Learning from New York City's Master Internet Plan - Episode 525 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Community Broadband Bits

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Aaron Meyerson, former Deputy CTO for the city of New York. Christopher and Aaron dig into New York City's Internet Master Plan, which launched in the spring of 2021 and gained steam before being put on hold by the Adam's administration in January of 2022.

Aaron shares the lessons he learned in creating a single, streamlined process for intra-agency cooperation in the name of facilitating a smooth experience for vendors and the value that unlocking city-owned assets can add to efforts like this. He also tells Chris about navigating the razors' edge of pursuing a large-scale solution, as NYC's Master Plan was intended to be, as opposed to smaller, quicker projects that could be turned around in a single election cycle and avoid the sometimes inevitable slowdown that comes with the changing of the guard.

Finally, Christopher and Aaron talk about NYC's new plan for connectivity in public housing developments, and their concerns about longevity and where the money's going. 

This show is 32 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Transcript

Aaron Meyerson (00:07):

I hope that New York City or other major cities pursue some form of publicly owned privately run networks, cuz I do think that there is tremendous amount of potential to change the long-term trajectory of cities.

Christopher Mitchell (00:20):

Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits Podcasts. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in St. Paul, Minnesota. Right now I'm here speaking today with Aaron Myerson, the former deputy CTO O that's chief Technical Officer, I believe, for broadband at the City of New York. Welcome to the show.

Aaron Meyerson (00:43):

Thank you so much for having me. It's

Christopher Mitchell (00:44):

Really great to have have you on the show. I was really excited that you are willing to talk because I feel like people that have actually tried to implement things often have lessons and they're not always willing to share them. So, <laugh>, I'm, I'm really excited.

Aaron Meyerson (00:59):

I'm, I'm happy to share what I can here. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (01:02):

Now you, you left the city recently and you're gonna be having an announcement sometime soon. That's

Aaron Meyerson (01:08):

Correct. I, I recently departed to pursue some other opportunities and will be, we'll be starting something new soon and I can share that once it becomes public.

Christopher Mitchell (01:18):

Excellent. And you were focused on, I mean, I'm sure that <laugh>, you know, c t o for the, for broadband and for the city of New York, you had a lot of things on your plate. But the thing that comes to mind for me as we were really excited when it came out and and hoping that it would lead the way for other large metros to inspire them was the internet master plan, what was that all about for people who aren't familiar with it?

Aaron Meyerson (01:43):

Yeah, so, and under my portfolio within the city you're correct. It was, it was implementing the internet master plan along with leading a lot of our digital equity and inclusion initiatives and a lot of our broadband data analysis and mapping as well. the internet master plan was a plan that came out and was published prior to my arrival in the city. This was January, 2020, is when the internet master plan was launched. And really what it was, was a full assessment of the internet ecosystem and marketplace in New York City and really laid the foundation for how to address inequalities that existed and some potential solutions to try and overcome that. and that internet master plan went into excruciating detail on, on the, on, on broadband and, and the problems that existed. and many of them were geographic in scale as well.

Christopher Mitchell (02:33):

When you say excruciating detail, like I, I think one of the things that I loved about it when it came out was it wasn't just like, lots of people don't have internet access and that's bad cuz we kind of want people to have internet access. It was like, we are losing this much economic productivity and we have these real costs and these real problems because of that lack of service. And I thought that detail was wonderful and, and well done.

Aaron Meyerson (02:55):

Yeah, I think the, the team that worked on it, I think did a fantastic of trying to understand and quantify what oftentimes is, is, is qualitative, right? Like the economic impact of lack of access. but when you, when you map it on top of a city as big as New York, you know, you do see compounding factors, right? The, the areas that are most underserved are also those that have larger minority populations, that are non-English speakers that actually were hardest hit by covid. and when you have all of those compounding factors, that economic impact of lack of broadband access is compounded by these other factors. And so I think when this plan came out pre pandemic it was very important and groundbreaking, and I think it became only more and more relevant and eyeopening. as the pandemic unfolded in the, in the months after its

Christopher Mitchell (03:49):

Launch, you were I think gonna talk about maybe where it was going and the challenges. I mean, you came up with this great plan and the problem is, and I think Josh Breitbart was really involved with that. And then he had moved on around the time of implementation.

Aaron Meyerson (04:03):

It was launched in, in early 2020. And, and the program actually progressed a bit throughout the pandemic. And then, and then we, we made some some large progress in the year ahead. One of the things that the city did right away was what the way called a request for expressions of interest or what we called an R F E I. And that interest was trying to drum up new vendors, new internet providers to provide service in underserved areas. So in, in designated areas that were identified in the internet, master plan is underserved, but primarily focusing on trying to engage small businesses. And MWBEs zero capital dollars needed just providing access to city assets. So city real estate, public housing developments in particular, which was nicha, the New York City Housing Authority. And that project was really successful. it had multiple vendors that went live.

(04:59):

We I think six vendors operating in 18 different developments all providing low cost service, less than $20 a month. Fast forward, many of those vendors were a c p qualified. And so that service dropped to zero. Fast forward a little bit more the city launched the request for proposals, or, or we called it the, the Universal Solicitation for Broadband Request for proposals. It's a, it's a mouthful, but the acronym is U S B R F P. we just called it the rfp. And that RFP was to try and really implement some of the big pieces of the internet master plan study. It had three work streams and three sort of main goals. One was to build new infrastructure that would be city owned that had previously seen in areas that it's pre, you know, previously an underinvestment by the industry.

(05:51):

The second was to identify a vendor to operate that. So again, this is sort of publicly owned, privately run. And the third work stream was a, a version of the R F E I but on steroids. So working with not a handful of, of city related, you know, city assets, public housing developments, but a hundred thousand. we had worked with 18 different agencies to align all of these city related assets. Everything from bus shelters to light poles to libraries, to, you know, anything that the city owned. Imagine that real estate that's sort of equally distributed throughout the city. If you could leverage that real estate to d place equipment, what could you do? and so those three work streams together were where the R F P and the first work stream that, that infrastructure piece had the capital dollars. So the city was committing 157 million to build out that infrastructure,

Christopher Mitchell (06:47):

Which is both a lot, but also within a scale of reason for the one new New York, New York City <laugh>. Yeah. Which is a, which is an entity unto itself.

Aaron Meyerson (06:58):

<laugh>, I think if, you know, if the city were, were to build its own fully to every corner of the city network, you know, it would be in the, in, in the billions of dollars. And so this was a not a drop in the bucket, but a, a really big step in the, in the direction to try and see if this could work. And then again, focusing on those, those geographies that were the worst hit first. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that was launched in March of 21. And throughout all of March of of 2021, we were negotiating with vendors on, on all of these different work streams. many of them m wbs so

Christopher Mitchell (07:37):

That's a minority women business what is it?

Aaron Meyerson (07:40):

Yes, it's minority and women owned business enterprises. Super excited about some of the partners. And then in October of that year, we actually made an announcement that was public. the R F P had launched in March of 2021. when we worked most of 2021, negotiating with vendors on each of the different work streams. vendors could apply to one, two, or three of the work streams or any combination if they wanted to. all vendors had to adhere to the broadband principles that were laid out in the internet master plan, which were principles about equity, affordability, quality, privacy, and choice. and so all of those vendors sort of committed to the, the principles that were laid out in the internet master plan in October of 21. we announced the vendors that we had been working with on any combination. We didn't say exactly where we were working with them, but we was publicly announced that we were, cuz those negotiations were ongoing and all of that work.

(08:34):

hit pause come January 2022 when the new administration under Mayor Adams took office and sort of paused the work, wanting to evaluate the R F P can understand with, with a price tag of 157 million, wants to make sure that it, it meets the goals and vision of, of their administration. so hit pause on that work and that, and that is currently sort of where it stands. it is still an open solicitation for those vendors that are, that the city engaged with. and the city is sort of currently trying to evaluate what it would like to do in terms of moving pieces of that R F P forward.

Christopher Mitchell (09:13):

Right? I mean, this is sort of for people who aren't as familiar when you change administrations you know, you have people that are leaving and new people that are coming. sometimes these are new political appointees. Sometimes it's just people who it's a natural time that if they were thinking about going to another job or another employer, like it's a natural time to head out. So this is the sort of thing that is, is expected although one would hope that it would re would've resumed at a certain point before now.

Aaron Meyerson (09:44):

Agreed. I think that there is, you know, certainly the desire for the people that have been working and studying this as, as broadband policy and program experts for years and and decades that you know, this, this is a well thought through and, and a good use of, of resources but understand that the, you know, the, a new administration has a fiscal responsibility to make sure that they understand where, where funds may might be going. I think that really leads me to, to some of the lessons learned, right? In launching the R F P and sort of where it stands now, I think from a asset strategy, and when I mean asset, I, I mean a real estate asset, right? So the idea of leveraging city's real estate, you know, rooftops libraries, public housing, police stations, light poles, I think that was proven effective through the pilot of the R F E I, which required, you know, no city financial investment.

(10:37):

we were just saying you can have access to our real estate. and so that was proven there and, and really would alleviate a lot of administrative hurdles on, on both sides of the equation. So from a vendor side, put yourself in a, in a, in a, in the place of a vendor or an, or an internet provider who's trying to expand their network and they're trying to engage with the city. Imagine having to go to 18 different agencies or go to the parks department and then the police department and try and get a real estate license agreement to place equipment on their building. It would be really confusing and cumbersome to do. And so this was trying to create a single point of contact you know, within the city for, for that licensing and, and streamlining the contracting and, and standardizing it for tho for those vendors. So really helpful for that.

Christopher Mitchell (11:21):

And when you say that, it sounds like, oh, well, yeah, we should just do this. But at the same time, those different departments have reasons that they do things the way they do and they have different concerns. And, and so like, it's, it's not a, it is not, like, there's not a reason that they each have their own processes, right? So like, it's a, it's a challenge I'm sure to work through that

Aaron Meyerson (11:40):

A Absolutely. but also when you dig a little deeper from those city agency sides, many of them don't have the technical expertise to do this, right? Libraries don't have a estate transaction team on hand, <laugh> that has an agreement to say, Hey, if you wanted to put you know, a satellite on my roof, you know, here's the things that you should be thinking about. It's not in their wheelhouse either. Sure. same thing for parks or police or others. It's not in, it's not what they do in their core. So what we actually found is that, you know, when developing the RFP and working through this, this was a big need from the city agencies as well, like the idea of offloading that work from them, and again, sort of standardizing it and creating a standard, you know, real estate license agreement for all of these agencies to use.

(12:32):

Absolutely. That some, you know, particularly N Y P D or parks where it's particularly public you would have additional clauses and, and de-risking that would need to happen and be added to that agreement. But the idea of having a standard license agreement was, was of interest to, to those 18 agencies when we launched this. And I think that was some that this was a lesson learned, like going through this process, actually doing it. we think that that's was a really good thing that other cities should try and do as well. And I think too, given it doesn't require funding, this is one of those things that if you get those agencies on board and you get a standard license agreement that they agreed to, you can deploy this pretty quickly and say, we're doing this right. You know, you can have access, you know, start tracking where these assets are.

(13:20):

So from a timing perspective as well, this doesn't have to be a long, a long cumbersome process, but can be something that that gets done. The other thing I think we learned through this process and some of the other sort of lessons learned I think the R rfp, you know, as I described it, you know, sounds pretty complex, <laugh>, there's three different work streams as part of it, doing very different things. and I think that there are, I certainly understand the reason for them to be kept together. There's, there's, you know, for example, if you have a real estate asset, you know, let's take a library for example, and you want to deploy, equip publicly owned equipment on it. So using those capital dollars, you would want them to be coordinated, right? You would want that work stream one and work stream three to be coordinated.

(14:06):

however, you don't want necessarily hold up workstream three, which could make assets available for the deployment quicker. So I think breaking up some of those work streams could be would be advantageous for, for New York City or other cities that are pursuing this to Duke in the future. And I think that particularly comes into play where if you're trying to build an asset and then you're trying to somebody to operate it, it's very hard to get a respondent to be an operator of a network that they don't even know what exists yet. And I think we, you know, the city saw some of that, but I think that my advice would be to go forward, you know, do an R F P to, to understand where you would build and what you want to build for, and then work to find an a, a provider that could operate that for you.

Christopher Mitchell (14:48):

Right? So it's one of those things, I feel like you have too many moving parts that are independently moving. You need to have a few things nailed down just to make it easier on everyone else.

Aaron Meyerson (14:58):

Yes. I, I talked with a small army of lawyers for months and it was agreed that this was the most complex R F P ever released <laugh> by the city. and so I think if you can try not to have that claim to fame, that would be good. and I think, you know, the last, the last learning on timing I think is what we started with here is that, you know, understanding the realities of, of leadership transitions and in mayoral transitions and, you know by targeting, perhaps, you know, breaking up the R RFP or, or smaller R F P or pilot to get it moving forward with agreements signed you know, might be able to move and make progress faster than sort of trying to lump it all together into this large, large project that it was,

Christopher Mitchell (15:43):

That's something that resonates with me because I am constantly pushing for that. I think that Seattle missed a major opportunity when they had some political will that some of the people who were pushing for it were kind of looking to go citywide. And I was saying, let's focus on a few neighborhoods and prove that it works. And the reason that I think we consistently see that local kind of smaller project pilot project approach rejected is politics. And, and, you know, I don't know if every single last person on the city council you know, sees themselves becoming mayor, but in San Francisco and Seattle, it seemed like that was the case, <laugh>, and they didn't feel like their political futures would be helped if they did a small project. And I'm, I'm curious if you think that's a challenge.

Aaron Meyerson (16:27):

I think it certainly is. And, and oftentimes with pilot projects, you're, you're picking winners and losers, right? You're picking an area to focus on first. You're picking one or two vendors or, or providers to, to work with first. which means that others are not being chosen, right? Other areas are not being chosen. And I think that's a really hard decision to make, but something that is needed. I know that New York City, oftentimes when they do pilot projects, they try and make sure that there's, you know, five one in each borough, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> so that you have an example to point to that every borough has gotten something. and that is true across technology, pilots, real estate pilots, other sort of of programs that the city's trying to do. you often see that sort of one per borough type thing. And and I think it's absolutely true in other areas too. It's a, it's a hard trade off to make.

Christopher Mitchell (17:17):

So is that sort of the the conclusion of what we learned in terms of you going through the R F P and the dealing with the respondents and whatnot?

Aaron Meyerson (17:25):

Yeah, I think that tho those are the big things that I've learned from, from this process. And we'll take with me into the, in, into the next endeavor as well.

Christopher Mitchell (17:34):

And so the, the next thing is, and this is, I mean, I, I I think we'll just be honest, for anyone who has any political awareness, we'll know it's difficult when you've served the city and now you've left the city to turn around and say the city's doing something wrong. But the city has announced a plan for getting broadband to people in public housing, and I think we have some concerns about it. so you probably know it better than I do. So if you just wanna go through the, the highlights of what the city has decided to move forward with right now while the the internet master plan has been paused.

Aaron Meyerson (18:09):

Sure. And, and I'm happy to say here too that this program, which is called Big Apple Connect, I, and I don't think anyone will ever fight what this program is trying to, which is to get residents in New York City public housing free internet. I'm never gonna fight with that.

Christopher Mitchell (18:26):

This is not a small problem, right? Like the population of people in, in under niha, the New York city Housing Authority is larger than most cities in the United States. Almost every city in the United States, <laugh>.

Aaron Meyerson (18:39):

Exactly. It is, it is, it is a very large population and have a lot of needs. and, you know, the New York City Housing Authority has a lot of issues that they're dealing with. And so, you know, this is one that the Office of Technology Innovation has tried to, to address directly. Maybe I'll take a step back and just describe what the program is mm-hmm. <affirmative> so Big Apple Connect is a program that was launched by the Office of Technology Innovation to pretty much provide free internet and cable TV to Nicha residents in about a hundred different Nicha developments citywide. there are, there are several hundred nicha developments with hundreds of thousands of residents. but they're starting with you know, a hundred,

Christopher Mitchell (19:29):

This is not all NICHA stakeholders or residents. This is those in a number of buildings in, in, in campuses. And some of those are, are very, very large, but there's not everyone in NICHA is touched by this big Apple Connect.

Aaron Meyerson (19:42):

Correct. So, you know, some developments could have as many as 10,000 residents in it. So these are very large housing developments. Yeah. so the program provides free internet up to about 300 megabytes per second. and free basic TV for those listeners that know, there's also the Affordable Connectivity Program that's operated by the FCC that provides free internet to those that are eligible.

Christopher Mitchell (20:07):

Right. There's a $30 a month which many providers have then made a, a tier of $30 a month. So it is at no cost to those who qualify.

Aaron Meyerson (20:16):

Correct. That's absolutely correct. And so this free internet up to 300 megabytes is provided by alts or Optimum and Charter, which goes by Spectrum, which are also offer the Affordable Connectivity Program. one of the qu the, the eligibility qualifications for the A C P is living in public housing. So every Niha resident household is eligible instantaneously, as well as any house that has a student public schools, given the free lunch program operated by the New York City department of Education. So every public housing resident can already take an advantage of the Affordable Connectivity Program, which means they could have free internet in their homes right off the bat. So I think from a, a pro side of the Big Apple Connect, it, it does provide a complimentary benefit to the acp. So should you want to use your a CCP benefit for your mobile phone, you could use the Big Apple Connect for your home.

(21:17):

But I think one of the, one of the things to, to think about here is that given ACP exists and the a c p costs $0 for the city to pay for the Big Apple Connect is a very expensive program that could have been achieved at a fraction or at no cost to the city. Getting full adoption by Nicha residents to take up a c p would be an enormous undertaking, an enormous win for the city. That is, that is a tremendous amount of savings that residents could have. you know, for example, New York City has 500,000, last time I looked 500,000 a c p registered households. If you do the math on that, I think it's over, you know, 10 or 15 million a month that they're getting in benefits. Right. Like it's a tremendous amount of money back in residence pockets. we also know though, though, there's about 1.5 to 2 million households that are eligible. So there's a lot of room to still get people signed up for this and money lying on the table that, that we should be supporting residents get. so this is very, very expensive.

Christopher Mitchell (22:23):

So there's, on the order of more than half of the people who are eligible for ACP in New York City are not taking advantage of that. Correct. And that's $30 a month. So we're talking about tens of millions of dollars per year Yes. Of, of many tens of millions. I'm just if it wasn't Friday afternoon as we're recording this, I probably would've done that calculation in my head. Better

Aaron Meyerson (22:45):

<laugh>. Yes. Yes. So at, at 500,000 at $30 a month, that's 15 million a month. Right. That are, that are in savings, and that doesn't cost the city a dime. Right. The, the FCC is paid for that.

Christopher Mitchell (22:57):

Just the cost of just the cost of paying people to go out and do the marketing and getting people signed up, because it's a nightmare for some people to go through the sign up. So the city would've had some costs, but Well, less than 15 million a month, let's say

Aaron Meyerson (23:10):

<laugh>. Correct. And, and, you know, the city the, the Office of Technology Innovation has, you know, in a, in a city council hearing a couple of weeks ago, testified that they expect this to cost, you know, an upwards of 30 million a year you know, to three year program you're looking at for

Christopher Mitchell (23:26):

Big Apple Connect.

Aaron Meyerson (23:27):

For Big Apple Connect, you're looking at 90 million that the city's committing to spend potentially where, you know, there's a lot of money on the table that could be taken advantage with without that, that expense. I think one of the other concerns that could be flagged is that this include any MWBEs or small businesses or have any adherence to the broadband principles like before. So even those vendors that are receiving no City Capital dollars that are working as, as R F E I vendors providing service to public housing residents through our program, you know, they're adhering to very strict broadband principles, monthly reporting requirements you know, and those sort of same M W B E requirements, broadband principle requirements are not part of the, the, the big Apple Connect, you know, and generally this, you know, the, the Internet master plan and the R F P we're about increasing competition.

(24:22):

and I think what we see is that, you know, this is working with some of the biggest incumbents that, you know, it took decades to create the Digital divide. It's gonna take us a long time to get out. That divide was created by the lack of investment by some of the major internet providers. And so by only working with them, I think you you know, are, are decreasing the competition and, and giving your, sort of, assigning some of those buildings to work with those vendors, it's gonna be very hard in the future to, to crack that open and get new, new providers into those public housing developments. Again,

Christopher Mitchell (24:56):

Not only that, but Charter Spectrum isn't just a large cable company, it's a company that there had been talk about kicking it out of the state of New York for the way it had just ignored numerous rules and regulations. it has been considered to be you know, I don't, I don't know enough about it to say specifically, but like, my understanding is there's a lot of people who had been unionized working for Time Warner Cable back in the day, who were deeply frustrated and, and are on strike against Charter Spectrum. So, I mean, this is a, a company that is not just like a company that the city chose to work with. It's a company that has a history that is not in the public interest. So like I'm just, it just frustrates me to hear that I,

Aaron Meyerson (25:40):

Yeah, I won't speak too much on that cuz I know that I, one, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not familiar with every aspect of the, the previous discussions relating to, to them and their franchise with the city and the state. But I, I understand your concern,

Christopher Mitchell (25:53):

Right? You, you've, you've, you've certainly seen that. I, I feel like, I mean, this was the, the Public Service Commission, I was shocked at how frustrated the Public Service Commission was officially at Charter Spectrum and, and the fact that they worked things out doesn't change that <laugh>, the Yeah. the thing that I, you know, I think we can leave with for people who are not in New York City to take away is the, the internet master plan was so exciting because it was a model for big cities. You know, Chattanooga building a municipal fiber network is great, but New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, you know, like these cities are, you know you know, like Los Angeles, Chicago, like, you just go through like even San Antonio where they have a lot of municipal fiber already, they're not in a position where they're likely to go out, build a network and offer services directly. But you have New York City coming out and saying, we're a big city. We have all this real estate, here's how we can use it and we can use it to help local businesses thrive. We can create competition and it's not even gonna cost us that much or be a big risk. It was so exciting and now it's just really sad that, that, you know, we still have the, the template and the blueprint, but the, the spark is gone in some ways.

Aaron Meyerson (27:06):

Yeah. And I think that that's one of the results of, of the way this has played out, which I don't think was planned. But because other cities look to New York City and this plan as, as sort of a litmus test, right. Of whether a large city could do this. I think that it should just be noted though that, you know, the pause of the R F P and the launch of Big Apple Connect should not be taken to mean that the R F P and and Internet master plan inherently failed in any way or, or are failing. It's, it's literally just a, a pause in a pause based on the sort of current administration. And I think that, I think that also that, you know, any delay, one of the criticisms of the internet master plan in the r p is that it's taken a long time to implement.

(27:51):

It's, it's, it's not making progress fast enough. and frankly, my retort to that is, you know, the administration paused it. so any delay that, that they might be discussing for this program was at their own doing. And so, I, I, I would argue that, that any blame for that is really disingenuous and it's really of their own making. and that, you know, this, I hope that New York City or other major cities pursue some form of publicly owned privately run networks, cuz I do think that there is tremendous amount of potential in leveraging assets, a tremendous amount of potential with sort of the, the levers that that can provide via contracting to bake in certain requirements to change the marketplace, to change the long-term trajectory of cities. And I really, really hope to see New York City and, and other major cities across the country pursue it in some way.

Christopher Mitchell (28:46):

Yes. I I hope so. And I think it is worth noting that this is this is still a situation where we have people who are with a lot on their plates trying to figure out how to make sure that families, particularly families with children in them have internet access today. And and, and so let's not, you know, think that anyone's doing this for other reasons, but you know, it's, it's disappointing and when you take a big swing sometimes you don't hit a home run <laugh>.

Aaron Meyerson (29:15):

Yeah. And I think that that goes back to what I was originally saying, right? Which is where this is not about what the, what they're trying to do, like getting people connected online Absolutely. Is just how you're trying to do it. Because what you don't want is you, you want to make sure that kept vendors are kept accountable and that you aren't hurting yourself in the long run by trying to do something bigger or different. which I think Big Apple Connect has the potential to limit the future impact of the internet master plan in some ways.

Christopher Mitchell (29:43):

Wonderful. I really appreciate your time today. I think, you know, as people go back, I hope that they will reflect on the different challenges of a complicated R F P <laugh>. I've definitely I've not been in a position as with as much responsibility as you have, but have definitely observed that I have to phase back my ambitious plans in favor of things that are implementable

Aaron Meyerson (30:07):

<laugh>. Yes. I think that's true. But I, you know, you're, you're never gonna land on the moon if you don't at least, you know, shoot for the stars. And so I think really going, trying to go big as big as you can and pushing as hard as you can for the right thing is, is always worth it. And so I think definitely we'll keep, keep fighting for, for what we think is right.

Christopher Mitchell (30:27):

Thank you for your time today, Aaron, and thank you. Good luck on your next venture.

Aaron Meyerson (30:31):

Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 (30:32):

We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at muni networks.org/broadbandbits. Email us@podcastmuninetworks.org with your ideas for the show. Follow Chris on Twitter, his handles at Community Nets, follow muni networks.org. Stories on Twitter that handles at muni networks. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from I L S R, including building Local Power, local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter@ilsr.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arne Hughes B for the song Warm Duck Shuffle License through Creative Commons. This was the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Thanks for listening.