Sounds from the Summit: Episode #1

On our first episode of BBC Summit coverage, you'll hear from one man who says he knows what the number one issue many of the broadband leaders are having.

Also joining us, a state broadband director who says "by the time BEAD is done, there will be 56 different conclusions."

Recommended Links:
Brian Newby's LinkedIn
Tom Cox's LinkedIn
Steve Valdez LinkedIn

Chapters

• 3:36 The need for connectivity on the West Coast
• 4:24 BEAD funding accelerating
• 7:34 Brian Newby Introduction
• 11:05 Construction and infrastructure in North Dakota
• 15:28 Broadband funding in each state
• 19:02 BEAD panel at Broadband Communities Summit West

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (00:07):
This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband from closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds. We talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. I'm at the broadband communities, west Summit, taking place in San Diego on October 30th and 31st, and we've just started our first round of interviews on this edition of Connected Nation. You'll hear from one man who says he knows what the number one issue many of the broadband leaders are having, and I'll talk to a state broadband director who hopes that by the time bead is done, there will be 56 different conclusions. I'll explain. I'm Jessica Denson, this is Connected Nation. We are at the broadband community Summit West taking place in San Diego, and I ran into Woohoo. I now consider an old Fred Steve Valdez with KLJ Engineering. Hi Steve. Hi. How are you doing? Good to see again.

Steve Valdez, KLJ (01:01):
I'm doing good.

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:01):
Good. Last time I saw you, we were at Mountain Connect and we were neighbors with our trade show booth next to each other. You had a lot of people stopping by. What are the conversations you were having there?

Steve Valdez, KJL (01:14):
A lot of interest type of engineering work that we do and how we could support their efforts in that. With all of the interest in building out fiber to the home projects across the country, we are in a position to be able to help 'em do that with high level design, feasibility studies and that type of work.

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation(01:33):
Talk about what are some of the questions that people had for you guys?

Steve Valdez, KLJ (01:36):
They were asking about our ability to help them with permitting. Permitting is probably the biggest problem or complication in a fiber build, and so we are in a position to be able to help 'em become with the experience that we have. We have a staff of expert people that work with the BLM, with the forestry, those type of entities, and so that gives us the ability and an edge to help them build, to build.

Jessica Denson (02:06):
I've heard a little bit about that too from people. I was preparing for a panel today that I'm moderating, and they were talking about the issue of permitting. Why is that such a difficult thing to handle?

Steve Valdez (02:17):
You know what, because there are so many different entities that are involved with it. City, counties, different federal type of entities, and they're not all the same. They all have a different method of doing it. Some of the cities and other municipalities have short staffs, so they don't have the capabilities to be able to help in process their paperwork and then, but knowing how to work with them, how they want their paperwork and their drawings and all of the other pieces of it put together will streamline it and make it go through faster. So knowing having that experience is a key factor into expediting and helping the permitting process.

Jessica Denson (03:02):
Remind my audience what area of the country you work in. I know we met in Denver and now we're in San Diego. Are you mostly in the West coast?

Steve Valdez (03:08):
I'm in the west region. I have everything west of Colorado. So this show here, being out this way, we're trying to touch more work in people out here on the West end.

Jessica Denson (03:21):
I was talking to the organizers of this show because they've had several across the country and they said the reason they started this one, this is the first one, is because there's kind of a different need and a different approach on the West coast. Talk about some of that. There's some huge states out here, aren't there?

Steve Valdez (03:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of work going on it here, and the state of California has a lot of funding mechanisms that they're putting in place and bringing forward for build outs to happen here. And on top of that, there's private equity that's driving a lot of it. And then you have the bead money that's coming into play as well too. So there's a lot of effort and focus on building in California. California has its own unique permitting issues that you have to abide by and to work with. That's another thing that KLJ is we're capable of doing is because we have that experience.

Jessica Denson (04:13):
Are things just ramping up at an accelerated rate kind of with bead, it was sort of the engine that could and now it's just going full speed?

Steve Valdez (04:24):
Yeah, it is. What it did is it started the exposure to the broadband work that is needed to be able to fulfill it across the country. And with that influx of money and focus, it has really started to drive the industry. The industry was fairly flat for quite some time. It was very expensive to build, but when the federal government got involved with it and started funding that, it made a big difference. But it also did is it also spurred private equity to also invest in it as well. And that's primarily what's driving things now is private equity. The bead money, government money probably won't be seen until late 2025 next year into 26, but the private equity is what's really fueling the engine right now.

Jessica Denson (05:15):
So do you think that we'll really see some forward momentum in 2025 then?

Steve Valdez (05:20):
Yes.

Jessica Denson (05:20):
Yeah.

Steve Valdez (05:21):
Yeah.

Jessica Denson (05:22):
And last question, but a very important question. What's your Halloween costume this year?

Steve Valdez (05:27):
I'm going as a business development guy to a show in San Diego.

Jessica Denson (05:30):
Yeah, I'm going as a podcast host. Yeah. How is everyone from KLJ? Everything good there?

Steve Valdez (05:37):
We're doing good. Yeah, we're doing good. We're busy, very busy, and we're adding staff. Our workload is becoming increased, we're increasing our workload, so therefore we're bringing on people to support it. So that's a good thing all the way around. So I'm looking

Jessica Denson (05:50):
Forward to it. If a company or a state broadband office wanted to get ahold of you, how would they do so

Steve Valdez (05:57):
They could get ahold of me through LinkedIn. I have a page there and the, gosh, that's a good question. I don't else could do

Jessica Denson (06:07):
It. I'll put the website in the description of our podcast. Your LinkedIn?

Steve Valdez (06:11):
Yeah, under our company website. I have a link in there back to me. And then you know what? Come out to the shows. I am probably going to be at most shows here.

Jessica Denson (06:22):
You're pretty popular. I saw last time you were surrounded. Plus you helped me, and so we're forever friends.

Steve Valdez (06:30):
I loved it.

Jessica Denson (06:30):
Yeah.

Steve Valdez (06:31):
Love

Jessica Denson (06:31):
It. Thank you so much. Steve Valdez with KLJ Engineering. I appreciate you.

Steve Valdez (06:34):
Thank you.

Jessica Denson (06:35):
I am standing here with Connected Nation's own Tom Cox and he has brought a representative from the state of North Dakota who Brian Newbie, who's actually a longtime friend, acquaintance. How would you guys explain that?

Tom Cox, Connected Nation (06:52):
Longtime Kansan. So Brian is the state director for the broadband office in North Dakota. And in a previous life, he was actually my city councilman in Shawnee, and we lived about a quarter mile from each other,

Brian Newby, NDIT (07:06):
But we didn't know that at the time.

Jessica Denson (07:07):
Yeah, you just have discovered that through broadband and working on the issue of connecting people. Correct.

Brian Newby (07:13):
That's right. But I probably knocked on his parents' door back in 2002.

Jessica Denson (07:17):
It is such a small world, and the broadband community is a small community. It really is. I keep seeing the same people over and over. So Brian Nbie, I do want to focus more on you and what the work you're doing in North Dakota. So talk a little bit about what your role is with the state and what's going on there.

Brian Newby (07:34):
So North Dakota, my role as broadband program director is to essentially get the money out to the people who are going to provide service. So for us, it's working with the carriers, getting through the two grant programs that are carrier related, capital projects fund, broadband equity access deployment fund, those two primarily. We're also responsible for the digital equity grant and all that kind of stuff as well. So really our focus is just distributing the money, trying to get it out as fast as we can, which has been great for capital Projects fund, not so great for bead because we still don't have money to distribute. So

Jessica Denson (08:05):
Is it just kind of a waiting game right now, trying to find the right moment to move things forward?

Brian Newby (08:10):
No, the bead program especially is very prescriptive in what you have to do. And so we're waiting for, we just got approval for our proposals, so now we're beginning the sub-grantee selection process, which then again will lead to a long set of proposal approval cycles, I guess. So it's just a very long slog, as I've said. And so that's really the process there and we can't wait to actually distribute the money.

Jessica Denson (08:35):
So talk a little bit about North Dakota. Is it a very rural area with pockets of larger cities? Does that make it kind of an unusual area to have to try to connect or some unique challenges that you have?

Brian Newby (08:47):
Sure. So North Dakota has 53 counties and many of those counties have fewer than 10,000 adults. The population's pretty small. Before the pandemic came, we said we were socially distancing long before that with we were born to do that. There are only about 800,000 people in North Dakota. So we're here in San Diego and I don't know the population of San Diego, but my guess it's probably about 3 million people. So you can do the math about how much bigger it is for the entire state. So the metro areas for us are about 115, 150,000. Those are the larger ones.

(09:21):
Fargo, Bismarck, there's a couple other cities, Minot, there's a lot of things going on in North Dakota. They've got the Theodore Roosevelt National Park that's being built. It's going to be a big attraction. And so for us, it is rural, but we only have about probably 4,000 locations left that aren't served. And that's because of the great work that all the independent telephone companies did over the years. So they may be the hardest, but I think we have the money to do it with bead. So it is rural, but it is mostly served and mostly served with fiber.

Jessica Denson (09:54):
Talk a little bit about reaching those last 4,000. What is the kind of infrastructure you're looking at? Are you looking at fiber? Are you looking at some combination thereof? Are a lot of those final destinations or last mile places? Are they in the most rural places? Is that mountainous? Is it just farmland? What is it?

Brian Newby (10:15):
Yeah, so there's a few things about it. Out of the 4,000, some of those were underserved, so that'll be converting that probably from fixed wireless to fiber.

(10:24):
A lot of them are what I've called the very scientifically bogus locations or very bogus locations. The bogus ones would be once they've tried to get off the map, very bogus. They're not even, it's cliche hay bales, that kind of thing. So then when you get down to the actual number of locations, we want fiber because that's what the state is. Our concern is the state or the companies may not bid, and if they don't bid, then we'd have to look at alternate technologies. But that is not our first, second, third, fourth, or fifth option or what we want to do right now.

Jessica Denson (10:55):
I've talked to the state broadband director in Wyoming, and he said one of the challenges is that you can only build at certain times. Is it the same for North Dakota?

Brian Newby (11:05):
Yeah, so the construction, well, in fact, what the carriers will say is there are two seasons in North Dakota winter and construction season. So construction season really starts around May and goes until you can't, which a year ago in North Dakota, we had a foot of snow at my house. It hasn't snowed yet in North Dakota this year, but generally you kind of go as long as you can probably into October. So that makes it harder and especially when bead has a four year cycle. Once you award it, they have to be done in four years. So if we award something in January of 26, which is probably where this is heading, we're probably not doing anyone any favors as opposed to awarding it to 'em in March,

Brian Newby (11:43):
That we'll award it when we can and then they'll start as soon as they can in May. But the locations themselves, they can probably get 'em down in two years.

Jessica Denson (11:51):
So you see 2026 as the place that those people will be connected?

Brian Newby (11:56):
No, I think 26 is when it starts.

Jessica Denson (11:58):
Oh, when it starts,

Brian Newby (11:58):
Which is the bummer. I think that's the biggest drag about this whole

Jessica Denson (12:02):
Program, how long it

Brian Newby (12:03):
Takes for them to approve it. So we will have our proposal in mid next year, and then we think it will take them a year to approve it. So early 26 is probably a pipe dream, but that's what we're shooting for because we have to get it approved first.

Jessica Denson (12:16):
You said earlier when we first started that you and Tom met in Kansas and you found that out after the fact. What brought you to North Dakota and what's it like living there?

Brian Newby (12:25):
Okay. Actually, I just now recently moved to California serving North Dakota.

Jessica Denson (12:29):
Oh wow.

Brian Newby (12:29):
But basically I left Kansas to go run a federal agency in elections in Washington dc. Served a term doing that and then went to be election director in North Dakota. And after that it's a crazy time to be administrative elections. So it wasn't really super eager to keep doing that,

(12:48):
Had the opportunity. I've worked at Sprint for 20 years before I was in elections, so I was able to kind of pivot to do that. And North Dakota's a terrific place. North Dakota is wonderful. I made a joke like the one day of summer, but it really does have great summers. It's daylight till about 11 o'clock at night during the summer. It's just fantastic. It's a great place to live. My wife got a job in California, so I working remotely, we were working remotely anyway. We don't have an office because we have more IT people than we do the building. So we were already working from our home since the pandemic. So it's just a matter of now working in a place that might not have snow for a year.

Jessica Denson (13:25):
All of us at Connect Nation pretty much work remotely as well. Tom, talk a little bit about what brought you and Brian together. I know you found out you have a past, but what started that conversation?

Tom Cox (13:36):
Well, initially the conversation started because in our IXP Internet Exchange Point development program, we'd reached out to North Dakota as we just had one or two sites that we were interested in. And we realized that our partner, hunter Newbie, had known Brian Newbie, no relation,

Jessica Denson (13:50):
No relation

Tom Cox (13:51):
For 25 years from when he was at the sprint days, working on long haul fiber connection or long haul wholesale. And so we connected and then through that realized, wait a second, used to live in Kansas, used to live in Shawnee. And through multiple conversations then realized that we used to live a quarter mile from each other, went to the same high school as his son and knew him through theater. And so it's just I realized how small of a world it really is.

Jessica Denson (14:17):
And you're moderating a panel later, right? Yes. What are you talking about?

Tom Cox (14:21):
I'm moderating a panel talking about the status of bead in which Brian is actually one of the panelists on there.

Jessica Denson (14:28):
What is something that you really want people to understand about bead?

Brian Newby (14:32):
Some of what I've already said, I guess about North Dakota, but bead especially, it's very prescriptive bead, is I think anything that comes out of dc. I make the joke, I don't know if people have noticed this, but there's a lot of things that are political about Washington DC and what I want to see is 56, that's the number of states and territories. I want to see 56 different conclusions to the story. And I think that the more the states press for that, the better. Because I think right now on the federal government side, there'd probably be a big push to do everything the same and everything the way they want to do it, even though it's supposed to be in the name of the states. So that's really my big message is how do we make sure that we have 56 independent conclusions to this story.

Jessica Denson (15:20):
And Tom, you've been talking to lots of different state broadband offices. Is it the same? Do you see the same thing that there's a different solution for each state?

Tom Cox (15:28):
Absolutely. I do hear that. I think Brian put it probably the most succinctly I've heard it saying there needs to be 56 different conclusions, but it is pretty uniform that each state is running into their own problems or their own opportunities. I mean, they're geographically unique and distinct. What the unserved or the underserved for each area and why they are that way are different reasons how many homes you have to go to. There are certain states that say their only way they can hit a hundred percent is using alternative technologies, leaning into fixed wireless, leaning into potentially lower earth orbit satellites. They say it's not cost effective. There are other states, like what Brian's saying, North Dakota said, no, we think we can try to get everywhere with fiber or really, really close. There's a lot of states that are going to have significant funds left over after hitting a hundred percent. I mean, some states talking four or 500 million in non-employment funds, and there's other states that are saying that they're four or 500 million short of being able to hit their goal of a hundred percent coverage. So I don't think there really is two states that are going to perfectly line up and say we're the same.

Jessica Denson (16:35):
So for a lot of states, they didn't have a broadband estate broadband office before this started. And I can imagine that you both have to have policy understanding and broadband understanding, which Brian, you have that unique background. What are some questions that are coming up that need to be answered or that people are struggling with that maybe you guys can help with?

Brian Newby (17:00):
Well, I don't know. I don't know that we're having those. I just would stress kind of one of the things that Tom said is that the non deployment funds, when you get into that, I think the politics of that are going to become huge. And for us, we prefer to have the money go to carriers rather than have it go to digital equity because there's so many other places digital equity providers can get funding besides this grant. But if we do end up having non-employment that goes to digital equity, we'd prefer it to be state agencies and have them be the contractor and subcontract. And in doing that, because North Dakota, their legislature only meets once every two years,

(17:45):
That creates some new issues because if we award some money to an agency, let's say Health and Human Services, they have to have the approval to spend it even though we provided it. And they can't get that without the legislature. So that could be two years out. And then the other thing is, if the legislature does that, something like that, they may say, Hey, great. We're going to allow you to spend the 50 million you get for whatever. And maybe that's pretty extreme, maybe say 5 million, 10 million, but we were going to give you five or 10 million for something else. We're going to take it away. And so then the department might be like, well, banks, why'd you do that for us? So that's kind of a policy thing that's kind of down the road. So one way to avoid that is to really invest in carriers and use the money to get to fiber to the end users, and then we won't have that leftover money and then we won't have that issue.

Jessica Denson (18:32):
Okay. Last question for you both. I'll let you start. Tom and Brian, you could have final word. Why did you come to the summit and what do you hope to get out of it?

Tom Cox (18:42):
I'm here to moderate A, I think will be a great panel on the current status of bead, and then continuing to just engage with the industry, speak to multiple broadband directors, talking about what Connect Nation's doing, talking about what's going on in their states and how there's the ability to partner and it's beautiful San Diego.

Brian Newby (19:02):
Yeah, I think one of the things, the people on the panel, Misty Giles from a neighboring state, she's very vocal, pardon me, the same as some things I've been saying. So it's good to hear her experiences because I think today they're closing on their first round of subgrantee selection. Louisiana was going to be here, couldn't be here. I was hoping to get some time with that. But it's really mostly when you bump into other people who are our peers, where the basically NTIA federal government isn't facilitating that discussion. You have a lot better chance to get the opportunity to share notes, find out that everybody's kind of living the same world. You don't really feel that normally when you're on these other calls. So that's really what I want to get is what other people are seeing. What can we pivot from and learn from that.

Jessica Denson (19:46):
Okay. Tom Cox, who's with Connected Nations, the state Government affairs, vice president of that, and Brian Newbie, who's the broadband program director of the State of North Dakota's Information Technology

Brian Newby (19:58):
Division. That's the department, but it's the broadband program.

Jessica Denson (20:00):
Gotcha. I had his card up trying to read it. Thank you both very much, fellas. Thank you. Thank you. On the next episode of Connect Nation, we'll continue our coverage from the Broadband Community Summit West taking place in San Diego, California. I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to Connected Nation. If you like our show and want to know more about us, head to connected nation.org or look for the latest episodes on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Pandora, or Spotify.