Ask Me Anything! with Brian Mitchell, Director of the Nevada State Broadband Office

Benjamin Kahn: And we are live. People are beginning to enter the stream now.

Drew Clark: Good afternoon everyone. It's exciting to be here on another Friday afternoon. It's Friday, April 19th, 2024. My name is Drew Clark. I'm editor and publisher of Broadband Breakfast. I am so excited to welcome our guest, Brian Mitchell. Brian is the director of the Office of Science, Innovation and Technology, OSIT. OSIT, I don't know how you pronounce, the OSIT office, but it is the state of Nevada's broadband office, and Brian oversees the planning, mapping and procurement of broadband infrastructure. Welcome, Brian. Thanks for being here.

Brian Mitchell: Hey, thanks so much for having me, Drew.

Drew: It is again, wonderful to be with you. It was nice to chat with you last week and get a little background about you, which of course, we posted in a link that you can get to from the page where this event is streaming. I hope people will take a look at that and get a little sense of the state and of view. And let's actually talk a little bit about the state of Nevada and about your background, Brian, because I know that Nevada is the driest state in the country. I know that because Utah, where I lived was the second driest state, but what is it like to live in Nevada year round? Does it feel like it's the driest state? 

Brian: You know, so I live in Las Vegas, and it certainly is dry. I've gotten completely out of the habit of ever checking the weather because there's no need to, every day is basically the same. And so there was... Recently, I had traveled somewhere and I realized when I was landing that I had forgotten to check the weather of the place I was going. And luckily, I wasn't in trouble but yeah, certainly for those of you who like mild winters and extremely hot summers, this is the place to be.

Drew: So, a word or two more about the OSIT office, and the role that it plays in the broadband infrastructure. You are the director of that office. You're the state broadband officer. What responsibilities does the office have in addition to implementing the broadband programs? 

Brian: Sure. And you can call it OSIT for short. Office of Science Innovation and Technology is a ridiculously long name. I'm not quite sure who came up with that, but our office is the state broadband office as you mentioned, and so we oversee all of the efforts in the state to build new broadband infrastructure to make sure our, not just our citizens are connected, but also our state government schools and libraries, health clinics and other government and community facilities are connected. What's a little odd is, is that in addition to being the broadband office, our OSIT is also the state STEM education, so Science Technology Engineering and Math office. So I also, in my spare time, oversee a number of STEM education programs for K-12 teachers in schools, workforce development, working with our community colleges, and then the state's graduate medical education grant program to grow more physicians and more doctors in the state. So there, we have a lot going on in addition to broadband.

Drew: And I recounted a little bit of this in the profile, but just for our listeners, how did you end up in this role, Brian, given your background and training? Just a couple of minutes on that.

Brian: Yeah, so Governor Lombardo, so this position, I'm directly appointed by the governor. And this position, this office is actually a sub-office within the governor's office. That's kind of how we're structured. And so there's a couple other sub-offices within the Governor's Office. There's the Governor's Office of Energy, Governor's Office of Economic Development Federal Assistance. Our state CIO is within the governor's office as well. And so we're directly appointed by the governor, and this is actually my fourth governor that I've worked for in the state. So somehow I've survived the last couple of transitions, whether that's good or bad, I'll let other people judge. But yeah, I've been around the state for a long time and have worked in a couple of different capacities, and here I am in this particular role at this time.

Drew: And let's say just another word or two about the state besides its dryness, right? Again, we chatted a little bit about this, but how would you characterize the, the state as a whole besides very, very sparse and remote? What are some other aspects of the state that kind of, you need to be constantly thinking about as the broadband director? 

Brian: Yeah. So I think everybody in the world has heard of Las Vegas and has probably come to Las Vegas and had a good time and then left. And so that's certainly a big part of our state. Gaming and entertainment, live entertainment is a big part of who we are. Hospitality is in our blood and in our genes. And so that is, so that... But that's, I think just one part of who we are. And in Reno, Reno is our other major metropolitan area, and about 70 or so percent of the population lives in Las Vegas and then another about 20 or so percent live in Reno. And so in a state of about three and a half million people, you've got almost all of them living just within two cities.

Brian: However, we're the seventh largest state by land area. And so that means there's a whole lot of area where there isn't a whole lot of people. Kind of the rest of the state, if you get outside of Vegas, a lot of people have never seen the rest of the state, and it's very beautiful, very natural. If you like outdoors, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, camping and so on, the state has a lot of outdoor recreation opportunities. And the folks who live in rural parts of the state are very, very much true Nevadans in the sense that they are, that they work the land and they work very hard, and are very much a part of the, kind of the culture of, the old western culture of the state.

Drew: Well, I understand you've got a presentation for us and wanna share a little bit about the tools. Say a minute about what it is you're gonna show us and, and tell us like how this factors into the state's broadband plans that you're developing, Brian.

Brian: Yeah. Maybe not a presentation, but one of the interesting things about Nevada and about, and I suspect this is the same everywhere, where there are folks who are on the wrong side of the digital divide, and you would know that, but they're maybe there for different reasons. And so one of the things that we've tried to do is use a lot of mapping tools to visualize where folks need extra help or where folks might be on the wrong side of the digital divide, and how we can begin to design and implement strategies and engage stakeholders, different stakeholders to move people forward or help people to be able to get on the right side of that digital divide, help them with digital equity. And so I wanna first give compliments to University of Purdue for helping us with the data, and then also to my GIS team who created the map. And I'll show the map to you, or I'll share my screen here.

Drew: Please, go for it.

Brian: All right. Are you seeing that? 

Drew: Yep, we are.

Brian: So we've divided the map into... All the different squares you see are census block groups. And in Nevada, we have 17 counties, and so the darker the shading represents a higher digital divide score, so the more likely somebody living in that particular area would be on the wrong side of the digital divide. And so if we go kind of into Las Vegas here, you'll notice that there's places over here that are a little bit darker and then some over here as well. And one thing that having visualized the data in a map this way, it really I think is helpful to me is as we're starting to think through on the digital equity side, how do you engage different communities and how do you engage different populations in meeting their digital equity needs, right? And so you might just say, okay, well, urban area, let's go do two or three different things in our toolkit and we'll call it good. But when you look at say this particular census block group, very high digital divide score, about 11%.

Drew: Can you just read that out just in case it's smaller for people? 

Brian: Yep.

Drew: And what does that digital divide score mean? What's the determinants that go into that score? 

Brian: Yeah, so the digital divide score is kind of a composite of all of these things that I'll read to you below, kind of the different measures that we took. So these are... A lot of things come from US census data and other sources. So about 10% of the population is our senior citizens over 65. The average upload and download speeds of about 200/15. About 17% of the population is disabled, a internet to income ratio of 45:1. So about 44% of the people who live in this area do not have a high school diploma. 13% don't have a computer, 25% don't have access to the internet, and it's about a 42% poverty rate. Then you come to the kind of over here, to the other side of town and just in one of these areas and suddenly you find again a higher digital divide score, but for very different reasons, right? 

Brian: So the population here is almost Three fourths of the population is over 65. So very much kind of your typical like snowbird kind of community or people who move, who retire in a warmer area. About the same upload and download speeds, but a much higher disability rate about 30%. Just about... But the internet to income ratio instead of being 45:1 is 2:1. The less than high school degrees, less than 2%. About 10%, 11% don't have a computer, 10% don't have access to the internet and the poverty rate is less than 8%. So when you think through the types of the interventions and the strategies to help folks get online and to adopt, to access the internet, what kind of digital skills they may have or not have and so on.

Brian: And then what they would, their primary uses for the internet. What's the use case, right? What problem do they have that the internet could solve? They're very different on different sides of town. And so it's helpful when talking to stakeholder groups to think through for us to show something like this and to, I guess, visualize how our efforts and the types of projects that we fund through our state capacity grant program might be different even within a community like Las Vegas, it's very... You might say, oh, we're gonna do one thing way up here and another thing down here. But it's actually gonna be probably quite different. It'll depend on what side of town you're on.

Drew: No, thank you so much. That's exactly what I think is useful. And so what does this mean then? Obviously, having a high digital divide score doesn't necessarily mean the same thing, so you have to really drill into it. And once you get those scores and do that quick analysis like you did, what does that mean in terms of the, like how is this translated into the state's initial proposals, Brian? 

Brian: Yeah. So again this one here is I think going to be most relevant to us as we're examining what digital equity activities can we partner with or marry up to with our infrastructure activities. And so where this comes down to is, is really trying to have a data-driven approach to grant making and the different strategies that are deployed in different areas. The types of stakeholders we would make sure that are on our list to reach out to. We're certainly over here on this side of town, libraries and senior centers are going to be a huge part of our outreach efforts, right? Whereas over here where the population is much younger, there's gonna be a completely different set of nonprofit groups, civil rights groups and development. The folks over here don't need a whole lot of workforce development, but they may need... There may be opportunities in both places for telehealth, and these folks, maybe there's transportation issues on both sides. Over here you might have a car, but you shouldn't necessarily be driving it. But over here, there are folks who may [0:14:57.0] ____ to get to where they're going. So I think it'll help us to both target dollars to where they're needed the most, but then also target dollars to the right types of activities as opposed to a one size fits all kind of approach.

Drew: Yeah. So we have some great questions and I wanna dive in with a couple of them just now. And thanks, yeah, go ahead and close that down like you just done. Our understanding is, so setting some baseline, Nevada's been allocated $416 million as part of the BEAD program, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program. As we and others have reported, you had some concerns about classifying languages that had wireless licensed, fixed wireless or DSL as underserved. I wanna ask you about that just now. And again, our understanding is that you're getting close or you have received NTIA approval of Volume 2, but it hasn't been officially released yet by NIST. Could you just talk through that, Brian, what's going on? And that ties into a question that has been asked by Adam Bender here, which is, what kind of changes has the NTI asked you to make on your BEAD initial plans? 

Brian: Yeah. So, we're very excited. I don't wanna count our chickens before they hatch, but we've received a word that our plan is progressing our Volume 2 is progressing through that approval process, and we're now at the final stage where NIST will concur or not concur, right? But at that concurrence stage with NIST. And so we're very excited there. We are... The Volume 2, I think represented a lot of work from us and as well as a lot of work from our FPO and the FPOs and the other NTIA staff that have reviewed and provided us feedback on our...

Drew: And just to translate just a bit, the FPO is the Federal Program Officer, that's the NTIA person. And we should probably also step back and just, could you delineate what is the Volume 1 that has been kind of approved. Mostly are all states, and the Volume 2, which are the ones that are going a little slower, what's the difference between those just for our audience in general? 

Brian: Yeah. No. And thanks for having me clarify. So the BEAD program, NTIA has set forth certain rules and guidelines. And states, it's up to the states to tell NTIA how they will go about implementing the BEAD program. And to make things, I think a little bit easier for everybody, NTIA allowed states to basically divide the work into two different volumes. Volume 1 and Volume 2, and submit those and have those approved. And so in Volume 1, Volume 1 primarily discusses or talks about how the state will implement the, or how the state will determine which locations are eligible for BEAD funding. And that's the first step, right? Is getting everybody on the same page in terms of which locations are served, which are underserved and which are unserved.

Brian: And so the Volume 1 lays out how states, all states will do their challenge process. And that will end up determining, kind of coming up with a final list of BEAD eligible locations. Volume 2, on the other hand covers a number of different topics, but primarily what Volume 2 is about is how the state will approach the sub-grantee selection process. So once you have that list of eligible locations for BEAD, how will the state go about sub-granting those out to eligible entities or eligible sub-grantees? 

Drew: And your challenge process? What's the status of that? 

Brian: Yep. So our challenge process started in February, and it's continuing on. Within the challenge process, there are three kind of steps or three phases. So in the first step is a also named challenge process where, we, as the state put out the list of locations that we got from the FCC map. Said, here are all the locations that are out served, unserved and underserved as well as a listing of CAI, community anchor institutions or CAIs. And then there was a 30 day window wherein eligible challengers could challenge the map. So eligible challengers included internet service providers, local and tribal governments, and then nonprofits. So anyone that represented one of those three groups could challenge the map. And you can challenge the map in a couple of different ways.

Brian: You can say, Hey, this location shows up as served but we think it's underserved or unserved. Or you can say, Hey, this location shows up as underserved or unserved, but it's actually should be served, right? So you can go back and forth on that. And so then once the once that window for challenges ends, then the next phase in the process is a rebuttal phase where if for example, someone submits a challenge that said this is showing up as served, this location is served but we really think it's underserved or unserved then the provider that claims that location is served would have the opportunity to provide rebutting evidence that they actually do serve it. And the reverse is true for when you try to add a location to the map or take one away.

Drew: And is it correct, NTIA site says that your portal closed on March 28th, so that was like phase one closed, and now we're in the phase two, is that right? 

Brian: Yep. So where we did the challenge phase, now we're in the rebuttal phase, and ineligible folks, we'll have 30 days to do the rebuttals and then kind of, to submit a rebuttal. And then the final phase of that is OSIT in any state, all states work the same way. They take a look at the challenge evidence, and they look at the rebuttal evidence and then make a determination about, you know, a final determination.

Drew: And what have you learned in that? What did you learn in that first phase? What are you learning now in the rebuttal phase? We're kind of in the best bulk or, in the middle of this. Not everyone's completely started, not everyone's finished. So what lessons would you give to other states that you're finding in the challenge process, Brian? 

Brian: Yeah. I think, every state is in kind of a different place, at least what little I've gleaned from what's going on in other states. And I think, just starting with as accurate of a map as possible is certainly helpful. And so I think we were in a good place there. And then really just taking a very close look at and being very clear upfront in terms of the expectations for what would constitute a successful challenge. So we tried to be as, we published a very lengthy user guide that laid out very specifically what evidence would be required. And I think that was helpful, because a lot of the challenges we received did provide very solid evidence.

Brian: And the ones that didn't, we were able to cite to our guidance and say, here's what the guidance says. Can you give us a little bit more information? I think the only other piece of advice I'd offer is if you're a challenger, please get your challenges in early in states where you're doing, because that way the state has a chance to review it and then tell you while the challenge window is still open if you need to provide some additional information. So once that challenge window closes, there isn't an opportunity to provide more information. So getting your challenge in early will make you more successful.

Drew: So let me just go back to and see if we can close out Adam Bender's question about what kind of changes has NTI asked you to make in your initial proposal? Presumably Volume 2 is what Brian Adam is speaking about.

Brian: Yeah. Let me think. There were, I would say most of the changes were were small and kind of technical in nature, tweaking things. I think they also asked for a number of clarifications. So you mentioned, like we mentioned something in one place, but they wanted to make sure that was communicated in another place. So, to some extent there was some copying and pasting of certain sections or certain language from one place to another to make sure that we were very clearly communicating things. And as somebody who reads the initial proposal, they don't have to hunt through the document to find things. So I would say those were a lot of the changes.

Drew: I also want to get to the challenge that you have in Nevada with such a large federal land area again. From being in Utah, I know Nevada's ahead of Utah in terms of the federal lands, but boy, do they complain about federal lands in Utah. I don't know if there's that same constituency that complains about federal ownership of land in Nevada. What challenge does that create as well as the tribal lands? We haven't talked about that yet, and we certainly want to talk about the role of tribes in the Nevada broadband plan. So a two part question. Federal and tribal lands.

Brian: Sure. Yeah. So I'll, I can do the federal first. So Nevada has the largest percentage of federal land ownership of any state. We are about 86% of our land is owned by the federal government. And I have a very large map that has lots of different colors on it, and it's kind of fun to look at because I tell people anything that's a color is federally owned, so if it's white and there's only very, very small little portions that are white, are the privately owned land. And so it's definitely a challenge. But it's one I think that we can overcome with good relationships. And so we've started at the very beginning. BLM is the largest landowner, Bureau of Land management, in the state.

Brian: And we started very early letting them know kind of what was coming down the pike in terms of applications for permits. And one of the things that we've tried to do is, is get out in front of things and make sure that anything that we're submitting is right the first time so that they don't have to go through and correct a bunch of things, which just lengthens out the process. So we're trying, so we've got good relationships with our local BLM offices and have them on board to help us through the different permitting processes. On the tribal side, Nevada is home to 28 federally recognized tribes. And so it's a lot of folks to coordinate with.

Brian: Our office actually has a really long history of working with tribes in the state. Prior to the pandemic and prior to any of these large federal broadband bills, we started working with tribal governments and tribal nations back in 2016 and 2017, and working with universal service fund programs like E-Rate and the Rural Healthcare Program, as well as USDA programs like distance learning and telemedicine grant in trying to build fibre to tribal lands. So we built fibre prior to the pandemic to 12 tribal libraries, that were previously on lands that didn't have any fibre. And also worked on a number of DLT grants to bring telemedicine carts.

Drew: So sorry, what is the DLT? 

Brian: It's the distance learning and telemedicine grant.

Drew: Okay. One of the four aspects of the Universal Service Fund. Okay.

Brian: Well, that one's actually USDA grant, so it's not part of the service.

Drew: Oh, okay.

Brian: But that one funds telehealth or telemedicine equipment that you can use. And so we've partnered with some of the major hospital systems to, once they have an internet connection, to then have that telemedicine equipment that a tribe can use to speak with a specialist in Reno or Las Vegas.

Drew: So you mentioned tribal libraries. Could you just go into a little more detail there? Like what's the type of connectivity needed in tribes and obviously the tribes are part of this process is, there like a... I mean, again, just walk me through a little bit about the role of, OSIT and the broadband office in working with the tribe on a tribal broadband program that goes presumably to households as well as to middle mile facilities or anchor institutions like libraries.

Brian: Yep. So prior to the... Let me back up. So most of our tribes, we do have a few urban tribes, but most of our tribes are located in the most rural and remote parts of the state, extremely, extremely far away from other people. So they're very, very remote and really very, very poor internet connectivity. And that impacts tribal life in every way imaginable, and so the tribes have always been, among our most unserved communities. So prior to the pandemic, really the only funding that we had available were the universal service fund programs at our disposal. And so the easiest way to help a tribe get fibre to their tribal land was through in some cases setting up a tribal library and then getting that recognized by the state library and then using universal service funds to build fibre to the library.

Brian: And from there, I think a provider, you know, would be able to cost allocate in all the appropriate ways, funding to serve other aspects of the tribe, maybe tribal administration buildings and tribal businesses and so on. So then moving forward, now that there's the tribal broadband connectivity program and other broadband funding, we've worked with most of our tribes to apply for tribal broadband connectivity program grants and including working with a consortium of tribes that received about a $31 million grant from NTIA.

Drew: What other partners do you work with or do you need to work with? So obviously tribes are partners. Just talk a little bit about the range of relationships within the government and with others outside of the state government.

Brian: Yeah, we can accomplish everything, you know, with partners and so partners, starting at the top and working our way down, at least kind of the totem pole, right? Federal government partners, the funders, either FCC or NTIA, USDA funding, but also the landowners, so BLM, US Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, Department of Defense, and so on. So those are important partners of ours at the state government level. Our Department of Transportation is a huge partner of ours. We couldn't do what we're doing without them because given that so much of our land is federally owned, really the only way to get from point A to point B, is in an already disturbed right of way of a highway, a state highway or an interstate.

Brian: So a number of other, we've collaborated with a number of other state agencies. Local governments have been a huge partner of ours. And so have kinda local nonprofit groups. So these could be local libraries, school districts, or community centers and so on. And so one of the things that we did is, because we're a large state, but we only have 17 counties is we set up broadband action teams within each county. They consisted of local elected officials or county managers, city managers, other county staff, mayors, and then members from school districts or local health systems, nonprofits and so on. And they were extremely helpful during the planning process to help us understand both infrastructure as well as digital equity needs that communities had.

Brian: I wanna take a few minutes to go a little deeper into two other big topics. One's the middle mile and one's wireless. Let's start with the Middle mile. And we got a question from Steve Collin on this. Can you address the status of the large middle mile projects? And just as background, you received, your state received a $44 million award to support an $87 million project. Talk about that project. What components go into it and what's your role at OSIT in that project, Brian? 

Brian: Yeah. So we're extremely excited about, our, efforts to build middle mile in the state. And I'll back up and just provide a little context for folks.

Drew: Please. Yeah.

Brian: So when we started doing our initial needs assessment especially in relation to BEAD. One of the things that we found is that in areas where there were unserved, lots of clusters of unserved households, you know those parts of the state were very fibre poor. So there wasn't a lot of fibre infrastructure. And we interviewed more than a dozen rural broadband internet service providers. And found that the biggest barrier that they had to serving communities with more affordable or faster internet or, exploring other markets that were completely unserved was the lack of affordable upstream bandwidth. So in some cases it just didn't exist, and in other places it was unaffordable. It's kind of like buying you know, if you're a local grocery store and the cost of an apple from your wholesaler is 20 bucks, you can't stay in business, right? 

Brian: So that idea of the need to have affordable, reliable, redundant middle mile networks in the state is kind of the foundation of phases one and two of the high speed Nevada initiative which is our kind of global initiative. So in phases one and two we are building close to 2000 to 3000 mile, middle mile network throughout the state. And we're using multiple different funding sources for that.

Drew: Where does it go geographically roughly? 

Brian: All over actually. So you know this network will cover I think every county of the state. And so geographically, we wanna make sure that in preparation for BEAD, that we have... There is affordable and redundant, access to upstream bandwidth for BEAD providers. Again, I think we won't get bids for BEAD if there isn't an opportunity for these you know, for companies to be able to plug into a network that way. So and certainly you don't wanna build fibre in a rural community and then have it hook up to a middle mile network that doesn't have the capacity to support high speeds. So, we're plowing ahead on this, on the middle mile network and you know making really good progress and look forward to sharing more in the near future.

Drew: So just to close out on the middle mile, who's got the contract? Which agency of the state, is that OSIT, is that someone else? 

Brian: It's OSIT. Yep.

Drew: Okay. And who are the big players in addition to, 'cause you have a rather sizable team there at OSIT, correct Brian? 

Brian: So I've got a number of really, good team members. But, I'm the only state employee that works at OSIT dedicated, wholly dedicated to broadband. But we've got a really great and large team of, contractors that helps us out in a number of different ways.

Drew: And so just again is the Department of Transportation, just identify. And I think this is helpful just to see how pervasive and important broadband is to so many entities.

Brian: Yeah, so OSIT is the overseer of the construction and the procurement of the network. And then but we have a number of state agency partners that we're working with, including our Department of Transportation and our Department of Information Technology. Our system of higher education has a, you know, and their research and education network are strong partners of ours. And so they'll be, they will be among the users of the new network once it gets built.

Drew: All right. And to our audience, if you've got another question on middle mile ask it in the chat so we can bring it back up. But I wanna move on to the wireless question. Okay. And again based on our read of the proposal you put forward, you had raised a number of concerns about DSL and licensed fixed wireless. Could you just tell us what those concerns were, how you expressed them, and what response have you gotten from NTIA? 

Brian: Sure. So we, I'll start with DSL. I think DSL was a, well, let me back up. NTIA provided a lot of great resources to states in the drafting and creating of their initial proposal, Volume 1 which was related again to that challenge process, right? Determining which locations are eligible for funding. And so with regard to DSL, DSL is one where NTIA made that as a basically preemptively offered for states to be able to designate DSL as an unserved or underserved technology. So I think that was a kinda a modification that I know a number of states included in their plans, including us.

Drew: When it came to wireless, I think we based on the conversations that we've had around the state, as well as conversations with companies, we went back and forth with NTIA about how can we most accurately provide information about which areas truly have the right, you know, truly are served or underserved. And that includes what capacity do networks have to deliver a level of service that is advertised to every user or every location within the area that is advertised. And so after some back and forth with NTIA, we came up with a solution that I think worked for everybody which is that locations that were only served on the map due to being served by a cellular 5G internet connection were designated as underserved on the map. And this was a conversation that we had with both with the NTIA, as well as with those providers. And we didn't get any challenges or any challenges to any of any locations that were exclusively served by the 5G home internet.

Drew: So when you say you didn't get any challenges, they are presumptively underserved, and so they stay underserved because they were not, the challenge was not...

Brian: Yes. Nobody, yep. Exactly.

Drew: Yeah. So, Ben Khan asked the question about about what role do you see wireless technology playing in efforts to achieve universal coverage? And I wanna add satellite to that too, okay? Because extremely remote areas, there's a temptation to like, okay, satellite. I think Brendan Carr has basically said this. Hey, we should have just doled out this money to satellite coverage, and obviously that's in my opinion a bit of a short-sighted position because A, those networks are going to clog up, and B, it's not getting fibre into the communities the way we need it. But I will let you answer the question about fibre and satellite and what role they need to play indeed.

Brian: Yeah. So what I would say is that we, again, fibre is a necessary element for the modern internet, right? Whether it's fibre to the home, but fibre is also necessary for wireless and for satellite as well. Starlink and other satellite providers will need fibre-fed base stations and wireless providers will need fibre-fed wireless towers in order to supply wireless service to their customers. So no matter what technology you use, ultimately it has to home back to fibre. And so that's why we're trying as much as we can to extend fibre as deeply as possible throughout our ecosystem so that it can facilitate whatever last-mile technology makes most sense for any given location.

Brian: And not every location is a good fit for fibre. There are going to be locations where wireless is a better option and where satellite may end up being an option. We don't know yet about satellite. That's designated by NTIA as an unreliable technology. And so if, depending on kinda how things play out, we'll have that conversation with NTIA when the time comes. But for right now, I mean, I think we're very open to all reliable technologies and looking forward to seeing what applications come in for the different project areas that we've designated.

Drew: Mike Faloon asks, what does success look like in Nevada once BEAD is fully deployed? 

Brian: So success for us is that every Nevadan, regardless of where they live, has access to a high-speed internet connection that's affordable, reliable, and scalable.

Drew: Scalable. Speak about that.

Brian: I think the analogy I oftentimes use is you don't wanna put in like a one-lane road when you're going to need a four-lane road in the future. And so the decisions that we make, we wanna make with an eye to the future. We wanna make long-term investments. And we wanna set the state up for success because it's unlikely that Congress is ever going to appropriate $65 billion for broadband again, at least in the near term. So...

Drew: Scott Woods asks, what are your biggest challenges? We've talked about a fair bit of challenges, but what is your biggest or the biggest? And what are you most excited about as you move forward with your state's plan? 

Brian: I don't know. Sometimes all of the challenges seem big, so it's probably just, you know, the next one coming down the pike or the next one up for us to tackle. I think it'd be hard to kinda pick out one versus another as being more hard. But certainly, I think we're just really looking forward to shovels in the ground and folks in, especially Nevada workers in vests and hardhats out doing the work. And I get questions all the time, whether it's from elected officials or from community members, when are you going to connect my house? And maybe that's kinda the biggest challenge is that this is just a really long process, right? It's been a long process to get to where we are, and we still have kind of a ways to go. And so telling people, well, it's soon but it's before we even get started and four years to build has been kinda tough to tell people. So I'm really looking forward to going to some groundbreakings and starting to see these networks go in.

Drew: And let's just talk a little, double click on this deadlines and timing. So we've got this 90-day period we're in right now, once that ends, presumably the end of May, what's the next step? Just walk us through what's the next 90 days after that? And how should people who wanna or are doing business in Nevada kinda react and respond? 

Brian: Yep. So first thing I'll say is, is that we will be very clear in our communications about next steps and timing. So things may be a little unclear right now, but as things clear up, we will provide information. So in terms of next steps, once the challenge process is concluded, and we have made a final determination for all of the locations and have a final location list, the next step is we send that list to NTIA, along with all of the information about every challenge. So all the information that was, all of the locations that were challenged, what the rebuttals were, what our adjudication was, all of that information gets fed to NTIA. And NTIA has set up an automated process where a lot of that can kinda get just fed into their system. And hopefully the process is smooth. And then NTIA basically checks our work. That could take, anywhere from 30 to 60 days.

Brian: So just because we've decided here's our final location list, NTIA is going to look over our shoulders and make sure that everything looks right. And so once that happens, then... And then assuming that NIST concurs with our initial proposal Volume 2, we would then move into starting with the next steps with the sub-grantee selection process. So the very rough timeline at this point is that that'll probably start sometime this summer.

Drew: What is it with NIST? Okay, where do these guys come from, right? It stands for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but what's their statutory role in this whole process? NTIA is responsible for the program.

Brian: Yep. So NIST is essentially the grant manager for NTIA. And there are probably people on the call, or there's certainly people elsewhere in the federal government who can explain this better than I can. But the way I think about it is that NTIA is a policymaking organization that doesn't have a statutory fiscal role. And so they need a partner organization that can, or a partner federal department or entity, agency that can essentially manage the money for them or receive and send it out. And so NIST is NTIA's partner in this on the grant making, on the grant and fiscal side.

Drew: We got a great question from Ernie Holtry here. He says, our industry has generally been lucky in that broadband infrastructure has for the most part been viewed as nonpartisan. Despite that there are fringe aspects of the issue that are there, he asks, are there any fringe aspects of the issue that you find have a propensity to get muddled in politics? And if so, how do you cut through the politics to get people moving in the right direction? 

Brian: Well, thank goodness, Ernie, that broadband isn't as political of an issue as others. Otherwise, I might not have survived four governors. But the...

Drew: In both parties, I presume, right? 

Brian: Both parties, yeah. So both parties. Yeah, no, luckily for us, I think nobody runs on a platform of slower internet. And so the good news is that everybody wants more people to be connected. I think we've been pretty lucky in Nevada that broadband expansion, both in the rural and in the urban areas, has been a bipartisan or a nonpartisan, maybe better a nonpartisan issue. It's something everybody wants to see done and everybody wants to see it done as quickly as possible. So I have a great working relationship with our legislature and a great working relationship with our Senate offices. Everybody's rowing in the same direction and so I haven't had maybe challenges that maybe other states have had and might not have great advice there. But I think the more you can communicate and and make sure that everybody kinda knows where you're at, the better.

Drew: We just got a question from Steve Coll and another one. Do you have confidence in the commitments from Nevada so you don't have to rely solely on BEAD funds? And this might be a good opportunity to talk as well about the Treasury Department's capital projects funds and other kind of pools or pots of money out there besides BEAD. Speak about both of those subjects, Brian, if you would.

Brian: Yeah, I'm not sure I understood what the question was, but just...

Drew: I think it's like Nevada... What money does the state provide, I think, is the question.

Brian: Okay, I think the need for broadband infrastructure in Nevada is so large and vast that no single funding source for us can completely solve the problem or close the digital divide. There are a number of states that I think ended up a little luckier than us in the in the funding formula that allocated BEAD, which I would have thought being from Las Vegas, maybe we would have had some luck but maybe but I guess not.

Brian: So one of the things that we've had to do is get really creative about how we spend funds and get really aggressive in going after competitive funding that can serve the state. So we've worked really hard with our tribal communities. We've provided a lot of technical assistance for them to go after tribal broadband connectivity grant money to bring some of that money into the state so that we can use that instead of BEAD funds to connect tribes.

Brian: We were successful in getting a middle mile grant and that'll be helpful and so that we don't have to use BEAD money as much in building middle mile infrastructure to get to some of these places. We also have where part of the funding for our middle mile is also coming from the capital projects fund and so that'll be building out into communities as well as the state dedicated about 200 million dollars in ARPA funding for, American Rescue Plan Act funding for the broadband that we're also using for the middle mile. So we're leveraging e-rate funding as a part of building our middle mile and I think we're excited that when we're all when all said and done, every single school in the state will be on fibre and so there's, again, I've got a list but we're working with 12 different funding sources here and so definitely not relying only on BEAD for to close this gap.

Drew: Well, before I get to my final two-part question, Brian, I wonder if there's any other issues that you'd like to highlight or any other piece of advice you'd like to share with the broadband community? 

Brian: This is hard work. I would just say, you know, and it's not just hard for and a lot of work for state offices like me. This is really hard for providers. The submitting of information on the FCC for the FCC broadband map is a tough thing and it's the first time that we've asked for this type of data. And it's a lot of work for providers. It's a lot of work for providers to competitively bid for grant dollars from states or from federal programs.

Brian: And so we've worked really closely with a lot of our provider community and they've been very willing to step up and work with us when needed to to go after competitive dollars. So I thank them for that. And this is a big effort for everybody and we couldn't do it alone. And so just wanna make sure I say thank you to both the provider as well as the construction and contractor community as well.

Drew: All right. This is a serious question, Brian. Can you tell us about the unserved and underserved areas within Area 51 and Burning Man? 

Brian: Ah, yes. So this has been something where, we've worked very closely with NTIA and the Department of Defense on. And so there's not much I can share, but I think most folks, you and most folks on the call are familiar with low earth orbiting satellites as well as high earth orbiting satellites. And so we did receive a waiver for Area 51 to use very high earth orbiting satellites to connect the residents there that are underserved. Burning Man is a bit of a different challenge. And so there are these little antennas that you can put on the back of your 1962 Winnebago and then they just plug into the cigarette lighter and provide really great connectivity. So, yeah. So no matter what part of Nevada you're in, we're going to get you.

Drew: You got everything there from, from the north to the south, and rural to urban, casinos to farming. It's been great to spend this hour with you, Brian. Thank you for, for spending time with us and thank you to all of you for being here in the broadband community and look forward to seeing you at our next Ask Me Anything. Take care, everyone.

Brian: Thanks for having me, Drew.

Drew: Bye.