They have been serving about 35 of our landmass across the country. Could you name some of those companies to help us get familiar . Absolutely. We could go all the way to western south dakota, not rushmore. We could go to citizens on the mississippi river, up to wisconsin where i have telephone cooperatives. And even here in my state of virginia. We have scott county in the very tip of the state, serving the tristate area. But i have 850 of them. When you talk about landmass, you are talking about landmass and not necessarily population. Absolutely. You hit a key part of this. Is about 5 of the american population, but they are truly the providers in the most extreme and rural parts of the country. Everywhere from alaska to the panhandle of florida, so they stretch all across. I have everybody from somebody who has about 150 subscribers to probably my Largest Company that has just about 100,000 subscribers. They are serving those areas that the companies chose years ago to not provide service to. What have the past several months been like for your member companies. . It has been wild, wild for all of us, right . My folks moved into action quickly because i think one of the things that we have learned these past three or four months is communication is key, and broadband is critical. People were told to leave their offices, kids were took out of the schoolrooms and back to Online Learning from home. As we were looking at ways to avoid going into doctors offices and using telemedicine, my broadband providers have kicked into action immediately. Not only have they thought about how they could continue to operate safely and keep their staff safe, but they also had to spend time thinking about, how do i get to the kids who do not have connectivity online . We were getting calls and demands from providers who, you know, from customers who were not yet customers who realized that they needed connectivity or higher speeds. And most important, they served communities that economically could not take the impact of covid. And really had to work through how to connect to people and know that you will not necessarily get right away. To help us explore the issues that these companies are facing, lets turn it over to paul kirby of telling communications telik medications reports. You mentioned our campaign right away. Hundreds of providers have signed a pledge, basically saying that we will keep you connected during this time. Off folksuld not shut who were not paying their bills or pay them overage fees. Those are two examples of things that we signed. That pledge started from the middle of march and has gone until the end of june. So how much of a hardship has that been on your members and what are you hoping to push to see if congress will help make them whole if they are not able to get paid by their subscribers . Tell us how that has affected your members. Absolutely. Going back to what you mentioned, paul, i think that it could go. More than half the companies on that pledge are my members. It was natural for them to step up to the challenge, because the people or they are serving our their neighbors and relatives and the are community driven. So whether they signed the pledge or not, they are inclined to do what they need to do to keep folks connected and keep their communities vibrant. Like i said, more than half of those folks are my member companies. At the pledge as a baseline, they said this is the baseline that we will provide to the people. At what i loved about what took place is my Companies Went beyond the pledge, they were literally reaching out to say, not,us which schoolkids do have connectivity do not have laptops have connectivity, do not have laptops. Finding ways to change their infrastructure to help homes. Giving away the access to the school, including the kids who had come home from college to continue their coursework. But that also comes at a price when you have customers who basically are not you are saying you are impacted by covid, but a lot of my companies also had to bump up the speeds of all their current customers, basically saying we know you are doing things you never thought you would do at home. Now you need access. You need, in some cases, you speedo up your upload instead of your download speed. So giving services away. It did create a hardship because my companies are small companies. On average they have 30 employees. They also need to just not continue to reach these folks and that now needed service, but they also needed to sustain others on the network. We saw a number of those impacted, it probably impacted more than half of our members with a 10 increase. And i would say 15 of those have seen go up about 25 . To do a tabulation and it comes to an average about 80,000 per company has been uncollected. Know, myusly, you companies have employees to pay as well. They have little access to the internet. But they have to pay other providers for internet commitment and addition as they continue to employ, you are building more infrastructure out. They were terrific. They were heroes in my book, listening to their stories of installation, broadband in a box, the crazy ways they came up with the serve their communities. But they need financial support. I look at the other industries that were chosen for the stimulus and i think about one thing that was ocracoke in communities critical for communities at the time was keeping connected so people could do their jobs and the economy could continue to hum. It hasas really been been tough to get that momentum to get help through congress and i remain hopeful that the next stimulus will bring something. What is the total you are looking for . You said 80,000, but what amount would make your members whole . The current legislation has a 2 billion price tag attached to it, we think that would be sufficient, not just for my membership but for any small provider who is in the same position. There are a number of other folks who have complied by the obligations of the pledge. Obviously, it is hard to do an estimate, but we think the legislation with a 2 billion mark is fair. And we certainly think it would go a long way. Anything we can do to get the uncollectibles off the books, so they can continue to build infrastructure. You mentioned that the members have to still pay employees. There has been confusion, i think you said, about whether the Payment Protection Program would apply to them. How difficult has that been . Do you know if the sum of your members have gotten funds from the program . That was really frustrating. Greated at the ppp, a opportunity for Small Businesses. A number of Small Businesses partook in it. But the one clarification we could not get, until literally early june, was that telephone cooperatives were eligible. We had the secretary weighing in, senator perdue, senator boone, all kinds of people going to the treasury. And when it first came out, we said, we want to make sure that our cooperatives are eligible and they came out with a clarification in may that electric coops were eligible, but not telephone cooperatives. My folks were nervous, nobody wanted to take the money, only to have to return it. Or not be in compliance. So unfortunately, the clarification came out about two and a half weeks before the deadline, before the cut on june 30. So i do have some cooperatives at that did take it. I think it made sense, it allowed them to maintain all of their current staff, while they were having their own economic hardships. But it was very frustrating. It is a washington, d. C. Thing. You have all these agencies into some people truly understood the importance, but getting treasury to understand what the cooperatives were was a little trickier than we had planned on. One of the issues, you said some of your members also had trouble getting their equipment, the necessary equipment to protect themselves when they were going out to do their jobs. What have they done to try to get that equipment . That was also an interesting time. I think we were in that immediate rush at the end of march when we realized what the necessary equipment was, we realized what the n95s were, so what happened was because there was such a mad rush our companies had some of the equipment on hand, but what they found was the supply chains were totally dried up. And they had the inability to access it. And we had to find a new supply chain. And unfortunately, as things happen in situations like this, they had to pay five times what wouldve been the traditional price. So you are going into a home to install broadband, and you are changing the equipment out. Done nobodyou have any good. So we really had folks basically in a situation where they were working with their staff to do the install, working outside of the door or window because they did not want to risk themselves or their customers, they did not want anybody to be in a situation that was not sanitary. We worked really hard with fema. It took their credit, some time but they actually helped. And hipaa, who designated our folks as providers, and we were able to get equipment in may and we were able to start shipping out hundreds of thousands of masks to our member companies, to at least give them the ability to replenish other supply. So, it was tougher than i thought it would be. I am sensing the ppe question has settled down. After the toilet paper, we had that immediate rush, and now people are able to really build things back up. But it was challenging and we learned a lot. What did you have for you and your family . I am a hoarder. Who knew. That is good to hear. Host given the crisis, have you what theop, because of broadband providers have done have leasing a drop in the Digital Divide . Dropey i think you mean a in terms of more people getting connected. And fewer people being off the network. And, yes, we have seen this because we have been working fast to connect as many people as we can. However, we still have a long way to go. And even with all of the stimulus, nothing has really changed the traditional programs that have funded broadband. There has nothing that has gone through any of the stimulus efforts so far that has given additional supportability broadband, either to low income americans who find at cost is prohibitive, or to those that live in remote areas. So, there is a lot of proposals, but none of them have actually i am finding my companies are working as fast as they can, particularly in north dakota. That building time is a short. But we have more work to do. Host amy klobuchar, kevin cramer, john boone, peter de blasio, they all have different types of bills infrastructure bills, infrastructure bills. Are you leaning toward any of those . Shirley there are so many. One thing i would say that is important is, senator klobuchar, who always takes the lead on these issues, that keeping critical conditions up, that is something that we want to do, to make sure that the carrier state whole, even without the customers ability to pay. That will help keep things up and running. It is bicameral, it is bipartisan. I have my fingers crossed and congress will pass it in the additional stimulus. Well, what else can we do . Senators have introduced a bill that is interesting because what the legislation does is it essentially says, we are going to need to find extra resources to continue to build these networks. So it will take proceeds from spectrum, and allocate those in a separate pool to the ftc, so you are not standing up a new program, you are augmenting in existing program that clearly works, and it is using that money as quickly as possible. It is a great initiative. There are a number of other things out there. Another initiative to look at is, what will be due about the schoolchildren . It is almost july. Kids are going back to school soon, and i am not sure they will be going back to their classrooms yet. We need to be thinking about, what are constructive ways without being in the building, being the best manager of public funding, to find or make sure that we can get the kids connectivity. And i would say the same effort on the lifeline side. What can we do in terms of Emergency Support for those people who have lost their jobs. You cannot find a new job unless you have connectivity. But if you cannot pay for broadband, you cannot do the things you need to do while you are searching, getting government support, applying for governor support programs, all of those things. Because you are not walking into city hall these days. So there are a number of initiatives that those pieces are included in. We welcome all of that support. Host do native american areas face special circumstances . Shirley those are tough situations, absolutely. We have 10 Companies Across the country, in particular with the Navajo Nation in new mexico and arizona, because they struggle with basic sanitation issues that we take for granted, like the ability to wash your hands. Those communities have been hit particularly hard, but it is so heartwarming to me i have been watching the companies down there, what they are doing on the tribal lands, serving their communities, ensuring that connectivity is there, bringing broadband to the school kids, to their homes in these low income areas. And when i think of heroes, to me they are heroes. Paul obviously, there have been programs that have been already in place before this happened. There has been a debate about whether some funding should go to new programs, or whether they should go to usm, which people have said it is already there and it will not take much time to ramp up. Where do you come down on that . Shirley i am all about tried and true. When i think about right now, abilityspeed is the to build as quickly as possible. I hate to say shovel ready, but i look at it and i look at the usda, and honestly we have traditional broadband programs. Grants. R reconnect they have gone through the rulemaking process. They are in action. So fusing those programs that are already coordinating to some degree is the most effective way of using resources. I know sometimes it does not feel that way to people, people want to come up with their own new programs, but i think that we must be honest about what really works. We know those programs work. We can see the networks literally as they are going into the ground. And i would also say that we also have to continue to remember it is not just building it, it is also about sustaining what we already have in the ground. That number that network is an investment. We need to make sure that we sustain those. I think all of that is really important. But it does lead to the question of, ok, now we have to improve mapping to make sure that we use those programs responsibly. That is the next step to take. Paul what programs did they start to put in place one program that they started to put in place already was the opportunity fund. The chairman of the commerce to speedupants implement by winning bidders in phase one. This question is from my colleague, are there other t the incentivea deadlines would be too fast . And if so, what could be done . Shirley that is an excellent question. I will share that i think the ftc, to their credit, has done a nice job keeping this front and center. They have been methodical about how they are making progress. I look at the fact that we are in july, essentially and and they are looking to roll this out at the beginning of october. I think that is a really good timeframe. Now, the idea that if you can get it in the ground faster, i think there are issues. I think it incentivizes those who were looking to maybe not do what i would think of as investments that will stand the test of time. I stand to be bullish about fiber. I think we need to focus on 5g. One thing i think we learned in the pandemic is broadband is really important. We need those same uploading and downloading speeds and fiber has a hard time getting that. Subparre going to do investments if we are stuck on a timeframe. So the other thing i am seeing, absolutely, we are having access to fiber issues. My carriers, even though they get in line in advance, they are always behind the bigger carriers who put down millions of miles of fiber. N when my guys advocate aggregate, their ability to be top of mind with thick suppliers is tougher, so i am already seeing a slowdown in their access to fiberoptics. And even some of the equipment that is critical to going into routers is stuck in asia. There are trade issues going on. Haveany folks my guys use even taken to trying to airfreight some of the equipment back to the u. S. , because the ability to send via freight has gotten really tied up. And things have gotten tied up. So, again, even if you are building the network, the ability to get the equipment has really been slow down. And then something that is always an issue is workforce. I was thinking the other day, having a discussion with somebody in the senate, and we were talking about workforce issues and about potentially creating a new program. And i think that we could actually get people trained to deploy, dig, climb towers and put the infrastructure in in the rural communities, where there is a huge need. That would go a long way as well. But it is tough to get that right now. Makel of those things an accelerated timeframe tough. Host as you know, the fcc has declared huawei to be a National Security threat. How does that affect, what kind of equipment do the Rural Broadband providers use from zte and huawei, and how does that affect you . Shirley very little. I probably have two providers that are actually impacted by having that equipment in their network. It impacts probably some of the smaller providers. But nonetheless, i think the u. S. Has made a big move in terms of the passage of legislation, to ensure that the Network Equipment is not out there. I think that Congress Must now replacing that, so the carriers that built those Networks Without this equipment being on the prohibited list, have the ability to get support while they go in and rip out their infrastructure. But i think the thing that people always kind of assumed, that we are more heavily impacted, but it is only a handful of the membership that actually has that network. A moving has been target for the last few years, so they have stayed away from making that investment. Paul you cannot go to a hearing on capitol hill that even touches on anything with the fcc without hearing about mapping, because obviously, in the senate in particular, regardless of the state when you talk about rural areas, you talk about people from minnesota, you think of minneapolis and st. Paul, but there is a lot of rural areas. The legislation that the president signed in march, the million is coming from congress, but they do not have the money yet. Is that frustrating for you . Terms of why or how it cost as much as it does, i think that mapping you know, i am looking at these proposals, 2