The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.
Joe Coldebella:
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Broadband Bunch. I’m Joe Coldebella. We are at Broadband Communities 2022, coming to you from the Harrison Edwards Summit Studio. My guess is the former mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and current special representative for broadband with the NTIA Andy Berke. Andy, welcome to The Broadband Bunch.
Andy Berke:
I’m so excited to be here. We had some conversation about whether it was broadcast bunch or brunch. It’s around 10 o’clock, Houston time, while we’re here, it seems like it could be either one right now.
Joe Coldebella:
Absolutely. Right. Definitely it’s a bunch. Before we dive into you, you’re here for the NTIA, could you give us a little bit of a background on yourself?
Andy Berke:
Sure. I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It’s a mid-size city in the Southern U.S. Over the course of time, I saw it transform from a place that was really stuck in the past to a place that was aimed at the future. A big piece of that was the fact that we built out the first municipal broadband to every single home and every single business in a 600-square mile area, so it missed no neighborhood, it missed no house. All of a sudden we went from a place that never would’ve considered itself to be at the front of technology, to a place where high-speed internet was synonymous with our name. We were called the first Gig City and used that to do a whole bunch of things about digital equity as well. I grew up in Tennessee, it was an amazing thing, I got involved in politics and to be the mayor of your hometown was an incredible thing. The place where my parents lived and had grown up, the place where my grandfather had lived, and this is the journey that has brought me to this point.
Joe Coldebella:
No, it’s a remarkable story, and just as a personal aside, I had a friend, I’m from the New York City area, and he said that he was moving, he’s in the advertising marketing, to Chattanooga, and this was in 2016. I was dumbstruck because it was one of those things where I didn’t know, and the more investigation I did, it must be incredibly gratifying to know how well you guys got it right.
Andy Berke:
It’s nice. We had one of the highest wage growths in the country for a mid-size city over the course of the last several years. In 2020 Forbes said that Chattanooga was going to be the number one place for new jobs over the course of the next year. Now, of course, 2020, didn’t quite turn out that way, for obvious reasons. I think that what it showed me is that putting more power in people’s hands, and ensuring that they had the tools that they needed to live the life that they wanted was incredibly important. I’m one of those people who think that we want people to be able to live whatever life they choose, it’s not for us to tell them what life they want, it’s for them to figure it out, and the internet is an incredible tool that allows people to do that.
Joe Coldebella:
Obviously, you were the mayor of Chattanooga until 2021, and now you’ve been tapped for a new role. If you could, could you share with the listeners what that role is?
Andy Berke:
Sure. I’m the special representative for broadband, and this is an appointment that allows me to be at the department of commerce, at the national telecommunications and information administration, and do a lot of work about what should our policies be when it comes to distributing high-speed internet around the country? How are we going to help spend this $48.2 billion that commerce has? Also, I do a great deal of external affairs, is the fancy term, but what that really means is I talk to people. I talk to mayors and governors and people in the service world, who are saying, we’re the head of the library, we’re the people who are at the local NAACP who are doing digital literacy programs. Whatever it is, I’m out there, usually talking to people, both making sure they understand what is happening at the department of commerce, and also making sure the department of commerce knows what’s happening out there in the real world.
Joe Coldebella:
Right? No. It’s one of those things where, I was here yesterday and I said that you were going to be on the podcast and people were really excited to have you here at Broadband Communities because it’s one of those things where it’s an exciting time. It’s also one of those things where it’s a little scary as well because we’ve got a really important opportunity here.
Andy Berke:
Yeah, we can’t mess this up and we’re not going to. The president has set an ambitious goal, which is to connect every American to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet. We’re in charge of making sure that that happens, and I know that we are going to be successful because there really isn’t another choice, but we have to work alongside everybody else to meet the president’s goal. I’m excited about it, I’m excited about what’s going to happen. This is a transformational moment, and sometimes it’s easy to miss that when you’re in the middle of it, but we’ve never had, before, this goal set at this level. Just think about this from a standpoint, it’s always been, we’re going to have this patchwork of networks built out over the course of the entire country, and people inside different cities or states can decide what they want to do about digital equity and things like that. Now we have the president saying, we’re going to make sure that every American is connected to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet, and we’re going to have digital equity at the forefront of the agenda, and a bipartisan group of legislators, let’s all say amen to this, a bipartisan group of legislators has literally bought into that vision by allocating substantial funds to do those things. It’s an amazing moment.
Joe Coldebella:
It really is. I hope people can grasp how much the internet and data are, it’s an avalanche that’s coming our way, and if we’re going to be looking forward, we definitely need to get prepared for it.
Andy Berke:
We absolutely do. Again, that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing so much talking to people, and being out in places like Houston today, and then I’ll be in Phoenix tomorrow, I’m in someplace else next week, that’s just the nature of the world that I’m in. We have to do that because the internet is not going to get deployed in Washington, DC, it’s going to get out there in Maine, Kentucky, Missouri, Arizona, in Texas, and we need communities to participate, we need neighborhood leaders to be out there working. Everybody has a role to play.
Joe Coldebella:
Speaking of the role you’re going to be here today, speaking in front of some folks, and you’re going to be talking about the NTIA and the distribution of $48 billion. If you could, could you break that down for us a little bit?
Andy Berke:
Sure. Let me start. We have two legacy pieces that we’re dealing with. One of them is we had some money from an old appropriations act, by old I mean 2021. We had some funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act and we had $277 million. Most of that, we’ve already given out and distributed to communities across the country and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in those communities. Coming up soon, we have, again from prior bills, we have the connecting minority communities.
Joe Coldebella:
Phenomenal.
Andy Berke:
Which is terrific, and you’ll see those grants coming out soon, and that’s before we get to the $48 billion.
Joe Coldebella:
Okay. Wow.
Andy Berke:
Okay. In the bipartisan infrastructure bill, there was $65 billion total for internet and connectivity. Of that, a little over 14 billion, went to the FCC, much of that is for a voucher-like product called the American Connectivity Program. Then 2 billion went to the department of agriculture, and the rest, that 48 billion went to the National Telecommunications Information Administration, and then of that 48 billion, again that’s what I’m dealing with, we have 42.5 billion, roughly, that goes to broadband equity, access, and deployment. I know, I know, this is Washington, DC. We got to get all the things. One of the things, Joe, I’m just telling you, is that not being from the federal government in general, I try not to use the acronyms.
Joe Coldebella:
Right, the alphabet soup.
Andy Berke:
The alphabet soup. I really try hard. The one that I just can’t get around is this 42 and a half billion for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment, which it’s BEAD. Okay, you just have to say BEAD.
Joe Coldebella:
Sure.
Andy Berke:
That’s too long otherwise. Then there’s 2.75 billion that is set aside for digital equity. For me, having spent a good portion of the last decade running around, talking about digital equity when people didn’t even know what the term meant, to see almost 3 billion is incredible.
Joe Coldebella:
Sorry to interrupt, but it’s so important because it’s one of those things where we get all this deployment, but if the folks don’t have access to it’s a real shame.
Andy Berke:
Right. It’s great to have an outlet in the wall, but you also need to be able to turn it on and then use it after you’ve turned it on. That’s what I really am focused on, and then you have a billion dollars for Middle Mile, which is basically the backbone infrastructure for internet networks. Then the final piece is, we had previously gotten a billion dollars for Tribal, we got another $2 billion for Tribal in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, so we have 3 billion total, and we know that lots of people in the Native American community are struggling with the internet, and this is a big piece to help them get connected.
Joe Coldebella:
Andy, we’ve interviewed a number of communities and the sacrifice those folks make, the ingenuity as well, they’re trying to do different things. I think this is one of the things that I love, that it carves out specifically for tribal communities because we got to make sure that we pull everyone along.
Andy Berke:
Absolutely. These are Americans who have been left out of the process in the past, and I think this is part of what the president is really focused on, is how do we make sure that we bring everybody along, there are lots of communities who’ve been left out of the internet world and the high tech world, let’s be honest about that. For us to succeed as a country, we got to make sure that every American has access.
Joe Coldebella:
I couldn’t agree more. That’s one of my big fears, is that the digital divide will not be eliminated, but it’ll grow, and we can’t let that happen.
Andy Berke:
The only way that we’re going to solve that is by executing this vision, and so step one is every American has to have access. If we let it play out without doing anything, without taking action, then it’s just going to keep growing. I think when we close that digital divide, we open opportunity, and that’s what we’re looking to do here. What has changed greatly, as you can see from this bipartisan group of legislators who have adopted this vision is, that people now accept that it’s infrastructure. That wasn’t the case, even five years ago, even this 2016 you were talking about with your friend moved, people, didn’t consider this, I think I did, maybe some other people did, but the consensus around that has evolved so quickly that we now have a president who’s leading on this and a bipartisan group of people who are endorsing that.
Joe Coldebella:
No, it’s phenomenal. One thing, in the industry we always talk about, is, is broadband the fourth utility. I think that hopefully, as it becomes so important, people will look at it as the fourth utility.
Andy Berke:
There is no question that that world is changing, and you just don’t hear the same arguments that you heard about Chattanooga, quite frankly, and that’s a good thing for our country. Again, going back to this moment, we have this transformative moment and it’s really important that we get it right.
Joe Coldebella:
Absolutely. One of the questions that I have would be, do you have any early wins so far that say that we’re going in the right direction?
Andy Berke:
Absolutely. Let me really talk about it from two different perspectives if I can. One is excited about the future, and the second is what we’ve already seen with the dollars that we have. On the excitement for the future, there’s a lot of pent-up demand and energy for this. We had a request for a comment like, hey, what should we do when we give out these dollars? We got 550 plus comments from groups and people who are interested, we’ve done stakeholder meetings to have more than 5,000 of those groups have attended these meetings. Everywhere I go, people are like, let’s do this what’s happening? Where’s it coming? What’s the process? I hear it from leadership in elected office, but I also hear it, as I was saying earlier, from the principal at the school, in an area.
Andy Berke:
Everybody is jazzed up and ready for this and that is incredibly exciting. Also, I think we need that actually to succeed. Then, the second piece is what have we already done? That is, as I said, we had this $277 million from a previous congressional appropriation, and so I’ve spent some time, we gave some funding in Maine, some funding in Missouri, some funding in Kentucky. I’ve been to all those places. I think I’ve been to some more, but I can’t think of it right now, but at least give me some of those, and what I’m hearing when I’m there from the neighbors in these communities who are like, here is what I’ve seen so far. I have seven or eight downloads and I’ve got one or two uploads, and then they’re talking about getting gig symmetrical fiber in their area and we have funded it, and there’s a carrier of some kind that is starting on it. You can’t believe how much people are saying this is going to change our way of life.
Joe Coldebella:
Those are just two phenomenal stories. Thank you so much. Obviously, it’s one of those things where we’ve got all this momentum positive. Have there been any challenges so far, or is it?
Andy Berke:
Well, yeah there are challenges. It turns out that making sure that you use $48 billion wisely, is not as easy as it sounds.
Joe Coldebella:
Oh, really?
Andy Berke:
Yes. That’s what I’ve learned. I would say there’s a huge challenge that’s upcoming, and then there’s a second challenge that we’re going through right now. Our notice of funding opportunity is going to come out on May the 13th, and we’ve been going through a lot of the policy questions that we have to have, to make sure that we can balance all these factors and ensure that, not only is there that outlet in the wall, but work on affordability and ensure that we have carriers, or some kind of provider, in all these places, because there really is a reason, in some of these places, that there isn’t internet. Let me give you one example.
Joe Coldebella:
Please do.
Andy Berke:
When I was in Maine a few weeks ago, I went to a place called Isle au Haut, I-S-L-E space A-U space H-A-U-T. It was an island off the coast of Maine, 50 people lived there in the wintertime, it was 45 minutes by ferry to get there, and we are making sure that they have internet, which is incredible by the way, just incredible that it’s going to happen. I’m looking at the terrain as we go to these places, I’m seeing what’s going on and the challenges are immense. We have to make sure that we use all the funding, but also that we use every dollar wisely because we have to get to places like Isle au Haut. We also have some areas that are flat and in the middle of the Midwest, so how do we ensure that we get the right solutions? Then the second piece is the federal communications commission maps, which are forthcoming, and are going to be a huge flashpoint for us, and I think everybody is concerned about making sure that we get the best quality data that we can because that is a necessary part of us figuring out, Joe, do you need internet at your house, or do you not? If we can’t have a good answer to that question, that makes it very challenging for us to distribute the money wisely.
Joe Coldebella:
It’s so funny, I hear it often, is that, in terms of the mapping, if you want to build a foundation, you got to make sure that it’s built properly and mapping is the jumping-off point.
Andy Berke:
Yeah. If you have internet, we don’t want to pay somebody to give you internet because that’s not a great use of our dollars, and if you don’t have it, we can’t miss you.
Joe Coldebella:
Right. Absolutely.
Andy Berke:
This is the piece, I know the FCC is working incredibly hard on this, obviously, they know the importance of this, and they’re doing everything possible, but this is a major challenge.
Joe Coldebella:
Andy, thank you so much for speaking with us today. As we wind down, one of the things that we love to do is ask our guests, our two standard questions. The first one is our back to the future question, so if I were to give you the keys to DeLorean, drop them in your hand, if you could go back in time, two years, one year, five years, and whisper in your own ear or in someone else’s ear, what would you whisper them to help this journey a little bit easier?
Andy Berke:
Buy Apple at the IPO? That’s what I would do. I think that this is a great question, and I guess part of this is my own point of view that I really don’t have a lot of, what would I do differently, because I think all of it is actually a process that leads us to the moment. I think the one thing that I would go back and tell anybody in this space is, keep it up actually, because it’s the momentum, it’s the accumulation of all the work that leads to this big moment where we see 48 or really $65 billion-plus in broadband and internet deployment. I think just some encouragement for people to say, this is a journey and there are bad moments, we certainly had some bad moments in this, and you have to go through those to get to the other side.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. Awesome. The converse, the crystal ball question, if you could look 3, 5, 10 years down the line, how do you see this all working its way out?
Andy Berke:
I think we’re going to continue to see internet usage as being thought of as something that every American should have, and as part of the infrastructure, I think that’s only going to grow with the dollars we put out. We’re going to succeed in implementing the president’s vision, I know secretary Raimondo at commerce, this is something she’s paying attention to every day, the White House, I feel this, I know other people feel it as well, in the department of commerce, is they know that this is a legacy piece for the president. They’re great things, and then there are some tough things about being on the president’s agenda.
Joe Coldebella:
Sure.
Andy Berke:
I think we’ll just see, really in that 3, 4, 5 years down the road, we’re going to see a whole different level of both access in general, and then also the way that we think about access will change, because the access has changed where we just kind of say, yeah this is what every American should have. Let me add one more thing, and that is my hope. My hope is that as we do this, we are also able to increase affordability, not just because of low-cost options for people, but because we see, with more access, some more competition, market issues, and other things that are driving down prices.
Joe Coldebella:
Tremendous answer. As we’re wrapping up here, what’s the best way for folks to get a hold of finding out information from the NTIA?
Andy Berke:
You can always go to ntia.gov, or there’s a broadband USA website as well. There are lots more information on there. We really do want to hear from you and especially your stories. That’s why I’m around. Again, based on my travel schedule and looking at my calendar, I might be in a place near you soon.
Joe Coldebella:
Andy, thank you so much. Truly appreciate your time. All the work that you and your team do, thanks so much.
Andy Berke:
Thank you, Joe.
Joe Coldebella:
That’s going to do it for this episode of The Broadband Bunch. Thanks again. Bye.
