PA House Communications and Technology — 2026-08-18

Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to welcome you here for the meeting we have today, the Communications and Technology Committee. Before we get started, I want to give some time to Representative Jim Struzzi, who represents the area, and Lauren, who's the ED of Indiana County Tourism Bureau, and this beautiful venue that we're in today that is absolutely beautiful. I said it's the first gift shop I've ever seen that is the most secure in the United States, as it sits in a vault. So we'll start with Lauren, then I'll turn it over to Jim, and then we'll introduce ourselves in the hearing today. So thank you again.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And again, spend your money behind us in the gift shop. Jim, I want to turn it over to you.

center for people who come here to visit So again I welcome all of you I welcome the community members who are here today and I look forward to this hearing Thank you Thank you and I want to thank also our sponsors who have helped with this event put together IUP, the Keystone Internet Coalition, and Crown Castle. Before we get started, I'd ask the members who are here, and everyone really at this table, introduce yourself. Rich, you want to start?

So I look forward to hearing from our testifiers today.

Thanks, Dan.

I'll turn it back over to you, Joe. Alex.

And I'm Joe Cirisi, the Majority Chair for the House Communication Technology Committee, and I'm 100 districts away from his at the 146th District, about 35 miles outside of Philadelphia and Montgomery County. And it's great to be able to be here and see how much different the Commonwealth is and the needs that are different in each area. You know, in the Southeast, we don't have as many issues with dead zones and issues with Internet and broadband. And we have issues, but not like you have out here. And it's important for us to understand the needs of our fellow colleagues and every citizen of the Commonwealth. And I think it's also appropriate that we're talking about tourism, too. We're in a place of tourism. Because when people come and they see these communities and stay here, they want access to Internet. Everybody wants to be able to pick this up and get a signal. No matter where you are, anywhere in the country or even in the world, we've relied on this so much. that it's important for us to be able to get a signal. And I use the example, I guess it was about three, four months ago, when Verizon went down for the day. People were pulling their hair out. I mean, kids didn't know what to do with themselves. What are we going to do? What are you going to do? Same thing we always did when we never had internet. You know, I often have my son who would say to me, he's 27, well, how did you gather your friends together? You called the other house. You said let meet at such and such time You said well what happens if they didn come You waited 15 minutes and you went on your way It nothing like it is We didn rely on technology like we did And also you know we talk about and I'm going to say this because Nick was, I think it was Nick and Noah in my office. I brought an old Atari in to let them play on how it was to play on the games that we played on. And I think, did you play basketball with Noah? And you guys had a hell of a time trying to figure it out, right? You won, yeah, but it took forever to figure it out. But it's important for us to understand technology and the way that we have evolved and continue to evolve and the importance of it. And today's hearing will focus on the cost of the technology, how we can get it to people, and the way that we need to improve on. So there will be three panelists, three sets of panelists that we'll hear from, and then we'll take questions after. So our first set of panelists, if you want to come forward, we have Indiana Commissioner Sheeran Hess, right?

And Jody Rainey, principal of the Homer Center Junior Senior High School.

One thing we do ask is that you don't read the testimony because we have it in front of us. If you could summarize it, if you have to read it, we get it. But it gives us more time to ask questions as a committee. So thank you both for being here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Before we get to questions, we've been joined. Representative, do you want to introduce yourself in the district you're from?

Thank you, and thank you both for your testimony. Questions? Rich, you got something? I'll start it off.

Sure. Thank you for the question. REA has been a great partner. Their subsidiary in the sticks has come along, and we've all kind of evolved together. It was kind of an experiment, to be honest. But they have been terrific. It's very difficult to make the economics of it work. And, you know, like I mentioned, low density is an issue. Let's face it, if this was a money-making thing, the big telecommunications companies would have been here long ago. So we're grateful for their partnership. I don't know that I can speak to the technicalities of it, you know, myself. I think our economic development folks, Byron Stauffer, can give many more details about that. But I appreciate the question. They are a vital partner. It would not have happened without an outfit like REA.

Are you aware of any? I know there's another company, Saltsgiver, and I'm not sure if that answers your question exactly, but I know they are another important partner in this initiative of ours.

Anyone else? You got one? Go ahead.

What does the school do for those kids? Are there hot spots? Are there devices they can get or places they can go? Yeah, we do use hot spots. We have a couple areas, one specifically in our school district that really is a problem area for us. and even with hot spots and things like that it's the reliability of maintaining that connectivity for the students that becomes the biggest challenge for us so I think that that is one area for sure that that's a great question because even though an even answer kind of piggyback if this was the question that was asked before is you know other things like in the sticks and things like that we have those connectivities but again it's not dependable it doesn't deliver the speed and what we run into is if we have three children in a home and they're using that type of secondary type of connectivity it's not enough to power everybody so you have to take turns and especially during covid especially when other people that were working were mostly working remote from home now you got a parent that's trying to you know earn a living and provide for their family and now we're trying to educate their kids and then the challenge became well how can mom go ahead and go to work and how the kids do their schooling at the same time because a lot of what we did during covid was was uh synchronous for us and um so that that became a real challenge but i think the things that we've taken from us post covid is you know the rise of like school school districts creating their own cyber schools for students for various reasons those types of things I think we learned a lot that we can make online learning a little bit more valuable from a learning perspective, but I also think that we still suffer from the problem of being able to get those most rural areas served with multiple users at the same time.

If you could fulfill all of your wishes and requests through whatever plan that you put together, do you have a ballpark number on what that would cost for the county? It's many more millions than that. Truly, I don't know that we have an exact number, but many, multiple times that. Like I said, I don't know an exact number, but no, the need is just enormous. So we do have to prioritize. And unfortunately, you know, that it all comes at an opportunity cost to to other things for our economic development scheme. But this is the underpinning of it. So we know we need to do that. Yeah, it's a internet necessity these days. It's

approximately I have this coming year I got 375 grades 7 through 12 and the elementary would have slightly more so we're near in the high 700s close to 800 and then about how many students are homeschooled that in our cyber academy that we operate we probably have in the high school I can speak to that because I'm more familiar with that we have roughly I think the last count we had 30 to 35 that are doing like some form of either at home doing like full scale they're doing the whole cyber they're doing all their education through our cyber Academy we have some students that attend ICTC the Technology Center that we're able to use our cyber Academy they attend ICTC in the morning and they're either doing co-ops or they're actually have full employment that they use our cyber schools so they could go ahead and get into the workforce and help support their families develop job skills and still get their educational requirements and that's a very positive way to use it but again when they struggle with the connectivity that becomes an issue well that's

they falling behind on because of it you would think the most yeah i think two uh one i think it is the accountability and making sure that they're attending and completing their assignments on a normal basis and with recent legislation and stuff the requirements that not only count to outside cybers but count to ours as well is that contact with the student on a weekly basis i think that is a fantastic thing that's going to really help engage students more often that are at home i think the second goes back to just the consistency of if there's multiple people in the home and just having like you know when we're using other alternatives other than direct line cable and we're using you know different wireless and trying to get signals we just there's not enough support there to to to accommodate more than than one or two users at a time.

Between 82,000 and 83,000, somewhere around there.

I think that all of those things. You know, if a business has to, as I mentioned, it's the underpinning of it all. So businesses have to know that there's a consistent, available, affordable broadband, and that goes for our manufacturing industry versus small businesses. So it's all part of the ecosystem that creates a healthy business community. so I think that you know we talk about some of the statistics and the statistics I gave were an average and you know sometimes averages can be a little bit untelling and so you see maybe more than the average in a community like some of the communities that we serve but they are sitting along a major corridor and business development along that corridor is just ripe for the creation so it's It's just something that we need to really keep our eye on, and we are listening to the business community. We have a terrific Chamber of Commerce who's taking that pulse all the time of what they need. And while a business might not say exactly specifically Internet, we know that that's a part of their success story.

Certainly. I think those are all things on our radar screen that we're trying to account for at this time. And it's sort of like everything that deserves attention all at once. But we are trying to figure out what the priorities are. That's certainly one of them, but there are many.

I'm Representative Eric Nelson from Westmoreland County. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both very much. We look forward to further conversations.

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to appear before the committee today. My name is John Harrigan. I'm a senior fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society. We're a 45-year-old operating foundation that works to promote open and affordable communication services for all Americans. We've already heard today about the importance of broadband service as an affordable home service for typical households. As we've heard, as a policy matter, we only worry about affordability of services when they're indispensable to everyday life. Water, heat, electricity usually come to mind front and center, but of course broadband should be added to the list. The Pea Research Center found in a 2022 survey that 90% of Americans say that having the Internet is essential or important to them. Now, it's hard to get 90% of people to agree on anything these days, so I think this finding underscores the importance of broadband in people's everyday lives. Just try getting by these days, managing work schedules, health care needs, or kids' homework with limited or no broadband connectivity. It's no picnic. What I want to do today is bring some data to the discussion of the issue of broadband affordability. First, I would like to talk about how many households struggle with broadband affordability. It's a sizable number. It extends to rural and urban households alike. Then I want to discuss how changing economic circumstances will make broadband affordability an even larger problem in the near future. It's not going to be pretty. And then finally, I want to point to some possible solutions, one that can be effective and have been shown to have positive payoffs. So let's first talk about the size of people who struggle with broadband affordability. For low-income households, a job loss or a cutback in hours means they have to make some tough choices. Will they pay the health care premium this month or the broadband bill? This makes paying for basics a balancing act, and giving up a home broadband connection sometimes is a painful but unavoidable choice. households facing these circumstances who have broadband but who struggle with affording it are called the subscription vulnerable for them they'll they will say in surveys that the monthly broadband bill is difficult for them to pay perhaps they've lost service in the past due to disconnection of service when they haven't been able to pay the bill a 2024 national study of low income households found that 43% of lower income households were subscription vulnerable. In Pennsylvania, that would come to 1.7 million Pennsylvania households who are subscription vulnerable That one in three households in Pennsylvania The not so good news is that the subscription vulnerable are about to get more vulnerable That because of the one big beautiful bill The OBBB is going to cut SNAP benefits and lower support for premiums for Affordable Care Act insurance plans. These changes will result in reduced resources of up to $1,200 per year for the poorest fifth of U.S. households. This is according to the Congressional Budget Office. Already in Pennsylvania, SNAP enrollment has declined by 220,000 recipients. That's an 11% drop. Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans have dropped 431,000 through July 1st. ACA premiums have risen between $85 and $100 per month for low-income Pennsylvania households. That's about the size of your typical home broadband bill. This puts home connectivity at risk. By my estimate, that means as many as 233,000 Pennsylvania households may lose broadband connections due to the impacts of the one big, beautiful bill. That's arguably a conservative estimate since economic circumstances have changed, such as rising gas prices and accelerating inflation since I made that estimate. So even though that's not so great news, it is important to note that there are solutions that work, such as developing low-cost or subsidized Internet plans for qualifying households and investing in digital skills programs. New York and Connecticut have passed legislation mandating that carriers provide low-cost Internet plans for lower-income households. New Mexico will use public funds for a $30 per month subsidy to low-income households, which is similar to the lapsed affordable connectivity program from the federal level. States such as New Jersey and Massachusetts have grant programs to help local organizations provide digital skill training, which really has to go hand-in-glove with affordable Internet programs. Let me close by pointing out that initiatives that make broadband more affordable pay off. Research, research that I have done, shows that programs that lower the cost of Internet service for low-income households return $2 in benefits for every $1 invested. Digital skills programs have also shown positive returns in terms of giving people the digital skills that can, over time, increase their incomes. The monetary benefits are important, but so are other benefits. In conducting research on the impact of the termination of the Affordable Connectivity Program, we asked people to reflect on what the consequences were for them. And a woman in our research said, when we were on it, the ACP, we almost felt normal. That is what digital inclusion means to a person on a tight budget. It means more than affordability. It also means having reliable internet service that doesn't have to go by the wayside from time to time. And ultimately, it means liberty for that household, liberty to use online resources in the ways that they need to to negotiate modern life. Thank you very much.

I speak as an individual expert today in this field and not on behalf of my employer, Penn State University. In my time with you today, I want to share recommendations for broadband policy improvement in our Commonwealth. These recommendations stem primarily from a white paper authored by myself and colleagues at the Pennsylvania Broadband Research Institute called The Cost of Inaction, Pennsylvania's Broken Broadband Governance and the Path Forward. And you can find the full copy of this report appended to my written comments. But before I begin with that, I want to start by setting the scene by telling you what I heard from a rural firefighter who participated in a focus group I held for a project sponsored by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania about how the lack of internet impacts first responders in public safety in rural PA. And this is a quote, if you lose signal, you can't communicate. You better have God sitting on your shoulders because that's the only person that's going to be able to help you, end quote. This quote has stayed with me since I heard it last summer because it encapsulates the dire need for meaningful, affordable connectivity throughout the Commonwealth, but especially in rural, remote, and low-income areas where broadband is either too expensive or completely unavailable. Lack of broadband impacts everything from education to public safety, as we've heard today. And I want to be clear, the lack of broadband risks the lives of the public and our first responders alike, and I was grateful to hear from Principal Rainey's experiences as a first responder in his rural community. Another rural Pennsylvania community member I spoke with for my forthcoming book on this called the lack of broadband in his community a cancer. I use my remaining time with Yall to offer six recommendations based on research that I have conducted on broadband and the digital divide. These recommendations seek to improve broadband access and affordability, along with computer ownership and digital skills training in the Commonwealth. The first recommendation is about the State Broadband Office. Presently, the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority, the PBDA, is responsible for creating the NTIA-mandated state broadband plan, the BEAD proposal, and the Digital Equity Act plan and to distribute state and federal funds. It is also scheduled to close in 2031 or after its funding has been meted out. Research from the nonpartisan Pew Research Centre has documented the importance of state broadband offices to successful state digital equity and inclusion goals. The most successful offices are more than pass through for federal dollars, but instead act as information exchanges, best practice developers, policymakers, and funders. To this effect, I strongly recommend that the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority be made permanent and the General Assembly abolish the 2031 sunset. Furthermore, I recommend that the mandate of the office grow to incorporate not only the awarding of federal dollars, but broadband policy planning, information gathering and research, best practice sharing, networking, and distributing state funds, modeling the best of state offices in states like Minnesota, Vermont, and Virginia. I also suggest that Pennsylvania allocate state funding towards broadband infrastructure and digital inclusion programs rather than rely on federal funds. the best state broadband programs put their money where their mouth are. Funding, for instance, could go to supporting fiber build outs in communities where only fixed wireless or satellite exist, creating a common-wide low-income subsidy, as Dr. Horgan suggests, and programs for device access and technical support. PBDA itself has had great success with the device access program using federal funds, so there is precedent here. The second recommendation is for us to become a leader. During my fieldwork for my latest book on the digital divide, I heard about the fear and shame that comes with an inability to use the Internet or a computer. We need to meet these people where they are with dignity and support, and funds can help create sustainable programs to meet these goals. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has promised Pennsylvania over $1 billion in funding from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. Pennsylvania of course has pledged to spend $700 million of this allotment, leaving approximately $400 million hanging on the balance. On top of this, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the NDIA, according to them, Pennsylvania was in line to receive at least $65 million from the Digital Equity Act. over $450 million in federal funds that Pennsylvania should have access to but is not fighting for. This inaction is denying Pennsylvania taxpayers money rightfully guaranteed to them, and I recommend the Commonwealth take a bolder approach to securing its rightful funds to support digital equity and inclusion. My third recommendation is to make it affordable. I joined my colleagues at KIC and at Benton in recommending that the Commonwealth follow the direction of New York State in mandating that broadband providers over a certain user base offer a meaningful, low-cost tier to eligible households. While affordability programs like the now-defunct Affordable Connectivity Program and state programs like California's Lifeline Program are successful, they do not address the fundamental issue. Broadband is too expensive in this country, and Pennsylvania is no exception. This is unforgivable for a utility that is the basis of modern life and a state where 12% of the population live below the poverty line. We need to make broadband affordable in Pennsylvania. My fourth recommendation is to remove barriers to municipal broadband. Pennsylvania has the unfortunate status of being one of 16 states that presently prohibit, or in our case inhibit, the ability of municipalities from funding and creating their own broadband networks. This law inhibits free and fair competition by denying local communities a voice in their own digital destinies. Study after study has demonstrated that municipal broadband projects offer faster speeds for lower rates and have more commitment to their local communities than national competitors. I strongly recommend the repeal of the legal roadblocks to municipal broadband to allow community ingenuity to flourish. Fifth is to prioritize future-proof infrastructure. It is without a doubt that fiber optics are the best infrastructure for broadband in this country. Fiber optics can handle a near unlimited amount of data and can be used in everything from houses to universities. Any new broadband policies developed by the Commonwealth must have a fiber-first priority, and the Commonwealth should seriously consider a permanent fund to assist the 18% of areas that receive bead funding for something other than fiber. And lastly, I want to encourage everyone to take a holistic view of what we call the digital divide. I applaud the PBDA for centering the idea of digital dignity in Pennsylvania's digital equity plan. After all, this is what these programs are meant to do. They're meant to support people, not technologies or companies. To build on this moment, my final recommendation is that any and all new policy developments regarding the digital divide come from a holistic perspective, where it is not only infrastructure that is considered, but infrastructure is joined by affordability, device access, skills, and support to ensure that every Pennsylvanian can thrive in the digital age Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to your questions Thank you very much Questions Okay Representative Thanks Mr Horgan you talked about

To the first part of your question, not widespread enough. The second part, you had the answer in your question when you mentioned the word navigate. Digital navigators are people whose positions are funded through these digital skills funding programs that are the people that will work with Medicaid recipients who have to recertify, have to meet more paperwork burdens, who have to find ways to get Internet access. So oftentimes, although not exclusively, digital navigators are funded as positions through local public libraries. Local public libraries, this will be no surprise, are highly trusted institutions, and that's an important issue for many of the kinds of people that we're talking about who need to recertify for benefits. So invest in those programs. You could probably turn to the Pennsylvania Broadband Plan. There should be some asset mapping within, which is to say identifying where there's already institutions and not just public libraries who are doing this kind of work who would stand ready to use that funding effectively and quickly to ramp up for digital navigation. Thank you.

Representative Nelson.

So that would be $50 or $70 a family, depending on the tier.

The Affordable Connectivity Program did reach low-income households effectively, and that was a $30 per month subsidy. And in terms of doing the math, you could determine with some pretty easily available research how many Pennsylvanians use the Affordable Connectivity Program and multiply by $30 a month over 12 months, and you could get a sense of the per year cost of a publicly funded $30 program. So did your research do that? I didn I can do that however if the committee has interest I can just back that up There were 739 households using ACP so it would be 739 times 30 But we know that other research has said that over 2 million Pennsylvania households struggle with broadband affordability. So we did even see a gap between those who were struggling and those who registered for ACP. And that was part of one of the struggles with ACP originally, the Affordable Connectivity Program, was getting the word out. But I'll add that on top of a state subsidy or a federal subsidy, there are also states that are pushing this requirement, this low-cost tier, to providers themselves. And we saw that with New York State with what they have called the Affordable Broadband Act. And that requires providers with customers over $20,000 to offer a low-cost tier at $15 a month or $20 a month, depending on particular download speeds.

My suggestion is that Comcast, which has done this, partner with local institutions to get the word out to potential subscribers that the program exists. because, and the data is in my filed testimony, Pennsylvania's broadband adoption trends have not been particularly good in recent years, even with the Xfinity Internet Essentials program, which is a very useful program, but more needs to be done, and that more is having companies like Comcast partner with local institutions to provide digital skills training to help people understand that it's really worth trusting Comcast on this low-cost offer going forward for them.

Advertised through partnerships with local institutions that are the trusted entities that will reach the target population. Thank you.

I'm not sure if I thank you both for your testimony, and Dr. Ali, I really appreciate the recommendations. I think that's something that's very beneficial to us as lawmakers going forward. And I'm not really sure if I have enough letters behind my name to ask you guys a proper question. here, but I'm going to try to throw it out. And the idea, I think, of what you're trying to get through is we're dealing with individuals who have adequate internet service provided to them, but they can't afford it. And then secondly, people that don't have adequate internet service at all, and maybe both. That could be the problem. Uh I I was able to afford it but I was in one of those uh categories where I did not have adequate inter internet at my house The principal Rainey had mentioned you know people going to you know internet hubs for learning whenever COVID was going on. And I can remember that going on in my own household where, you know, you had three kids, you know, all of them bawling because they couldn't get their assignments done because all they seen was a little thing, circle going off in the middle of the screen. So what I actually ended up doing was I ended up with Starlink. Starlink is probably one of the higher priced, higher end providers, but it has worked very well in my location. And I've had some other providers that have been putting out wireless that line of sight where I was not able to get that. And maybe you can help me understand because I've had this problem or this posed to me by constituents of my own where the question comes down to if you have a Starlink provider that's out there and we're going to spend billions of dollars to build up our infrastructure system, would it be better spent to help connect those people with the initial overhead cost on a provider like Starlink or a provider like Comcast and help reduce those costs over time? Just what's your thoughts right off the top of your head about something like that?

short-term fix. Yes, I appreciate that. Can I have one more question? Mr. Horrigan, I didn't quite follow your explanation on how AI is helping affordability and broadband and would sort of moving that technology forward. If you could explain that just a little bit more for me. I'm not sure I mentioned AI.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the multiple questions. This is a big issue because, you know, we are one of those households that had to drive to Panera, you know, with kids, you know, going around and auditing each other to make sure that they were offline because only so many people would be on. And one of the struggles we have, and it would be interesting to see your thoughts on the concept, is because there are sections that have broadband, and then there are these patches and streets. You know, there's 17 houses. There's five houses. But the cost, like for our personal cost, which was thousands of dollars that we had to save to get it from this farm over the hill to our next farm, and that had to be paid up front. So would we reach some of those last mile families by having some type of program where there could be a shared cost? So families are interested in investing, but for us, I mean, it was like $8,000. So on a road for a number of families that are in that $8,000 to $15,000, it's cost prohibitive for them as individuals. Is there a way that we would be allowed to or, you know, a way that we could get it to those small sections, you know?

is that capability of when you say there's nothing stopping them does how would they get engaged or is that capability on there because it seems like the awards and the applications are for millions and millions of dollars like through complex you know through the broadband Commission so right how would you know our line extension grants available in Pennsylvania or is that an action item that the committee would need to take in order to enable that is an action item the committee would have to take but this is one of the things

the extra question, Chair. That's it. No more questions for you. You're going to have to watch Murder, She Wrote. I want to thank you both. I think it was interesting testimony, especially your comments. You made two comments that I found interesting when you said water and heat. I can't run my heat without my internet any longer. You used to have the little thermostat you went like this with. Now it's on my phone. So if I really want to screw with my wife who's at home, when she gets home from work, I could put the heat all the way up today, and she'll say, what happened to her? She'll be screaming to me that you screwed around with our heat or our air conditioning. But it's very interesting to think about that because we can't do that anymore in 90% of the houses that you get new air conditioners and heaters in. And that lets you manage. You can have some fun with your wife, but you can also manage your energy costs effectively doing that. But if you don't have Internet and you're low income, I mean, the double whammy compounds. You don't have Internet, which means you can't, among other things, manage your heat consumption more effectively to save a buck there, too. So it's crucial to coordinate so many different parts of the household and everyday life. And you even mentioned it's not a picnic. You don't go on a picnic anymore without using your phone to find the location, to see where you're going, to play music, to see what might be, what the weather is. I mean, so it's all of this that we don't think twice about that we're using so much technology for. And really, you know, you spoke about the availability. I remember when we were in San Francisco last September in Chinatown, they had just dedicated Chinatown as free Internet for all of Chinatown and what it meant to not only the residents but the businesses of that area to have access to that. And I really think that as we look at innovations in our businesses and the more and more they want those trucks that come in our neighborhood that used to one time very very long ago used to be the Wells Fargo wagon and it was UPS truck Now it some other name that starts with an A and ends with an N and has a smiley face underneath it. I don't want to give them a plug, but maybe if they want more of us to use their service, they'll come into neighborhoods and put the access to broadband and internet in because they know for their product lines, it's profitable. So maybe that's where the public-private partnerships start to come in. So I want to thank you both very much for your testimony

who's a project manager at Allegheny's Broadband Industries, and Stephen, how do you say your last name so I don't butcher it? Schwibble. State Advocacy Director of Wireless Internet State Providers Association. Thank you both for being here.

That's a little bit better. Hello, members of the committee. Thank you very much for the invitation for me to come and speak with you all on this very important matter. My name is Dustin Bishop. I am the project manager for Allegheny's Broadband. We are a nonprofit organization that was formed back in 2020. We cover a six-county region of south-central Pennsylvania. We are headquartered in Altoona in Blair County, but we also serve Bedford, Cambria, Fulton, Huntington, and Somerset counties as well. Our organization really focuses on bridging the urban-rural internet gap predominantly in unserved and underserved areas. Unserved areas are typically thought of as areas with little to no internet whatsoever, whereas underserved areas are those who technically have internet access, but it does not often meet their needs in the modern economy. Our organization has mostly to date focused on the expansion of broadband infrastructure. We've been able to partner with several different ISPs to secure approximately $100 million in grants for the expansion of infrastructure assets for telecommunications. A variety of different programs have allowed us to do that, namely the NTIA Broadband Infrastructure Program, the Capital Project Fund, the American Rescue Plan Act, and now, of course, the Significant Bede Program as well. In our activities, ABI tends to provide project oversight as well as grant management to make sure that those federal and state dollars are being used effectively and partner with ISPs who take charge of things like construction and actually providing last mile service to customers. Having ABI allows for an independent third-party voice to combine the best of both the public and private sectors. The public sector obviously has a significant amount of funds available now in the aftermath of the pandemic, but tends to lack the nuanced local expertise and technical expertise of the various technologies, whereas the private sector, of course, has the expertise, but it's often difficult for them to reach those very remote rural areas without some kind of funding. And so ABI accepts as a middleman in between those two parties and seeks to expand coverage to those rural areas We of course see Internet as a long investment whether it fiber optic or fixed wireless technology We see it as a decades-long focus, not just to serve those in need right now, but also for many years to come. In the past, we've mostly focused on obtaining funds for the expansion of infrastructure, However, today we have noted that the success of those past investments will largely depend on whether or not these services are affordable for the average constituent. The pandemic certainly broadened this rural-urban divide, and even rural areas, things like remote work, telehealth, etc., is making Internet a commonplace requirement for everyone. ISPs face unique challenges in the rural parts of the state A low population density and difficult mountainous terrain further widens the urban-rural gap Having less ISPs in rural areas typically results in less competition which of course results in higher prices and thus less adoption There's been, I think, a focus shift, not just from my own organization, but also initiatives by the state and federal governments of combining this focus on infrastructure investment with a joint focus and a joint value on affordability. Obviously, the upcoming and now active BEAD non-deployment program seeks to make sure that past investments into infrastructure ultimately pays off for the residents. In terms of the benefits of Internet service, we at ABI as well as others view Internet as a long-term economic development investment. Not simply dollars going to a particular industry or a particular employer, but it's the closest thing that we have to a rising tide which lifts all boats across our economy. and obviously the most important or at least one of the most important aspects of adoption is of course affordability. Thank you all very much again for your invitation and I'm happy to answer any questions.

can receive in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, which may have some interest in having high-speed internet available to it, is actually delivered by fixed wireless using a technology called millimeter wave which reliably quickly and scalably delivers two gigabit service to the customers and businesses that they serve. So when you hear that fixed wireless is not delivering results that's flatly untrue. It's also much more affordable. That gigabit speed service that you might want to get fiber to use is approximately a fixed wireless deployment that serves the same number of customers, similar topography, and other considerations being held the same same speeds latency reliability is a tenth of the network cost capital cost to build that fixed wireless project as compared to a similar fiber project that fixed wireless cost can also be built in a matter of days or months rather than the two to four years that our bead timeline has given because they have to wait for slow fiber to reach communities now we've all lived through the pandemic but I cannot imagine telling a community that is waiting for broadband today that they have to wait four years when the state could invest in a technology that can bring it to them next month because we had a technology preference built into statute or involved in the broadband office's decision-making system that forced them to wait because they are second-class citizens. WISPA is proud to represent 13 members headquartered in Pennsylvania. Those are the ISP members that we serve. We also include members like Crown Castle that builds the infrastructure that our members use, as well as those technology developers that are continuing to innovate in the broadband delivery space. We're really proud of what all of those members are doing. Two of them, Dustin and I, were just talking about building networks in your neck of the woods, some of those funded by state funds, which we're proud to say. I don't have to tell you about Bede, so I'm going to skip that part of my testimony, but I would like to talk to you about the tools that you as legislators have to drive affordable broadband and make it more ubiquitously available and affordable to your constituents. You've heard about the New York State program that mandates $15 or $20 a month service. to low-income customers based on a range of qualifying criteria. That was recently introduced and locked into place only after a years and very costly court battle It is also very unclear based on very early data It still new But of the seven ISPs that have publicly made data available in the wake of that decision being made and that mandate being handed down, only two ISPs had more than 100 new low-income customers. Two ISPs had no new low-income customers. And a third, SpaceX, which covers the entire state, had only 11 new subscribers. So a mandate is difficult to make work. It's also extraordinarily difficult for your small hometown ISPs that have limited overhead, limited bandwidth, to be able to affordably and effectively participate in that program. In New York State, simply to receive the exemption for those ISPs serving 20,000 or fewer subscribers, it required hundreds of man hours to do GIS mapping and other socioeconomic data gathering to allow the ISP to qualify for that exemption. Extremely onerous. Far more effective is the ACP model, which you've heard a couple of states have implemented already. California through a CPUC program and New Mexico through state law. I'll come back to how Pennsylvania might consider an ACP replacement program at the state level in just a moment. But it's a powerful tool. One study shows that about 44% of the 52 million eligible households nationally were able to gain access to online services and devices through that ACP program. and that participation included roughly 1,700 Internet service providers nationally, 763,000 you've heard here in Pennsylvania. Significantly more robust outcome and a significantly better program because it involved partnership with ISPs rather than antagonism. So we hope that that's a model that can continue to expand. We believe it's a powerful tool that the state can use to invest in affordable broadband. Two other factors should be considered when you're lowering the cost of broadband. Firstly, beaten state grant programs should not be treated as taxable income. So if that infrastructure, if that ISP is buying broadband infrastructure, whether it's fiber optic cable, whether it's a radio that will bring internet service fixed wirelessly to a community, let's not treat that as tax exempt. Let's treat that as something that we want to invest in to bring that broadband service to our communities soon. So let's waive the exemption. I'm sorry, let's exempt that property from property tax and sales tax as you're purchasing that. The cost of fiber is continuing to rise, and over the next four years with Bede, that is going to continue. We're already seeing those trends. Fiber is hard to get a hold of. Wait times are getting longer, and trade is not getting easier to accomplish. So let's put some state investment rather than setting aside a separate grant program. let's invest in broadband infrastructure and expansion for all ISPs that want to build, whether or not they've been federally funded or funded through a state grant program. So Pennsylvania also has the opportunity to use non-deployment funds in Bede in creative and thoughtful ways. The NTIA is still finalizing its range of acceptable uses for those dollars, but those are dollars that because of wise investments in appropriate technologies to bring broadband to all Pennsylvanians, Pennsylvania has reserved approximately $371 million of that billion-dollar bead investment to be used for non-deployment uses. I think a very creative and interesting way to approach that situation would be to think about how to use that money for an affordable broadband program that the state could implement. Perhaps that would get you through the first year, but it would give a really important leg up on using funds to bring broadband to all of the citizens that you represent. And I'd just like to give one more example. We talked about the Lifeline program. Virginia has an excellent model So if you looking for local folks to look at Virginia is a strong program They also have a very strongly technology broadband office so they been able to work with multiple providers and not just one technology to use that line extension program. And so, in closing, I want to think about scale factors that are not fiscal in nature, and those are reliability and resiliency. Many technologies have those factors, and they have be considered in trade-off. I understand that you folks just were working on a state budget. You may correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Pennsylvania has unlimited funds to be able to invest in broadband network expansion and affordability. So we may want to consider the ability of the state to be effective in the programs that it does fund. Fixed wireless is a reliable, affordable technology. Anyone will tell you that fiber is a very strong technology. A recent A federal study looked at resilience in climate challenging situations and it rated fiber buried underground as the most reliable technology delivery system there is. Now when you're going through the mountains that I was driving through from Pittsburgh this morning, that cost to put fiber underground gets into the six figures very, very, very quickly per mile, right? 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 dollars per mile to bury that fiber. If you're not burying it, you're looking at putting it on poles. That's aerial fiber. This government study from the NTIA said that fixed wireless is just as resilient as fiber strung along metal poles in challenging environments such as hurricanes, storms, ice storms, that sort of thing. A third, a somewhat distant third, was fiber strung along wooden power poles. Now, I don't know if you're going to also invest in much more metal pole that you have right now, but I saw a lot of wooden poles as I was driving through those mountains. Getting to these mountains is going to be difficult, and I would hate to have an ice storm or something else knock down that investment that you've just made and have to be replaced. There is a power, though, also, beyond legislation, in using your hometown ISPs that have been born, bred, and raised here in Pennsylvania to serve their neighbors, to serve their communities, and to serve their state. One of our members, Crow's Nest Broadband, which you were working with, currently offers $35 a month plans for qualifying fiber customers, $35 a month plans for qualifying fixed wireless members, and they match lifeline discounts for any member who qualifies for that program. Your local providers are the source of competition in areas where there are multiple providers, And in many cases those hometown providers are the only ones who are able to bring broadband service because unlike the big guys They put their people first and they didn't look at cost. They looked at how to get the job done We're proud to represent those members and we hope that your policy will continue to be guided by putting those folks first And I'll take questions at the end Thank you very much Before I forget Representative you want to introduce yourself. I should have done that earlier Thank you, Chair Cerisi.

Thank you. Do we have any questions? Go ahead.

Yes, in many ways I think that is a challenge, right? A community that doesn't have Internet full stop can't have affordable Internet until it gets that Internet service in the first place. And there is continuing capital cost and maintenance cost to any ISP that owns a network and needs to do maintenance on its fiber or its towers or any of that other infrastructure that it deploys. So, certainly the bigger the base is, right, I'm a poli-sci major, not a math major, so I'm not going to get into numerators and denominators, but the more people we have online, the more cost-effective we can make all broadband, right? And even when you have those low-income folks on at a break-even price of $35 or $55 a month, you're allowing the ISP to balance that cost then by making sure that it's making appropriate investments. think that is a part of it another part of it certainly is competition right in many places that do have broadband there is not competition for those houses that there are servings so having more than one provider is beneficial in many places that second voice is a whisper member or another ISP that has been headquartered here in the state and born here because they saw the need and wants to compete against that larger national player we are on the verge of a question that I think you'll want to answer and will consider continue to debate, but is satellite service ubiquitous now? Is that reliable enough and deliverable enough, and does it get enough folks online well enough to be considered ubiquitous? There's a current debate going on about that right now, and I suspect that will continue to be a debate that we see for the next few years, but that technology will continue to evolve as well, right? No technology stands in place. Everything evolves. And so hopefully that competition will also serve to bring down cost. Certainly from the state's perspective, the closer you can get to ubiquitous infrastructure availability, the easier it is to address those other issues of cost and of adoption and of device understanding and digital skills and all those others that play a factor in the economic development of every small town in the state. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think

Thank you, and I think you're exactly right that all hands working together is the only way to solve this problem. Just on a personal note, I'm happy to say that my mother-in-law is a gigantic fan of Jimmy Stewart, so it was a real treat to be able to get out here today. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you.

That's correct. So as a general rule, the way that we have thought about at least our own organization's work is really three phases or three tiers. Tier one for us was mostly focused on upgrading existing fixed wireless tower sites, new equipment, namely, to be able to expand capacity, redundancy, which is using the industry you know higher speeds things like that Then we went to what we call Tier 2 which is building brand fixed wireless tower sites where little to no vertical assets existed in the past Very hard-to-reach areas. That would be, we actually used some NTIA funds to do that in Bedford County that we're actively working on. And then ultimately Tier 3 would be fiber, mostly utilized in those urban populations where we can't quite get fiber to every hunting cabin, per se, but in those urban areas, they really benefit. They have plenty of businesses, hospitals, educational institutions, which really thrive on extremely low latency, high upload download speeds, that sort of thing. Thank you.

Absolutely. That's a great question. So WISPA celebrated its 20th anniversary as a trade association last year. So we've seen a lot of evolution, right? And 20 years ago when we started up, it was AOL, right? It got stuck by trees. We would have folks in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, who said, if the corn grows a little bit too high, I lose that line of sight and my internet goes out. That's a bad day at the office or the farm. But we have come a long, long way. I've been working for WISPA for about four and a half years now, and we have two trade shows every year. I invite you all to come to Las Vegas this November, the first week in November, and see all the things we have on offer through all types of technology, fiber, fixed wireless, satellite, and more. But what I have seen even year to year since I've been working for WISPA over the last four and a half years is continued dramatic innovation. Things that people say they'll never solve that problem. Two years later, we see somebody solving that problem. Again, I'm a humble policy nerd, but there are some really, really smart mathematicians and really cutting-edge technology developers that are working on developing new ways to solve these problems with the resources that we have now, as well as the resources that come later. So, again, we can deliver multiple gigabit speeds in city areas with congested traffic and a lot of radio frequency bouncing around. We can deliver high gigabit and above services in rural areas that don have broadband yet but now because we can put a tower up behind a tree we can get there today There is a range of solutions that that enables and what I think it comes down to is the state wants to invest in solutions that are as cost effective, as flexible, and as strong in all of the trade-offs that you have to consider. Cost, time, infrastructure, resources, and your constituents' needs. These are all things that you have to balance, and no one technology is going to do that for you. I don't know where satellite technology is going to go. What we've done in the last five years is remarkable. What we're doing now with middle mile laser delivery is innovative just in the last two years, but that may revolutionize where middle mile service goes in the coming decades. So we don't know where technology will go next. I love to read my sci-fi books, but even those guys don't know what it's going to do next. And I'd encourage you to be very cautious about fencing out one solution that may change the game two years from now because of what it can do today or what it's perceived to do today. Just one last note, my hometown is a town called Nino, Wisconsin. Just like I had never heard of Indiana, Pennsylvania, but I had because I love Jimmy Stewart, you've all heard of Nino, Wisconsin because it's the hometown of Kleenex and Huggies and many other products. Everything to me is a Kleenex. I don't care what it is. For a lot of folks in the broadband policy area, everything is fiber. That's the name brand. But I think puffs, I'm not paid by puffs, I promise, but they're probably just as good. They probably soothe your nose just as well, right, in facial tissue. But there are a lot of solutions out there, and you might want a slightly more affordable cost co-brand of facial tissue. You might want a different kind of technology for broadband. There are many, many solutions, and using all of those solutions in their individual use capacities is the best tool for the job to solve the problem here in Pennsylvania. Thank you.

Thank you. Stephen, we were talking earlier before the meeting.

And I think there are some strong examples and some challenges that are out there. I think the states that have really strongly enshrined a technology-neutral solution, for example, Wisconsin is one of the first states to have a really robust state-level grant program that expands broadband. And I helped work on that as a staffer in the Wisconsin legislature. We really enshrined that principle of technology neutrality in our laws. You want to compare that to a state like Minnesota. Minnesota had a similarly robust grant program, but it only funds fiber. Minnesota now has, I think, more challenging struggles in the areas that it needs to reach with its bead funding, higher costs per location, and different sets of challenges because it made those investments in fiber as opposed to other solutions that could have been a more effective tool. I think Wisconsin has done a great job of finding an all-of-the-above solution. When you look at Congress's BEAD program, that program was a strongly bipartisan solution to the broadband challenge, and it was because of that technology neutrality principle Everybody could come together and say we want to give really strong independent standards Look at the use case that you think you might need five years from now Let really be honest about what speeds are today what needs are today, and where they might be in the future. And let's make sure that we're not investing in AOL dial-up, not to slag-eyed in AOL, but let's make sure that we're investing in standards. Let's make sure that we're investing in end-user experience, but then let every technology come to the table and say, let me participate, let me put my best foot forward, and let me see if I can solve the problem better than the other guy. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate that. Also, just in closing,

thank you all again. And Chairman Struzzi, thank you for the opportunity to be here in this community. And thank you for the use of this building and everything that goes on here. And you know, as I was sitting here thinking about George Bailey, how he would feel when we talk about internet. I mean, George Bailey wanted everyone to be able to own a piece of America, right? The American dream to own a home. But Potter kept it away from everybody. And he wanted to control it all. And I think that But as we talk about that in A Wonderful Life, that's a lot of what we're talking about, too, with Internet access broadband. If everyone has access to this technology, then you can have a whole different kind of life. Whether it's a wonderful life or not, that's a whole different story. But it is that idea of the haves and the have-nots and who holds the purse strings to allow some to have and some not. And this is not an option any longer. it was 30, 40 years ago when it first began, but today it's a part of our lives. You can't start your car without internet. There's no way that I would have gotten here if the map on the car didn't tell me because I can't file a map if somebody had a gun to my head. I used to go to the trick thing, whatever it was, a triple A and turn the pages. Trick tip, yeah, whatever it was. So now the car says make a left turn, make a right turn. All access to broadband and internet and It touches every part of our lives, and as you said, technology will advance as we speak today. There's probably something new that's about to hit the market that we don't know about yet. So I look forward to dealing with all of you. Thank you again to this great town. I do want to say publicly, like I told the chairman, I did spend $100 already, and we'll be spending more. When you come to the southeast and come to Limerick, come to the outlet mall, the premium outlets in Limerick, and spend some money. but we need to be able to support each community equally with this technology to advance us and I appreciate everyone who came today and the staff who put this together and all of you who testified so thank you again