTIA, if it's BEAD Program, USDA and its Community Connect programs.

 And you know, the item of the day is ACP. And as Scott mentioned earlier, the FCC dropped this bomb shell order on January 11th, that was the wind-down order, and I was reading through it and I was like, "Holy smokes, we have until January 25th to send out notices to people... "

 "That we're gonna wind down." So I was just amazed by that, saying that's really, that's not much time. And look at this, we have to advise people and send these notices out, and we're gonna have to send three notices out.

 So they issued this notice, they issued this order on January 11th, and by January 25th, ACP providers must... That's the ISP, they have to send their initial notice to all their ACP subscribers that previews the possible end of the ACP.

 And the impact in the household broadband bills once the ACP benefit is no longer available, basically the $30 discount will no longer apply and you'll be paying your rate without the discount, the non-discounted rate.

 So they issued this order and the order has a whole bunch of components to it, the timing and content of the ACP provider notices, as I indicated before, that first notice has to go out by tomorrow, January 25th to all your ACP enrolled customers.

 The delivery of ACP provider notices, how you do it, subscriber opt-in, what that means, and how you do the follow on and what kind of services and how you provide them services undiscounted, you have to follow some notification requirements and obligations there.

 The enrollment freeze. So the enrollment freeze is as of February 7th. That's the last day for a ACP customer to potentially enroll in ACP. By midnight of February 7th.

 As of February 7th, 6 o'clock, new ACP providers, the FCC is gonna stop reviewing that, so you can no longer be an ACP provider at that point.

 The FCC also talked about advertising and notification upon subscription renewal and public awareness requirements, along with the claims process, and a key aspect of that claims process is as of February 1st, when that happens, which will be the snapshot date, they call that the snapshot date, you need to get your claims in by April 1st or the first month of the second... After the second month of the snapshot date.

 So for instance, the snapshot date is February 1st, you have to have your claims in by April 1st. And you can't snooze their lose, you gotta get these claims in, otherwise you may not get paid. And so the...

 Let's pause right here just for a second, 'cause I wanna frame this appropriately for those who are just joining it and may not be aware. So the current ACP authorization, the funds were forecasted to last until the spring, if not early summer of this year.

 There is a pending bipartisan bill that would re-authorize the ACP program in the tune of $7 billion that has yet to be acted on, but under the current program, these funds would extinguish or last into early summer.

 Because there has not been a reauthorization yet, the FCC has ordered all the ISP providers in anticipation that this money is gonna run out, to start winding down their program, and in fact, as Gigi told us, notifying 23 million households that this fund, this ACP program, essentially this benefit is gonna go away.

 And again, we also highlighted, and I think this is very important here in Washington, D. C., we'll talk about the political ramifications in just a second, but this is a subsidy, this is not a "entitlement" that goes to the individual or the household, this is actually paid to the provider that subsidizes or credits on a monthly service bill to the tune of $30 per qualifying, qualifying household.

 So I just wanna set the stage there, because all of ramifications and the impact of what you're talking about impacts both the provider, what the provider has to affirmatively do, but it also impacts the end user, the actual enrollees in ACP.

 And is that gonna hinder future, let's say best case scenario, ACP is re-authorized, is this gonna...

 But all this stuff has already gone out, right? 

 All this stuff is going on. Does this essentially seeps confusion and distrust into a system that's already rife with such? And we'll throw that to the panel, I know Phil you wanna go through some more dates, but let's get to that discussion about the impact of all of this and the role that politics plays, quite frankly. As we all know, this is a national election year that's kicking off here in 2024.

 Well, can I just also ask, how did things go so terribly wrong? What is your take and our panelists take on how things got from, "Oh yeah, Congress will do this," to this boom, January 11th kind of a statement by the chairwoman that here's the wind-down order. What are your thoughts on that? 

 I was with Steve, I thought, and I talked to Gigi about this when she on my podcast, Ready or Not, I'mma plug that just a little bit. But I thought, as all things Washington, D. C., it would go down to the last minute. Things don't happen until they absolutely have to happen.

 But as Steve pointed out, a Steve has pointed out, there's been a shift in tone and tenor, and it's been more politicized over the last few months. I'm not surprised by it, but I am shocked that we have not reached a resolution.

 And I'll open it up to the panel. In your opinion, why have we gotten to this point? Gigi? 

 Look, part of it is just general congressional dysfunction, right? We now have yet another continuing resolution that is now pushing off D-Day essentially, when the budgets need to pass, when the appropriation bills need to pass 'til march.

 So part of it is just Congress is not functioning the way it should be. Okay? Part of it is, I will say this with all the love in the world to my friends who are broadband providers, they are not stepping up to the plate, they have some reticence.

 This is not partisan really. There have been some folks, some Republicans in leadership who have said, "Well, we're really concerned about this program, and is there ways for any abuse? And is it helping people who would be online anyway?" And I'd like to address that in another point. I'm hearing an echo. So if Ben, maybe you can handle that, 'cause that is really annoying.

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