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Speaker 1: Yesterday we talked about the billions of dollars US states

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Speaker 1: and the federal government are pouring into training workers for

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Speaker 1: new economy jobs like making batteries to power electric vehicles.

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Speaker 1: It's all part of a massive push to boost the

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Speaker 1: economy and revive US manufacturing and of course, to keep

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Speaker 1: up with China. Today we take a look at another

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Speaker 1: huge pot of money.

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Speaker 2: Kammon and I are make an equally historic investment connect

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Speaker 2: everyone in America. Everyone in America the high speed Internet.

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Speaker 2: We're announcing over forty billion dollars to be distributed to

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Speaker 2: fifty states, Washington, DC and territories to deliver high speed

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Speaker 2: in it a place where there's neither service or it's

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Speaker 2: too slow.

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Speaker 1: About seven percent of US households and businesses lack basic

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Speaker 1: broadband Internet. Bloomberg's Todd Shields is here to tell us

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Speaker 1: how the federal money is being spent and who it'll help.

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Speaker 3: We need broadband to participate in daily life now, which

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Speaker 3: is increasingly true every year. Online applications for jobs, for

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Speaker 3: job listings, for government for benefits for work, as we

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Speaker 3: all discovered during the pandemic, for schooling as we discovered

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Speaker 3: during the pandemic, and a.

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Speaker 1: Bit later in the show, one State's ambitious plan to

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Speaker 1: wire itself for the future.

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Speaker 4: Well, right now, Vermont is fifth from the bottom in

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Speaker 4: terms of states in terms of internet performance.

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Speaker 5: When we're done, we'll be number one.

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Speaker 4: No other state has set a goal to get fiber

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Speaker 4: optic internet to every address.

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Speaker 1: I'm Westksova today on the big take closing America's digital divide. Todd,

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Speaker 1: how long have you been covering the telecommunications industry? Now?

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Speaker 3: About twenty years now, maybe a little over that.

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Speaker 1: So you've seen big programs come and go, But this

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Speaker 1: one's pretty big. Forty two billion dollars for broadband internet

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Speaker 1: around the country.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the biggest funding in one single slug. Although

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Speaker 3: the FEDS push money at broadband every year in various forms.

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Speaker 3: There's an ongoing nine billion dollar program. There was a

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Speaker 3: twenty billion dollar auction to build wireless facilities wireless broadband,

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Speaker 3: which didn't do too well. And this is an attempt

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Speaker 3: to once and for all fill in the gaps left

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Speaker 3: by all those other programs.

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Speaker 1: What's the difference between broadband and not broadband?

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Speaker 3: You know, it's like, what was it justice the potter

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Speaker 3: who said that he knows at about obscenity. You know

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Speaker 3: it when you see it. If you're using your Internet

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Speaker 3: and it's bulkying and it's slow and it's cruddy, and

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Speaker 3: the video stops and you can't download your kids homework,

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Speaker 3: you probably don't have broadband. But there are some numbers

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Speaker 3: behind it too. For many years now, I think since

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Speaker 3: about twenty twelve, the definition by the Federal Communications Commission

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Speaker 3: for broadband has been twenty five to three twenty five

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Speaker 3: slash three able to download twenty five megabits per second

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Speaker 3: upload three. That's widely criticized. It's too slow and not meaning.

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Speaker 3: Many applications demand more. If you have multiple users in

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Speaker 3: a household, you'll clog up fast with twenty five to

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Speaker 3: three connection.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty common these days just to have two hundred,

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Speaker 1: three hundred.

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Speaker 3: And four exactly exactly. So now we get to the

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Speaker 3: bad program, and that stands for the Broadband Equity, Access

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Speaker 3: and Deployment Program, the big forty two billion dollar program,

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Speaker 3: and the requirement there is one hundred, twenty one hundred

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Speaker 3: down twenty up. Is what is going to be happening

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Speaker 3: with the bad program? Well, first of all, they're going

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Speaker 3: to fund places that lack old fashioned twenty five to three.

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Speaker 3: But the speed they're looking for to acquire bid grant funding,

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Speaker 3: if you take that money as a subsidy, if you

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Speaker 3: use bid grant money to subsidize your construction, you must

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Speaker 3: deliver one hundred and twenty one hundred megabits down twenty

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Speaker 3: up on the premise that that's what broadband is today,

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Speaker 3: that's where the line is today, that's how fast it

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Speaker 3: has to be to be useful to all households.

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Speaker 1: So they announced us in June forty two billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell us how does it work?

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Speaker 3: What happened was Congress in twenty twenty one, when they're

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Speaker 3: passing a lot of big spending bills, passed a very

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Speaker 3: large bill known colloquially as the Infrastructure Bill, and it

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Speaker 3: included this forty two billion dollar program for broadband. They've

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Speaker 3: spent a time since late twenty twenty one devising the program,

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Speaker 3: including a new fangled attempt to figure out where exactly

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Speaker 3: the need is. And we can talk about that what

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Speaker 3: the problem was with the previous attempts. But the Federal

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Speaker 3: Communications Commission worked hard to try to get a better

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Speaker 3: picture of where we need to spend money to close

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Speaker 3: the so called digital divide.

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Speaker 1: And how many Americans who don't have service now or

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Speaker 1: have really slow service are going to benefit from this

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Speaker 1: new program.

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Speaker 3: Well ballpark, about ten or sixteen million homes will have

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Speaker 3: new or improved service for this. About ten million homes

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Speaker 3: are unserved right now by the definition that we're using,

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Speaker 3: and four and a half million are underserved, meaning they

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Speaker 3: have kruddy Internet that could deserve an upgrade. So sixteen

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Speaker 3: million homes. How many people? So when each house? I

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Speaker 3: don't know, but that sounds to me like forty sixty

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Speaker 3: million Americans or more. It's a considerable number. Broadband. Over

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Speaker 3: the years I've covered it has moved from being something

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Speaker 3: that could sometimes be treated as a luxury. In fact,

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Speaker 3: one former FCC chairman got into trouble for replying to

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Speaker 3: questions about the digital divide by saying.

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Speaker 6: You know, I think there's a Mercedes divide. I'd like

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Speaker 6: to have one I can't afford. I'm not meaning to

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Speaker 6: be completely flipped about it, because I think it's important

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Speaker 6: social issue, but it shouldn't be used to justify the

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Speaker 6: notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure.

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Speaker 6: Because what I get afraid of is that there is

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Speaker 6: a real risk. Consequence to that is if you force

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Speaker 6: if the standard is you can't have it. You can't

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Speaker 6: produce it unless you produce it. For all always, I'm

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Speaker 6: very worried it doesn't get produced.

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Speaker 1: That was Michael Powell speaking at his first news conference

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Speaker 1: as FCC chair in two thousand and one.

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Speaker 3: That kind of rhetoric is long long gone. Everybody knows

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Speaker 3: it's a necessity. We've got this big chunk of money

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Speaker 3: to try to, if you will, supply the missing bits

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Speaker 3: of knitting so that everybody in the country has it.

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Speaker 1: So let's dig into the big question that you raised

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Speaker 1: at the top there, which is how do you figure

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Speaker 1: out where it's most needed? Where is it most needed?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a sort of a gnarly question. So

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Speaker 3: with broadband, you run fiber or a line down a neighborhood,

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Speaker 3: and in cities or in suburbs, you get you know,

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Speaker 3: pick your number per mile, dozens, hundreds, a lot of

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Speaker 3: connections that you can then sell service to to cover

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Speaker 3: the cost of your operation. Out in the countryside, you

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Speaker 3: run a line down a country road, maybe you get

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Speaker 3: a home every mile, maybe a home every five miles.

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Speaker 3: In places like Montana, even less at Alaska, so it

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Speaker 3: becomes prohibitively expensive to provide service via a wire There

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Speaker 3: have been attempts to provide service via wireless, that too

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Speaker 3: runs into problems because all the wireless areervices rely on

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Speaker 3: wires in the ground, usually fiber. It comes out of

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Speaker 3: a tower. At the base of the tower is a

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Speaker 3: fiber connecting it to the backbones of the Internet. So

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Speaker 3: you can't just put a wireless tower out there in

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Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere. It's got to have something coming

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Speaker 3: out of the base. So even a wireless solution is

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Speaker 3: a way to lower the cost. You don't have to

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Speaker 3: run wires everywhere and buy rights away and dig cable,

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Speaker 3: but it's not the solution. To figure out where service

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Speaker 3: is needed. The Federal Communications Commission for a long time

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Speaker 3: used a method where they would just ask providers, do

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Speaker 3: you provide service in a certain census block? One home

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Speaker 3: in the block, the color in the whole block is served. This,

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Speaker 3: of course overstated how many places were served. The understated

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Speaker 3: how many didn't have service, leading to a lot of guesswork.

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Speaker 1: And this was a way that the industry could sort

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Speaker 1: of make it look like they provided broader service than

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Speaker 1: they actually did.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it did two things. It overstated the service

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Speaker 3: they did so they provide us. So from a pr standpoint,

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Speaker 3: that's good, we serve the watch am a call at valley,

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Speaker 3: We're great. It also had the effects since subsidies are

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Speaker 3: aimed at areas. Historically, they're aimed at areas without adequate service.

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Speaker 3: If you say I serve you know, West whatever town,

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Speaker 3: subsidies won't come in there. So a competitor won't be

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Speaker 3: using federal or state dollars to build where you already

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Speaker 3: have service that may or may not be good and

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Speaker 3: may or may not be extended to everybody. So there

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Speaker 3: is an incentive built in there for the companies to

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Speaker 3: overclaim their service. Let's say they have an area that

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Speaker 3: only half the homes are served, find a way to

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Speaker 3: color them all served. No competitor can come in with

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Speaker 3: federal money and use the federal money to serve the

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Speaker 3: remaining half that you don't, And.

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Speaker 1: So once they build it, a competitor can't use that

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Speaker 1: same wire.

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Speaker 3: Correct, it's a federal subsidy. It's not the federal government

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Speaker 3: that pays to put down the lines. The federal government

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Speaker 3: helps the private companies and they can be very big companies,

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Speaker 3: such as AT and T and Verizon and Comcast and Charter,

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Speaker 3: the latter two being cable companies. The federal government provides

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Speaker 3: subsidies that those companies then use to defray the cost

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Speaker 3: of building lines. And the argument is, if the marginal

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Speaker 3: cost of pushing out of a concentrated area where there's

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Speaker 3: lots of customers, you can use the subsidy to defray

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Speaker 3: the marginal cost. So they make it worthwhile to get

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Speaker 3: some edge areas that were not worthwhile from a straight

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Speaker 3: profit and lost standpoint before the subsidy.

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Speaker 1: They got to divvy up all this money, and my

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Speaker 1: guess is not every state's going to get the same amount.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, there are big differences between what the states get.

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Speaker 3: The leaders are places like California and Texas. Texas is

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Speaker 3: getting over three billion, California is getting over a billion. Interestingly,

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Speaker 3: Missouri is I believe, in number three place with over

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Speaker 3: a billion. And what happens is they count the number

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Speaker 3: of locations deemed by the Federal Communications Commission to be

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Speaker 3: unserved in the first place. Then they find to have

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Speaker 3: a formula between the fifty states to deliver the money.

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Speaker 3: Every state gets at least one hundred million. I know that.

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Speaker 3: But if you're a big state with a lot of

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Speaker 3: people without service, you get more money than a little

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Speaker 3: state that's pretty well covered with service. How did they.

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Speaker 1: Decide, like, how do they actually know where the people

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Speaker 1: are who most needed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so here's where we get into what's known as

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Speaker 3: the broadband map produced by the FCC. They said, no,

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Speaker 3: we're gonna do better. We're gonna go and this is

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Speaker 3: the Director of Congress in the big twenty twenty one legislation.

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Speaker 3: They said, we're going to go ahead and have you

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Speaker 3: report your service at every basically almost structure in the US.

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Speaker 3: The jargon is broadband serviceable location. So a home would

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Speaker 3: be that, a gas station would be that, an outbuilding

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Speaker 3: such as a barn probably wouldn't be. But broadly speaking,

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Speaker 3: it's like any place where you could expect to find

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Speaker 3: internet service. Now, the downside of that is an apartment

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Speaker 3: building is one broadband serviceable location. There might be you know,

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Speaker 3: one hundred apartments in there, all of which it's one

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Speaker 3: hundred homes, but just one location. But give it all that.

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Speaker 3: The analysts have tried to figure out exactly how to

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Speaker 3: bring all that out in the wash. Now, the FCC

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Speaker 3: has a map. You can see dots on the map.

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Speaker 3: You can zoom into your neighborhood and see what service

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Speaker 3: is purported to be offered at your house or your address.

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Speaker 3: So you take that data and put it in a

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Speaker 3: spreadsheet and combine it with available funding and mix it around,

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Speaker 3: and you come up with the grants announced June thirtieth,

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Speaker 3: the state by state grants. What happens now is the

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Speaker 3: states have till December to devise their plans and get

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Speaker 3: an initial Oh that's good, No, it isn't, and then

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Speaker 3: some of the money may start flowing by next spring.

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Speaker 1: After the break. Can the US build new broadband infrastructure

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Speaker 1: with only American made parts?

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Speaker 3: So tied?

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Speaker 1: You talked about how these providers now have to meet

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Speaker 1: increased standards for broadband speed in order to get this money.

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Speaker 1: What's involved in building this level of broadband? Is it

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Speaker 1: harder to build faster lines than slower lines? What kind

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Speaker 1: of equipment is?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, here we get into yet another argument in

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Speaker 3: this area. The one word answer to what is involved

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Speaker 3: is fiber. Fiber is fast. It's like a glass cable

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Speaker 3: if you will, that fancy moves it to speed of light.

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Speaker 3: Is resistant to deterioration, It won't rust, it won't usually

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Speaker 3: not break. Fiber is also seen as very adaptable. The

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Speaker 3: signal travels far. When you want to upgrade fiber, you

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Speaker 3: just need to upgrade the gadgets, the electronics every I

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Speaker 3: don't know, half mile mile that you don't have to

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Speaker 3: come back in a lot of places in the network.

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Speaker 1: So it's sort of future proofed in a way that

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Speaker 1: as the equipment itself gets faster and faster, the fiber

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Speaker 1: cable can handle all that increase speed.

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Speaker 3: That is exactly correct, So that gives fiber a huge

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Speaker 3: leg up. And the NTIA, the Commerce Department unit the

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Speaker 3: National Telecommunications and Infrastructure Administration, favors fiber in the deployments

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Speaker 3: the way they have written the rules for the BEAD program.

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Speaker 1: Earlier this year, in President Biden State of the Union,

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Speaker 1: he made a really big deal in talking about this

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Speaker 1: that they were going to buy American for all this equipment.

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Speaker 2: And when we do these projects, and again I get

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Speaker 2: criticized this, I make no excuses for it. We're going

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Speaker 2: to buy American, We're going to buy American parks.

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Speaker 1: Is it possible actually to build an entirely American made

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Speaker 1: system with no foreign parts.

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Speaker 3: It's probably not possible with no foreign parts. The question

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Speaker 3: becomes will the government grant a waiver to allow some

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Speaker 3: foreign parts, and if so, how many? And part of

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Speaker 3: this is the buy American thing, and part of it

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Speaker 3: is rivalry with China, which operates on many levels. There's

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Speaker 3: worries about the security for electronic parts used in China,

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Speaker 3: especially in the wireless networks. And then there's old fashioned

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Speaker 3: we should buy it in America to get the jobs,

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Speaker 3: to get the exports. That issue, as far as I know,

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Speaker 3: hangs in the balance. The infrastructure companies have all said, geez,

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Speaker 3: we're in a tough spot here. You'll want this fast,

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Speaker 3: but we can't do it fast without foreign parts. Can

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Speaker 3: you please give us a waiver? And the waivers hanging fire.

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Speaker 3: We don't know how big it's going to be, what

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Speaker 3: it'll cover, So that issue awaits It'd be hard to

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Speaker 3: believe that they'd let the whole program founder on that requirement.

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Speaker 3: I would think creative minds will find a way to

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Speaker 3: have a waiver that lets it go for without giving

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Speaker 3: away too much of the buy America store.

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Speaker 1: So expanding broadband to millions more Americans than have it

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Speaker 1: now is also going to be a pretty big opportunity

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Speaker 1: for all of these broadband providers. So who stands to

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Speaker 1: make the most, especially because in some areas, individual providers

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Speaker 1: are essentially going to corner the market.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's kind of the way it goes, right.

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Speaker 3: These providers have what's known as a footprint. It's where

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Speaker 3: you provide service, and competing providers historically are reluctant to

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Speaker 3: come into your footprint because think about it, even if

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Speaker 3: you have forty percent of the homes in a footprint,

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Speaker 3: the guy who's coming in, the next person, the next

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Speaker 3: company in, will have to either fight for your customers

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Speaker 3: or serve just the other part, the other half of

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Speaker 3: sixty percent of the market. So the incentive to come

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Speaker 3: into somebody else's footprint is not as great as finding

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Speaker 3: greenfields if you wear where there's no good service. So

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Speaker 3: all that said, there will be opportunities within the provider's

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Speaker 3: footprints to fill in areas that subdivision that was missed

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Speaker 3: for some reason, that little town over the hill that

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Speaker 3: we didn't run the line across the mountain to that

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Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So there will be those opportunities for

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Speaker 3: the big providers and folks on Wall Street to Crunt

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Speaker 3: some numbers, and the ones I read most often are

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Speaker 3: AT and T. Verizon and Frontier are the big traditional

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Speaker 3: telephone operators that may make some money off of this.

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Speaker 3: In cable land, Charter especially has been an eager participant

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Speaker 3: in the federal programs. Charters the number two US cable provider,

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Speaker 3: and there are some thoughts that Comcast won't leave this

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Speaker 3: money on the table. You might as well assigned some

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Speaker 3: officers to at least look right. And there's b billions

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Speaker 3: out there.

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Speaker 1: So for some of the people who will be receiving

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Speaker 1: the service for the first time, of course this is

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Speaker 1: a great thing, but it also means that they have

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Speaker 1: one provider and there isn't the kind of competition you

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Speaker 1: have in more densely populated areas where you can choose

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Speaker 1: between say Exfinity and Horizon.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so no, there would be no price controls if

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Speaker 3: that's where you're going.

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Speaker 1: Has the government set requirements about how much these providers

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Speaker 1: can charge or don't they charge anything they want?

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Speaker 3: Not that I know of. There's some competition out there

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Speaker 3: that doesn't count for in terms of BIAD grants. You know,

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Speaker 3: Elon Musk is out there. There are satellite providers that

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Speaker 3: will offer service that's expensive and a little bit bulky.

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Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe the limiting factor is they either

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Speaker 3: do or don't take the service. You need a certain

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Speaker 3: take uprate to make money off of it. But that

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Speaker 3: hasn't been a big feature in the debate. That's interesting

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Speaker 3: to me that hasn't been.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, we have a twenty twenty four presidential campaign heating up,

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Speaker 1: and Joe Biden is going around the country touting this

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Speaker 1: build Back, Better Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of

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Speaker 1: this money, but kind of everybody wants.

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Speaker 3: Credit for this thing. Yes, it's interesting. The Republicans who

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Speaker 3: voted against the big broadband bill are putting out press

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Speaker 3: releases saying, hey, this is great. We're getting federal broadband

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Speaker 3: dollars in the millions for our state, and now we'll

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Speaker 3: bring broadband to you. This is a wonderful thing. Now

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Speaker 3: I can mount a defense of that. Gee, the bill

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Speaker 3: was too big and I would have voted for it

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Speaker 3: just the broadband proposals alone. Or were they sticking a

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Speaker 3: finger in Biden's eye in twenty twenty one and want

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Speaker 3: everybody to forget about it now? You know, I don't

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Speaker 3: know that you could spend that a number of different ways,

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Speaker 3: but anyhow, that's what's going on. Everybody's saying this is great.

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Speaker 1: How does this fit into Biden's larger I guess you'd

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Speaker 1: call it an industrial policy about jobs and bringing manufacturing

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Speaker 1: back to the US.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. He has been talking about broadband almost from day

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Speaker 3: one in the context of these larger programs, trying to

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Speaker 3: do things like bring bills under control. I know the

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Speaker 3: SEC is just moving a proposal, for instance, to have

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Speaker 3: cable state clearly price so that you know what the

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Speaker 3: fees are. It's a kind of a consumer empowerment thing

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Speaker 3: that was pushed by the White House. The Biden administration

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Speaker 3: has been working broadly to increase consumer knowledge about communications

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Speaker 3: products and to reduce bills.

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Speaker 1: So todd the money has been set aside. The companies

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Speaker 1: are getting ready to start building new connections all around

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Speaker 1: the country. How long until we actually start to see

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Speaker 1: homes getting this service?

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Speaker 3: Late twenty twenty four, I imagine, is the first time you'll

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Speaker 3: see fruits of this in the terms of somebody's home

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Speaker 3: gets lit up for the first time. I think it's

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Speaker 3: a five year plan for spending all the money, So

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Speaker 3: beginning in twenty twenty four and rolling forward from there.

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Speaker 3: So it'll take a little while past the next presidential

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Speaker 3: election as for sure, but you can imagine there's some

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Speaker 3: urgency to start putting some shovels in the ground before

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Speaker 3: the next election.

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Speaker 1: Todd, thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Speaker 3: You are quite welcome.

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Speaker 1: When we come back. Vermonth's plan to wire every house

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Speaker 1: in the state for a high speed Internet. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to find out how states are preparing to spend all

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Speaker 1: this federal money, so I asked Christine Halquist. She's the

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Speaker 1: executive director of a government body called the Vermont Community

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Speaker 1: Broadband Board. Halquist has a big goal for the state's

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Speaker 1: broadband rule out.

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Speaker 4: Our goal, which was set out by our legislature a

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Speaker 4: couple of years ago, was to get to one hundred

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Speaker 4: percent of our addresses connected to fiber optic Internet. It's

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Speaker 4: a bold goal where a little state, six hundred and

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Speaker 4: fifty seven thousand people we can achieve those bold goals.

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Speaker 1: We've been talking all about the digital divide across the US,

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Speaker 1: and what does that look like specifically in Vermont. What

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Speaker 1: communities are most in need of getting this upgrade to

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Speaker 1: broadband service.

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Speaker 4: I will say that Vermont is probably very typical of

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Speaker 4: rural America. You know, if you look at folks that

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Speaker 4: aren't connected today, they're from the far flung towns that

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Speaker 4: have lower densities, that really never had a business case

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Speaker 4: for the private providers to come in. So with that,

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Speaker 4: it represents a much higher percentage of low income folks.

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Speaker 5: If you look at.

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Speaker 4: The area served today versus not service, it's about double

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Speaker 4: the number of low income folks. It isn't just about

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Speaker 4: getting people connected, it's about providing the devices and the

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Speaker 4: skills and the training in order for those people to

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Speaker 4: partake in our digital economy, which that's what the economy

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Speaker 4: is today. So what a companies. The digital divide is

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Speaker 4: the economic divide. And I'm actually very happy with the

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Speaker 4: Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act because it's really made to

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Speaker 4: focus on equity. If you look at the acronym broadband, equity,

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Speaker 4: access and deployment, equity is a key component.

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Speaker 5: You take out equity and it's bad.

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Speaker 1: In how many in Vermont right now don't have broadband service?

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Speaker 4: Well, you know, that's that depends how you ask the question.

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Speaker 4: Right Our rule is if it's not fiber, it's not broadband.

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Speaker 4: You know, This is a debate that's been going on

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Speaker 4: for a long time in the telecom community.

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Speaker 5: If you're looking in the.

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Speaker 4: Rearview mirror, you'll hear some of the existing telecom providers say,

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Speaker 4: oh yeah, people are only using twenty five megabits per second.

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Speaker 5: That's a speed, right, It's like.

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Speaker 4: Twenty we're only going twenty five miles an hour, So

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Speaker 4: we don't need these big highways. So you know, we're

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Speaker 4: investing money that only happens once in a one hundred years, right,

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Speaker 4: So let's invest in a forty year network.

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Speaker 5: That's why we're committed to fiber.

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Speaker 4: The reason I'm given that long answer is because we

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Speaker 4: only have thirty percent of vermontitors connected to fiber right now.

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Speaker 1: So what are you hearing from residents about this big

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Speaker 1: plan to introduce broadband across the state.

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Speaker 5: Well, we're hearing two things.

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Speaker 4: One is a level of excitement, yes, you know, especially

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Speaker 4: from some of the more technical users. Yes, absolutely the

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Speaker 4: right thing to do, get fiber to everybody. But on

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Speaker 4: the other hand, there's others that say, holy cow, it's

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Speaker 4: going to take you five years to get there.

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Speaker 5: You know, what about us?

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Speaker 4: You know, it's it's okay for the town that gets

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Speaker 4: it first, Right, they're going to be happy. But the

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Speaker 4: town that gets it last, they're not happy. That is

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Speaker 4: what we're struggling with.

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Speaker 1: How are you going to try to deal with that?

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Speaker 4: Well, we're doing a lot of outreach, a lot of work.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 4: I will point out that FDR in nineteen thirty five

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Speaker 4: signed a executive order to get everybody with electricity. That

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Speaker 4: was nineteen thirty five in Vermont. The last town to

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Speaker 4: get electricity was nineteen sixty four. That was Victory, Vermont.

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Speaker 4: So that was a long time. Right, we're talking at

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Speaker 4: thirty years. We're going to do this in five.

439
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,480
Speaker 1: How do you decide who gets it first?

440
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 5: Well, the good.

441
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 4: News is physics decides who gets it first, not politics.

442
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:53,679
Speaker 1: Just you go to the closest to the furthest is

443
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:54,440
Speaker 1: that how it works.

444
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 5: That's right.

445
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 4: You got to you got to build out because you

446
00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,640
Speaker 4: can't get to those outside areas without connecting the inside areas.

447
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 4: So thank god, physics is what I can fall back

448
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 4: on here.

449
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:08,480
Speaker 1: So what kind of labor is going to be required

450
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 1: to build out all of this broadband infrastructure? Are you

451
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 1: going to be creating a lot of jobs across the state.

452
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:16,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, The labor thing is definitely a thorny issue, and

453
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 4: it's going to be a even thornier as these forty

454
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 4: two and a half million dollars roll out throughout the

455
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 4: entire country and we all start competing for the same

456
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 4: labor pool. You know, when we try to get construction workers,

457
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,199
Speaker 4: we're reaching from the same labor pool that all of

458
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 4: New England and New York State is pulling from. So

459
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 4: we began working on this labor issue over a year ago, almost.

460
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:36,360
Speaker 5: Two years ago.

461
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 4: Now we put together a workforce development team will be

462
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 4: the first state to carry out this national apprenticeship program

463
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 4: for fiber optic technicians. But we need a lot of

464
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 4: folks to do this, and of course, you know, we're

465
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 4: looking at even before COVID hit, we were in Vermont,

466
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 4: we were looking at labor shortages, and now the problem

467
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 4: has been exacerbated significantly. That's both a problem and an opportunity,

468
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 4: you know, because we're going to have to look for

469
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 4: labor and places that maybe we haven't looked for before,

470
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,719
Speaker 4: such as people on parole coming out of corrections. So

471
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 4: it's an opportunity for people to get into a profession

472
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 4: rather than take a job.

473
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: So let's talk just a little bit about these jobs.

474
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: What kind of jobs are going to be required, what

475
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 1: are these opportunities, what they look like.

476
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 5: Right away?

477
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 4: We need outside and inside fiber technicians, and the outside

478
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 4: work is a particular challenge. If you look at the

479
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 4: outside work, you know, Vermont is a pretty tough place

480
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 4: to work in the winter, and we have a lot

481
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 4: of mountains, and we have a lot of trees, and

482
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 4: you know, in these areas, half of our poles are

483
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,919
Speaker 4: running cross country, so you know, people go into the

484
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 4: woods for a whole day, a teenam of four. You know,

485
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 4: we need people who can work independently, who can work

486
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 4: from heights, who have pretty good creative problem solvings, and

487
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 4: can work well together. So it says it's a tough

488
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 4: job and it's not for everybody.

489
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: And how many people do you figure you're going to

490
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: need to hire to wire the whole state?

491
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 4: About six hundred people to train for these technicians to

492
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 4: get two hundred out, you know, typically you train three

493
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:09,920
Speaker 4: to get one. There's a lot of accompanying jobs such

494
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 4: as tree clearing, folks, flaggers. So overall we're looking at

495
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 4: a total of six hundred additional people in the state,

496
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 4: which that's probably not a lot for a state like

497
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 4: New York. But we're the second smallest state in the nation.

498
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: So you said this is going to take about five years.

499
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 1: Paint us a picture of what Vermont's internet service looks

500
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: like five years from now as opposed to right now.

501
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 4: Well, right now, Vermont is fifth from the bottom in

502
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 4: terms of states in terms of Internet performance. When we're done,

503
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 4: will be number one. No other state has set a

504
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 4: goal to get fiber optic internet to every address, and

505
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 4: you know, I will say part of our job is

506
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 4: to maximize the positive social impact of that, but there

507
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 4: are going to be negative social impacts that you know,

508
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 4: our legislatures working aggressively on. You know, one of the

509
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 4: things about Vermont is if we get that connectivity, we

510
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 4: have a housing crisis, and of course it'll drive the

511
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 4: cost of housing even further up.

512
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 5: Vermont's a beautiful place.

513
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 4: The real estate agent's one of the first questions they

514
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 4: hear from people who want to buy houses is are

515
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 4: we connected to the internet. You know, I'll take Newport, Vermont.

516
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 4: It's probably got one of the most beautiful lakes in

517
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 4: the nation. Excuse my bias, but that said, you know,

518
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 4: there's not connectivity around there, and once they get that connectivity,

519
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 4: I can see people flocking to Newport front.

520
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 1: And that would drive up housing crisis now.

521
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 5: Drive up the costs.

522
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 4: And of course the people in Newport, Vermont are the

523
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 4: ones that are struggling most financially. So you know, we

524
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 4: don't want to drive out working for monitors.

525
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: So that's one of the downsides. What are some of

526
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: the upside impacts?

527
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 4: Oh, well, the upside, of course is our whole world

528
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 4: has moved to telehealth, tele education. You know, we've done

529
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 4: a lot of outreach to different communities. You'll find young

530
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 4: people in their you know, fourteen fifteen year olds say hey,

531
00:26:57,960 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 4: I don't want to move out of state. I want

532
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 4: to stay in this state, but connectivity is important to

533
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 4: me in my future. So you know, the benefits are

534
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 4: we want our young people to stay in our state,

535
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 4: and it provides an opportunity for growth. And by the way,

536
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 4: it provides opportunity for those high intellectual margin businesses to

537
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 4: locate here in Vermont.

538
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: Christine, thank you, I appreciate your time here. Welcome, thanks

539
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: for listening to us here at the Big Take. It's

540
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 1: a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows

541
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542
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email

543
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net.

544
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergerlina.

545
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: Our senior producer and the producer of this episode is

546
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: Katherine Fink. Hilde Garcia is our engineer. Our original music

547
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: was composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm West Kasova. We'll be

548
00:27:54,760 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: back tomorrow with another Big Take. Do Do dot bar