Abraham Camez on Navigating Digital Equity with Acorn Wireless in Hoopa Valley - Building for Digital Equity Podcast Episode 19

Sean Gonsalves (00:06):
This is the Building for Digital Equity Podcast, where you'll hear from those working on the front lines to expand Internet access, address affordability, and help provide the digital skills and devices necessary to participate in a digital world. This show comes to you from the Community Broadband Networks team at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. [00:00:30] Here you'll find short interviews with digital inclusion practitioners from across the nation, highlighting the work and inspirational stories to ensure everyone has access to high-speed Internet. Now, let's see who we have today.

Christopher Mitchell (00:53):
I'm here with Abe Camez with Hoopa Valley, our Acorn Wireless within Hoopa Valley. Welcome

Abraham Camez (00:59):
Back. Thank you, sir. [00:01:00] Yeah. Also under the Public Utilities District for the Hoopa Valley

Christopher Mitchell (01:03):
Tribe, right under the indomitable Linnea Jackson. Yes, of course. And under the indomitable, I don't know how to say that word.

Abraham Camez (01:10):
Speygee. Yeah. Hi. Everybody calls him Speygee. I know him as Matt, but it's

Christopher Mitchell (01:14):
Right. Matthew Douglas. So we've talked before about the work that you're doing as a digital navigator within Hoopa Valley. You've done great work signing people up for ACP I think Hoopa Valley, Hoopa Valley's, Acorn Wireless ISP has really been a great service. [00:01:30] I wanted to ask you, as we're sitting here in February, anticipating the end of the ACP, what does that mean for people that you've been working with on the reservation and near the reservation?

Abraham Camez (01:42):
It means the loss of connectivity. Basically, our customer base close to 200 customers because as we're building up our infrastructure, nearly 40% of that is ACP clients. I think I'm right about 80 people now that I've been able to qualify and [00:02:00] transfer their benefit over for that ACP credit and that they're going to be losing that potentially. And we, following the guidelines of the FCC sent out our first notices and we gave them options. Are you going to opt in? You're going to opt out. And I've had more people come and talk to me. They don't know, do I go to the $40 package or do I stick with the $75 package, the two residential packages that we offer. And they haven't been able to make that decision yet because [00:02:30] they now have to budget that loss of that $75 or that $40 that they've been able to utilize going towards groceries, gas, electricity. Most of the people I've talked to have said that they're just not going to be able to swing it.

Christopher Mitchell (02:45):
And for people who aren't familiar, many, but not all of the people we're talking about qualify for the $75 a month benefit because they live on the reservation.

Abraham Camez (02:55):
Qualifying Tribal lands.

Christopher Mitchell (02:56):
Correct. Qualifying Tribal lands. Thank you for correcting me on that. [00:03:00] And also, some people who live on qualifying Tribal lands have been denied the $75 and they have the lower benefit that was available to other people because of policy

Abraham Camez (03:10):
Imperfections. That's not an issue that I've ran into though. Oh, okay. 100% of the clientele that I've helped qualify because of the Hoopa Indian Reservation is considered qualifying Tribal lands. I mean, it is considered a checkerboard reservation. There's different types of property that people can own and live on. I've not ran into [00:03:30] that issue. I do know that other Tribal ISPs have ran into that issue. So thankfully I haven't ran into that issue. I've been able to qualify everybody for that $75 credit.

Christopher Mitchell (03:38):
So I'm curious if you can share any stories about any people that have been able to get the Internet access because of the affordable Connectivity program benefit and how that made a difference in their lives.

Abraham Camez (03:53):
Yeah. There's actually one success story that I'm going to be sharing on this panel that I'm speaking on Thursday here at the Net Inclusion Conference. [00:04:00] The lady moved back from Chico. She's a Hoopa Tribal member. She moved to Chico, raised three kids, lived in a municipal area. She had access to reliable cheaper Internet. So when she moved back to the Hoopa Valley rule, not access to reliable Internet, qualified, her ACP, got her signed up for Acorn Wireless, and she was able to start a business from home. She's on a fixed income, and she's able to supplement that by using the Internet [00:04:30] with the $75 credit that we're able to get her and sell her jewelry online through the Internet.

Christopher Mitchell (04:37):
That's remarkable.

Abraham Camez (04:38):
And we'll actually be doing a giveaway with some of her jewelry at our panel on Thursday.

Christopher Mitchell (04:43):
Maybe we should auction it,

Abraham Camez (04:47):
But no, and I've kind of coached her a little bit on how to operate that. I'm like, update pictures,

Christopher Mitchell (04:53):
An online sales

Abraham Camez (04:54):
Platform. And I said, once I hand these cards out, her Instagram [00:05:00] people are going to be looking at it right away. And she's got some really beautiful

Christopher Mitchell (05:03):
Jewelry. I think people were checking that out while we were at the Hoopa Valley Tribal Broadband Bootcamp. Right. Yeah. That was great stuff.

Abraham Camez (05:10):
So that's one of the things that I could see as people having access, that that person was able to start her own online business. Other people have been able to get out from underneath Bills myself. I'm not an ACP client, but having a affordable, reliable Internet as we beef up our wireless Internet, [00:05:30] I cut the cord with my satellite TV and now I've got clients that I'm working with with ACP, and I've kind of coached them. I'm like, okay, well, they ask me, well, how do you have it set up at home? And well, my home Internet has a high dev TV with this router and the Roku, and I do this, and I do that. I stream, and I'm 150 bucks ahead. So I've got several clients that are waiting to be installed so that I can help 'em set the TV up, set their Roku, cut that cord, save money, [00:06:00] get ahead. So there's different kind of examples that I can use in that, but that's, like I said, I got multiple people waiting to do that.

Christopher Mitchell (06:07):
Right. I know that you don't run the office, but it's a small office. Do you have a sense of how the loss of the ACP revenue will affect Acorn Wireless?

Abraham Camez (06:16):
That's really hard to gauge. Right now, the main focus is on this fiber build that we're going to be working on, and that's grant funded, grant driven. So [00:06:30] once we get that done, then it's going to be that fiber to a thousand plus homes. So we're going to go from a client base of 200, maybe a little bit over to over a thousand. So there's really been no talk to say about that revenue loss because our numbers aren't sustaining yet, it's going to suck because I have a feeling we're probably going to lose. Of that 80 people that I have that are [00:07:00] my active client list, I would imagine we're probably going to lose probably close to 50% of those folks.

Christopher Mitchell (07:06):
That seems to be a common assumption. And among the 50%, some of them might be two months off, one month, two months on two, I'm guessing that sort of a thing as they figure

Abraham Camez (07:16):
It out. And a couple have actually, they've opted in to stay at the package that they're at. But if they have that option to go down to the 40 or they're going to go down to the $40 package, and if it's not enough to support their usage, they'll bump up to the 75. [00:07:30] I'll be curious to see how that pans out. I mean, fingers crossed. Very optimistic hearing the FCC Chairman talk about that during that hearing earlier. So we will see where it goes.

Christopher Mitchell (07:45):
Yeah, we're at Net Inclusion and Jessica Rosenworcel did an interview with Angela Sifer up on stage. I'll just say that I didn't receive it quite as positively as you do. I put a lot of responsibility on the chairwoman for not having developed a sustainable strategy to avoid us [00:08:00] from getting here. But a lot of the people I talked to did really appreciate her comments and I want to honor

Abraham Camez (08:05):
That. And that's where I'm at too. I appreciate her comments. And I told her that I was able to speak with her for a minute out here in the hallway, and I told her who I was, where I came from, what I represented. And I represent every one of my ACP clients when I talk with her. And it is kind of personal for me because I've had, when I've been able to qualify somebody, and they realized that, wait, I get this free. [00:08:30] And then recently with funding through NDIA, I was able to get purchase devices and all my ACP clients now have new Samsung tablets that what? I got this for free. And I'm like, and it comes with device support. Let me know. I'll help you. The look on their face then, and the people are just like, wow, I'm going to lose that. And that kind of sucks. And I'm like, but I am kind of an optimist in the sense

Christopher Mitchell (08:56):
It does. And it sounds to me like you're not having the same situation. We've seen in some [00:09:00] places where there is a sense that some of the people that have signed people up for ACP are fearing that the people who signed up will be mad at them because the benefit is going away. And they'll be frustrated and a little bit of the blame will come back on the ACP expert, like the digital navigator that helped them. You're not experiencing that at all. It seems like. I've

Abraham Camez (09:20):
Had a couple,

(09:21):
But I tell them it was almost a rehearsed speech that I have for everybody that I've ever signed up. This is a program [00:09:30] that's funded for the federal government. It may end if it does. These are the options. And I will let you know several months ahead of which I have following the wind down order that we've gotten through the FCC. So because I worked for an Internet service provider that we have that obligation to let them know. So I sent out the first notice, and so that of the 80 people, I've had a couple of people, but you told me and you said this and that, and I said, but I also said this, so sorry. [00:10:00] It's out of my hands.

Christopher Mitchell (10:01):
And that's just something you got to deal with. If you're going to try to help people out, you're going to be dealing with different people or in different positions. They're not all going to hear what you say. So you got to deal with

Abraham Camez (10:09):
That. And sometimes people only hear what they want to hear and

Christopher Mitchell (10:13):
Or remember what they want to remember.

Abraham Camez (10:14):
Yeah. That's a guy. Thank you. I

Christopher Mitchell (10:16):
Think my wife has incredibly told me that I have that problem from

Abraham Camez (10:18):
Time to time. It's a guy thing.

Christopher Mitchell (10:20):
Well, thank you, Abe. It's great to catch up with you.

Abraham Camez (10:23):
No, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Sean Gonsalves (10:26):
We thank you for listening. You can find a bunch of our other podcasts, [00:10:30] including community broadband bits at ILSR.org/podcast. And as we continue the Building for Digital Equity Podcast, we'd like to ask you a favor. Please give us a rating wherever you found it, especially at Apple Podcast. Share it with friends. You can even embed episodes on your own site. And let us know what you think. Write us @podcastcommunitynets.org. Finally, [00:11:00] we'd like to thank joseph cca.com for the song on the Verge.