Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: There we go. Alright. Welcome folks. House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. We are here today with, deputy auditor, Tim Ash. He's gonna present a recently published report. Just quickly, I'm rep Kathleen James Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John's Berry. Richard Bailey, 1 02. There's Morrow in

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: the Windham Building to Michael Southworth, Beligonia too.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Christopher Howland. I'm Robin Ford.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: We're moving again. Dara Torre, Washington 2.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Bram Kleppner.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Graham Kleppner, Chittenden 13 Burlington. Laura Sibilia. Windham 2.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. For the record.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Sorry to interrupt. I don't think the camera is on. Could there's some mode button. There's four side there.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: That it?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And just press it once. No. This is the mode. Muted. Snobbery.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Who is the photo next to the? Yeah. Who is that? Campbell.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, that's Scott Campbell. He was out of it at the end of the

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: you could see it on your side.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: No. We the one that we saw, we put it there so we know where to look when we were talking. I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: noticed that yesterday. That was still there, but

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: That's not a digital. No.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Now we we leave it just as a a honorary sign of respect.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: When all else fails.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Mhmm. Reboot.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I wonder if we can now. Move along without

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. We might just have to go without camera for now.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We'll just have audio?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: We have audio fine. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So apologies to anyone Trying to watch. Who's trying to watch. We're having some technical difficulties, and we know you can hear us. So hello, back to the Deputy Auditor.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Good morning everyone, I'm Tim Nash, Deputy State Auditor. I do like the idea that we're saying hello, expecting someone to say hello back. So in the interest of time, I'm gonna condense what I was gonna present, which was already fairly brief, but I'm gonna cut to the chase for why we wanted to make sure your committee was aware of an audit you've just released. So we are in the process of releasing four related audits that get to the heart of what I would call the state's customer service. So when a Vermonter calls specific agencies with a problem that the state is supposed to play some role in helping, how effective is the response from the state agency and are the agencies reviewing their own work to make sure that Vermonters are being served better? So we released one on the Department of Health's Food Navajoing Program. So when people call saying that there's a problem with a hotel room or unsanitary conditions in a restaurant kitchen or food service, what's the response like? We are about to release one for the Department of Financial Regulation for when people have problems with their insurance carriers, everything from auto insurance to liability insurance and so on. We have one that will come out probably in early February that's related to the attorney general's consumer assistance program through UVM to make sure the people who are getting that mediation assistance are getting some consistent response. But as it relates to this committee, we released one on December 29 about the Department of Public Services Consumer Assistance Program, CAPI, c a p I. And as you probably know, when the auditor's office calls an agency and say, We're here from the auditor's office that we're gonna do an audit fee reaction, it is less than enthusiastic. It indicates that there's going to be months of back and forth and a lot of finding and transmitting of documents, and of course, it opens up agencies to the type of review that the auditor's office does, but isn't always welcome. In this case, the department was really great to work with. Andrew Keegan, who was the key the lead on the audit, is here right now and can attest to that. So the department was great to work with. And I'll fast forward to the end. It's rare that you see headlines like this from audits that we produce. This was on the Vermont Public Radio story. State auditor says Public Service Department does a good job handling utility consumer complaints. So this is a good thing. They've received about 3,000 complaint calls over the three year period of the audit, which was 2022 through 2024. Of course, we found opportunities for them to make some improvements and be a little bit more consistent in how quickly they respond to people, and how they evaluate their work. And I will email you the slides since I put it up there, that talks a little bit more about that. Great. The reason we wanted to make sure that, we had a quick chance to come in was because there is one provision, one element of the audit, which relates to a kind of incomplete job on the part of the administration. And it dates back a number of years, so it's not about picking on this administration or the previous one. Back in 2016, the legislature required the Department of Public Service to come back to the legislature with recommendations on how compliance with CPGs could be monitored to avoid having individual Vermonters have to be the eyes and ears of compliance with, CPGs. I actually did some research last night because I was the chair of the finance committee in the Senate at the time, handled a portion of the bill that created this requirement. And I tried to remember what precisely was going on that led to that requirement, and it quickly bubbled up. One was noise issues from wind turbines. This was an issue where people in four or five communities were experiencing higher than what had been expected noise levels in different types of weather, at different types of the day, and certificates of public good had had conditions about what the noise, the decibel levels were about to be. So you had people kind of at their wits end on the ground who had to deal with the externalities from the wind turbines. And the question was, why is it on them to constantly be making phone calls to the Department of Public Service who, if it's in the middle of the night, are probably not gonna get in a car, drive to Sheffield or, you know, Georgia Mountain or wherever and put out a little decibel reader. So the question was how can there be a system to monitor this a little bit better? There was a secondary issue with some blasting. There were I don't know. This was in the news a little bit more recently where, in order to build a road up to where a facility was gonna be created, was some blasting, and people were noticing that large chunks of debris were landing in their yards, and that was a problem. So you can imagine different CPGs might have more or less problematic externalities. The department came back in one of its annual reports and had a brief passage that said something like, Well, this will be really hard. We're still thinking about it. You know, there are a lot of CPGs. They may not want us coming up with a whole system to monitor every CPG for, say, a rooftop solar. That probably isn't a worthy use of resources to monitor something like that. And then it sort of dropped off. And so, we interacted with the department over the course of the audit. I think they would come in and they will now come in, I think, and say what they think should happen, if anything. But we wanted to make sure that the the loop gets closed, if you will. If the legislature has has moved on from those concerns from back when this was put into law. That's your prerogative to say that you're okay with the department not coming up with a system. But that should just be finalized. So this isn't news to the department. We worked with them. They accepted all of our recommendations, including coming to you and saying what they think should happen at that meeting on this. So I suspect sometime in the coming months, we may come in and give kind of a a state of the department kind of report. They may, make a reference to this and tell you how they wanna proceed.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Right, Bill? I guess I mean, a little clarification. Could you give me the name of CPG, the acronym?

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: A certificate of public good. Okay. So this is typically, yeah, for those who are less familiar, when someone wants to install a new wind or solar facility, or or any other type of energy generation, and it comes with a whole variety of standard conditions and specific ones based on where it is.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: All the way down to a rooftop or anything here, like, for utility. Yeah.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: And the department, I think, reasonably says there are thousands of CPGs to have systems to monitor every single one of them might not be a good use of resource. I think that is true statement. Our question is what what if anything would be appropriate, and that is ultimately a treaty against the sidelines.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So so it was kinda left hanging by the legislature?

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Well, department came in and said effectively, we don't really wanna go there right now, and I think that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Everybody moved on.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Passage of time, people move on.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Remind, oh, sorry.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Was it left by the ESD that, oh, we'll get back to you, and they sort of never did this.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah. It's a little bit more mysterious than that. Okay. It was it was you know, we have some concerns about what this would look like. It would probably mean more staffing, some more resources, and the the wide open nature of the way the legislation was drafted could imply literally rooftop solar having monitoring systems. Right. I don't think that was ever what was intended. It was more the ones that might really

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So it never got to the point of anybody suggesting a reasonable threshold? No. Okay.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: That's right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rutland?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So during this recent three year period, were there complaints related to this problem? Andrew, do you wanna say say

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: your name for the record?

[Andrew Keegan (Senior Auditor, VT State Auditor’s Office)]: Andrew Keegan. I'm a senior auditor in the office. There were roughly 20 complaints between '27 '17 and 2025. So I had well, I think it's an accurate statement.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: And and just to put it in perspective, you know, things were different back in 2012 to 2015 because a lot of these projects were being built. So people were first experiencing whatever the new normal was going to be. And the only, documentary evidence I found when I was doing some review last night was, from John Copans. I don't know if some of you may be familiar with John. He used to be the deputy commissioner of the department, later worked for congressman Welsh. But back from 2012 to 2015, there had been about a 115 or so Georgia Mountain Wind, Lowell, a small turbine that Green Mountain Power has in Virgins and Sheffield Wind, and there were there were 470 total complaint, even a much smaller number of people actually doing the complaining because some of them

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: called multiple times. But in this three year period of the audit, it's

[Andrew Keegan (Senior Auditor, VT State Auditor’s Office)]: Yeah. Not negligible. Negligible, I think, is a is an accurate statement. Yeah.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah. And and and Vermont Gas, when their pipeline was being built down to Addison County, that would have been another instance where there was a a group who were particularly organized and keeping tabs on what was going on and were concerned about, the construction standards and so on. That that was an interim period between what I described from these wind cases and then what Andrew just mentioned. There were also some instances there of

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rep Bailey, and then Clerk Mary and then Howard.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Just to clarify, these are complaints on certificates of public good that we're you're talking about that we went we were we first started with consumer complaint.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: That's the department that was handling utility complaints. Okay. Then we moved on to something else. Now these are complaints. And and what were the what were one of the issues? Heard you say one of them was they're blown off the top of the mountain, and the the stuff was lying in in people's yards. Yeah. That that's what we're The core

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: the core focus of the audit were the more I won't say pedestrian because they mean a lot to the people, but someone's utility service gets shut off without notice. Someone has tried to come up with a payment plan to prevent their electricity from being shut off, and they need help because it didn't work. Okay. Those are those are the core of the 3,000 complaints over three years. Then there was this much smaller group where someone would call and say, maybe this wind turbine's not supposed to be operating after 10PM on these summer days, but it was. Right? That would be the kind of CPG complaint. Okay. Thank you. And and and that was something that the auditors found sort of incidental to the core of the audit work, and that's why we put it in what is called other matters at the back of the audit. It's it's something we stumbled upon, and we are obligated to alert each other. Who's next? Bram?

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Two questions. One, just a comment. I'm not sure 20 complaints in three years is negative. Well, wasn't for

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: him because he said 2017. Yeah.

[Andrew Keegan (Senior Auditor, VT State Auditor’s Office)]: So since 2021, they've reported receiving 17 complaints. They gave us more information than beyond what the audit scope period was, so 17 between so roughly four a year on average.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah. They could, of course, be serious issues, and I and that was really the core of discussion back in 2016 when the law passed, which is should it be on the individual to call? Should it be complaint based, or should there be some type of tracking system that makes it something that's feeding the department with the information and taking it off the shoulder of the provider.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And second sorry. If I could

[Andrew Keegan (Senior Auditor, VT State Auditor’s Office)]: add too, the the legislation did say with the intent of reducing the number of complaints. So that's kind of the the the balance of reducing 17 complaints, the amount of resources to monitor all the complaints to reduce roughly four complaint per day.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: No. But I am I am thinking about your question about thresholds, and and maybe it's also categories. Mhmm. Chunks of rock landing in your yard is Different. Different from this was woke me up too early this morning.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Right.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Know,

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: And my second question related to a different one of the other three audits you mentioned. On insurance, did that include health insurance?

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: You mentioned liability. It is the types of insurance that DFR would be managing. So so there is a oblique relationship to health insurance, but that those would not typically be the ones that I would say. Yeah.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: You'd mentioned that you track repetitive complaints, but what about complaints of roofs or people that aren't relative to a noise of a wind turbine. I mean, that's a few arguing between 35 decibels and 50 decibels. And but somebody is calling from Southern Vermont about the lower wind noise.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah. I I I think the department would view that as one that is a a bit starless or not worthy of a

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: A tracking or investigation. But they'd still record it. It'd still ring up in

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: It would show up as a complaint, and for then the question of how they resolve the facts of it, they might do an investigation. They may call neighbors and ask if they've been noticing the same issue. The department, I mean, that was the very positive takeaway. They're very responsive. They don't get 100 every time, but they are generally very reliable and quick to take people's concern. The number of times in the sample size we looked at that they respond to people within a day was very high. It was not a 100%, but very close to it, which is good for the consumer for sure.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'm interested in this notion of state governments customer service response, and, I'm wondering if you guys ever have the opportunity to, like you have four audits, you know, related to this topic. Right? Is there an opportunity to kinda take a step back and look across departments over those four audits to assess best practices? Yeah. And summarize kind of the themes that we've picked up on. Yeah.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah. I think that's the intent when we finish the four audits is to see what the common themes were. Think for sure, one of them is we we found data issues in almost every instance. Mhmm. And I'll I'll give an example. This I don't wanna flag it visually here because I don't want to overstate it, but in the reports that the department has issued to the legislature through the, annual budget performance measure report, if you've ever looked at that, which compiles the performance measurement for all the programs in state government. It the department has grossly overstated how many complaints it gets because they call they were considering every single phone call that comes in a complaint, even if it was someone at this table calling and saying, hey, I need a phone number to for Burlington Electric, can you give it to me? They were calling out a complaint, and then they were saying they resolved the complaint. So the data issues are real because you wanna know, like, what really is the volume of activity to know whether you wanna move resources around. The data issue is also real in that that program managers have a hard time knowing why what the trends are. Are they seeing particular utilities being too quick to shut down service? Are they seeing particular utilities who are too slow to try to come up with a payment plan for people who are in arrears? Those kinds of trends aren't aren't being reviewed probably as as much as they should. There's also not a lot of follow-up with consumers and people who call with complaints to say, did you feel like this process went okay? So I think we can assume generally if people don't keep calling back, they probably feel things have been resolved. But there's a bit of an unknown sometimes about whether people truly feel like they got the type of service from the state that they they should have found. So we'll be looking at those themes and trying to come up with a broad kind of capstone. Can

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: you send that to us? Of course. Thank you. Thanks.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I think Brett Campbell and Corey, and then I I think we're gonna need to and Sibilia. Sorry. And then we'll move on.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, maybe I I can make make it short. My question is about customer satisfaction also, and I was just looking at the report that you have a section in there about that. It did is is part of part of the audit if you try to assess consumer satisfaction, or you didn't have time

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: for that? Maybe that would you characterize that.

[Andrew Keegan (Senior Auditor, VT State Auditor’s Office)]: We did not specifically call consumers who had made a complaint and follow-up and see. That wasn't part of our audit process. No. If that had changed your question.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Okay. Very well. So I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I guess the recommendation is to is to implement some sort of survey process or something. Yeah. The Department

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: of Financial Regulation does do so. Yes. And so that we were when we were discussing it with all the different oddities, we've been very clear, like, that there's a there is a path to have this kind of post incident engagement, which isn't burdensome, but that'll be really helpful. Yeah. Good. Thanks.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Victoria? Hi. So just on the disconnections point, if you were mentioning, I'm thinking about the PUC and the information they get directly from utilities. Is there ever any interplay as far as you know between the two, the department and the PUC data to see those trends?

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Well, interesting. One of the findings in the audit is that the department does not have a procedure about when they should alert the PUC a recurring problem and that they should establish such a procedure. If you have a utility that seems to keep popping back up with a particular concern, which might be a violation of that utility's operating conditions from the PUC, there is no clear sort of threshold at which the department staff are to alert the PUC, and we encourage them to create such a thing. And I think their their their feeling, to be fair, is that intuition guides a lot of their work. They they know this industry, and I think they feel like they as they take the totality of what comes into them for for consumers, that they know when something rises to that level. But because they don't have any procedures, we found instances where they just weren't doing it. You might have different staff taking a different approach to the same level of concerning results.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: My question is simple, and I don't know if it's for you or Chip or that to be out there, which is for your support. You can't find it on our website.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I apologize. I don't think it's posted to the website yet. I

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: I'll send you Thank I would have I would have dazzled you with, and the audit link.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. So

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: They get out of your hair.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. Thank you. I I can't remember whether I sent it to the whole committee or just but anyway, we will get it. We'll respect your testimony and the report posted today. Great. And, sounds like we should close the loop by having DPS come in

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: and Yes. But also remember the positive. They do a good job. Well, complaints. This is a They do. We we like celebrating the positive.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So Actually, that's why I invited you in. I seriously, I thought, you know, we always call everybody over here when we hear bad stuff.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I thought it was worth noting the fact that Abby is doing a great job with consumer complaints and experience with them. Yep. So it was actually the original point. Now you've given us We're

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: we're closing on positive.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. That's great.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Alright. Audits, we can do a 100 page audit that 99 pages say things are going great. The one page book is the one that will get the attention, right, that that talks about something that didn't go so well. So Yep. It is good to have a top top line Yeah. Based on the side.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, thank you for coming in. I'm sorry we had to cut it a little bit short, but

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Not short

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: at all. I feel like folks had a chance to ask questions. Yes. And appreciate your time. So we'll look at our we'll look at our inbox for your materials, and we'll I'll get them out to the committee and then

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: I'll send you a little kind of preview of the PGS audit just so that yeah. You know, it won't surprise when it when it comes.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. And when's that coming

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: It should be should be just a couple weeks.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Well, then we'll see you back. Yeah. Great. Alright. Thank you so much.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Thank you. Nice to see you all.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you for coming over. And I think that we should just move along. Looks like we have our next witness. Hi, Sarah. All right. We are shifting gears here. So we are gonna be taking some testimony today and over the next week or so on consolidated communications slash Phytium and the application to continue legacy voice service. So I think that we'll probably just does anybody wanna anybody from the committee wanna make any remarks before we get started, or do you want me to turn it straight over to our witness?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I'm shall I I think so. Why I asked for work, because Sibilia

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I think it I think it might be helpful for committee members to know a little bit about your back your recent background with this issue and the work that you've been doing before we came back to the State House.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And Sure.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry I didn't give you a prep on that. That's okay. Sarah, give us just a minute, but we're gonna catch everybody in the broader YouTube world and some of our committee members up with the work that representative Sibilia has

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: been doing. Yes. Thank you, madam chair. So, interesting to come right after the report on CAPI, which this directly connects to. I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: have had a lot of

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: experience with CAPI because of Consolidated and my constituents over the years. And, this summer and fall have I've observed over many years that, there'll be times when we'll get a big cluster of complaints, and usually something's going on to Consolidated. And that happened this fall. And I was talking directly actually with Hunter Thompson and consolidated and trying to rectify those issues and actually asking directly about the retirement of copper and how my constituents would be notified. And that question was not answered. And I later it was not answered until after the FCC had granted this request from Consolidated Full Retirement of some of their cover. I may be using the wrong word. I'm sure Sarah will help us understand what their petition was about. And it turns out I had been asking the company right during the period of open comment public comment for the FCC about when they would be doing this. Subsequent so so I I think that's a pretty big issue. These are is a company that receives a lot of public dollars, and serves all of our most of our constituents and with some pretty critical critical services. In addition, you know, during some of my investigation afterwards, there are there are copper reliant, services. I've been assured that those can be adapted to fiber, things like life alerts and other. But that really does require notice. And for folks that are have life alert and and other, they're they're pretty vulnerable. And so I became aware also of other constituents who have shared that with the chair, the vice chair, who had had an issue with their life alert, did not realize that they no longer had that surface through copper. And I think that where we're going with all of this is probably inevitable. I question the intent to help Vermonters, consolidated Vermont customers, make this transition in a way that's appropriate. And so I think that's enough. The notice, I think, was pretty interesting in terms of I question the intent of really helping Vermonters make the transition with the company. So thank you for having a hearing. I'm interested in hearing what the company has to say. I've asked them for some information, which I've not received all of it yet about their notice. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks, R. Sibilia. And, Sarah, thanks again for joining us. I'll have you introduce yourself for the record in just a sec. And I think we're interested in hearing what we already let you know we were interested in hearing about. This is for me anyway a new topic. And so I don't even know the basics of really how it works when, you know, you put in an application to the FCC to, you know, to make this move. And so if you could start at the beginning and, introduce yourself for the record, and we're eager to hear from you today. We've got until, 10:30, I think so.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Excellent. And apologies. I woke up with a little bit of a cold this morning, so apologies in advance. I'm not at the top of my game. But, yeah, I intended to give short testimony regarding, what's occurred and then try as best I can. There's a lot of petitions before the FCC that you can file related to to technology transitions and moving off of old networks. And so I'm going to try to simplify it and tell you a little bit about what we did and what we didn't do because there's confusion sometimes about that as well. And I'll try to be the rules are pages and pages long. The orders are hundreds of pages, but I'll try to be as concise as possible with respect to that. So Chairman James, members of the committee, my name is Sarah Davis. I am the vice president of market development at Consolidated Communications, Fidium Fiber. I have worked at the company and its predecessors since 2007. I'm here today to testify regarding the company's process for transitioning customers off of legacy networks and on to advanced communications infrastructure. The company began this process in November 2024 and to date has notified over 12,000 customers of the transition off of older copper networks onto advanced fiber optic networks. The process in Vermont began in June and consolidated has notified over 2,800 customers. To date, the transition has been completed on all but approximately 1,100 that are scheduled to complete at the end of this month. The FCC created this process infrastructure in the case of consolidated Vidium fiber, that is fiber infrastructure off of copper networks and onto fiber infrastructure. The FCC allows for a streamlined process. It has a number of processes, but its most streamlined process happens when the company is transitioning customers off of the copper network and has a fiber replacement product for that product. And that's what we're doing. Our notifications currently only involve consumer customers and it involves only areas where we have fiber deployed and we have a specific replacement product for those customers. There's multiple other processes. There's processes where if you can show competition, whether you have an alternative service or not, you cannot. Obviously, the further you go down that line, there's more process, more notice, more requirements. But this process is specific to places where we have, a fiber alternative. We're only notifying those customers currently. We filed a petition with the FCC. It's a thirty day process in this instance for approval. Frankly, what happens most times is that nobody there's no response whatsoever and it goes into effect by operation of law, meaning that, you know, the FCC doesn't order doesn't, you know, produce an order essentially. They just, under their rules, you know, if they don't decline it in the thirty days, it goes into effect. And that's what's occurred in, I think, there's four different, waves in which we have noticed Vermont customers. Through this process, to the extent these customers are in our communication union district partner areas, we have notified at the beginning, before the petitions, all of our communication union district partners that this process was happening and provided information to them. We have have weekly meetings, in the case of our three larger ones with those those, partners, I should say maybe biweekly meetings with two weekly meetings with one and then Chittenden, which is a much smaller one we have monthly meetings with. And we keep them informed throughout the process with respect to that. As part of the process, we are required to send notice to the governor's office and to the Public Utilities Commission in Vermont. We do that. We do that via regular mail. And that's the process. With respect to customers, we give four months notice to our customers. So we start our communications four months in advance of the disconnection date that we state. We provide mailings twice a month on the first and third weeks of the month in between, to the extent the customers have provided an enabled SMS or text messaging, we also provide communications via that. We do call outs the entire time. In the fourth month, in addition to the the two notices and the SMS texting, we call every remaining customer that has not transitioned at least four times, usually more if that's what it takes. It is the goal of the company to make the transition of all customers. We obviously do not intend to or want to disconnect anyone. At the final stage, if there's anyone remaining that has not taken action, that number tends to be very low. We do what you call a suspend. And so what happens is the customer is still fully connected. It's just when they pick up the phone, they cannot call out other than to customer service. And then they'll be in touch with customer service and we'll talk them through what happened and get them, you know, in the case of if they want to disconnect, we talk about that and disconnect. If they want to transition to fiber, we put the copper back on until the scheduled date of the fiber, installation, till we've completed the installation so that they have a service, so they're not left out in the cold. The cadence typically is very slow movement. I think this is just typical of everyone in the world, very slow movement at the beginning. And as the date approaches, there tends to be a very large flurry whenever you provide a drop dead date, people start to react more as you get closer. Our communications start to indicate a little more sense of urgency, of course, as we get closer to the date. So I think I think that pretty much covers it. Happy to answer any questions or or flesh out anything I may have missed or not fully explained.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm glad you came to a pause because I I was just about to interrupt you. I I have so many questions that I was trying

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: to get

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: on while you were while you were giving us the overview. So I'm gonna go. If it's okay, I'm sure committee members are gonna have a ton of questions too. But I wanted to drop back all the way to the beginning of your testimony and make sure I understood that right now, so the the okay, I I think that what I heard you saying was that right now, you have only filed with the FCC and received kind of de facto or passive. So it just went into effect with no response. So it went into effect after thirty days. And is that only for, Is that approval only for the regions where you have a fiber replacement product deployed and available or is it a blanket approval to remove it wherever you're operating in the state and you're just moving forward now with those areas where you have fiber available?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: It is only for the areas where we have a fiber replacement product available to those. Specifically, even more specifically, not just a region, but specific customers, because a customer may live in one of our serving areas, but be really far from our fiber and we're not able to serve them. That customer would not be noticed at the time at this time.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So right now, we're we're only talking about the universe of places where PDM fiber is available. I live in one Exactly. Okay. And when you talked about the notification then, you said some numbers. I wanted to go back and make sure I understood that. Yes. So you said, so far you've notified 2,000 customers or or whatever that was. And I I wondered if that number was at the entire universe of impacted customers. What what percentage of so I live in the Southern Vermont CUD area. So I have Phytium. You guys, I live right in town. I know I have customers who live way out. So have you guys notified every single impacted customer in these regions? Or have you notified 85% of them and 15% you couldn't get to? Or

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. So we notified, all of of the over 2,800 customers in Vermont that we, that are impacted by this, we have notified all of them. To be clear, it's only customers that would be impacted, meaning customers on a copper service. So if you had Fidium fiber, you had already made the transition, you wouldn't be notified because you wouldn't be impacted because there's no transition necessary. But any customer that we are then going to, you know, force, if you will, off of that network gets that notification. And to be clear, they're all current customers. Right? So we send them a bill every month. So when we notify them and send them notice, we have mailing addresses and, you know, we're getting we're getting this information from them because we're sending them a bill every month. So it's not the same as, like, when we do marketing and we're kind of, you know, trying to figure out addresses and there can be some, you know, returned mail and things like this. These are people we have current relationships with and send them mail every month so we know how to get the mail to them.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And I have just a couple more questions and then I'll turn it over. So, one area I want to make sure we explore but I don't want to talk about right now because I think representative Sibilia is going to have a lot of questions here. Just want to put a pin in the thought of broader public comment period. So, heard you say you notify your partner, your CUD partners, the Governor's office, the utilities. I think we'll talk I wanna learn more about that. But for now Pardon? They did not say utilities. Okay. I

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: didn't hear that. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry about that. I never mind. We'll come back to this topic. So the notification of customers, I heard that you start this fairly comprehensive notification process four months in advance by regular mail, by text if you can, and the phone calls that start in the last month and one thing I wondered was when if folks have and I'm sorry if I'm not understanding the tech, but if if there is someone who only has an old copper line, that's all they have and fiber is available, are you asking them to switch to something that's more expensive or they might not be able to afford?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: No, fiber services in all instance are less expensive than copper services.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That was my those are my kickoff questions.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I have a

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: related question to the services. Is there is there a transition cost, a one time source cost from switching from copper to fiber?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Nope. We do not have an installation cost for any of them. We even provide drops. So our current our policy for drops is 2,000 feet. Right? We will provide free an underground drop up to 2,000 feet. In these instances where it is a forced transition, we waive that and we'll install greater lengths, if you will.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Thanks. This is very interesting. I'm interested in the the universe of of the number of customers you have on copper now roughly. Do you have a sense of that?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I do not have that right in front of me. I'm happy to get back to you on that. I don't have it right in front of me.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, and so just related to that, how many of those customers have, fiber access, currently? Is that the 2,800?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: It's more than that. More customers than that have fiber access. The only ones we're notifying are people are the universe of people who are on an existing copper service, and we're making this transition to fiber. So more customers have it available like chair James said, she has video, right? She's in the universe of has copper, has fiber available, but isn't noticed because she's already on the fiber or they may have another provider. And so they don't have our copper services, so they don't get a notice. So it's much bigger than the 2,800 that have fiber available.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I didn't ask that very well. The number of of your customers who are relying on copper now who have access to fiber, Is that the 2,800?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: No. It's larger than that. Yeah. Have we will have waves in the future of areas where we have deployed fiber, you know, and haven't yet filed. So that is one universe. We also have not yet made the transition for voice only customers. We have we are making the transition for customers with Internet and then Internet and voice combined. We find that the most sensitive are those with voice only. Have not yet noticed and made that transition.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Oh, well, so this is interesting. So the the 2,800 customers are people who are who are using DSL for Internet service? Yes. Is that right? Yes. So it's only those customers?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yes. DSL or DSL plus voice, not voice only customers.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Well, that's interesting. Do you I guess I'd be interested also in the trajectory of of of replacement. How long do you think it will take to replace all of all of your copper customers with fiber?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: So we have current build plans to make replacement through 2029. We are generally as a company projecting, we have a goal of 80 replacement. We likely will not replace all, onto fiber. Specific examples are places like the NEK CUD where the government is funding another provider to deploy that service.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And last question is, the fate of the copper lines that you're replacing, you taking those down?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: The the copper service. Is that what you're asking? Am I taking the copper service down?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Copper wire. So are you are you taking them down or are you just leaking them?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. No. The intent is to eventually take them down in most cases. In some to some extent, they are it's on strand. It's on supported strand that we've overlashed with fiber. And so there isn't, you know, up on poles, there isn't a huge need to take that down. But but in the underground and where there's large cables eventually. Now that's that's that's years away, to be clear. That is not 2026 or even 2027. That is a longer process. As as I started at the beginning, consumer customers are the first targets and, commercial can have a myriad of products, particularly state governments, emergency services. They need really particular things. And so that transition particularly is more of a you know, you really have to handhold that transition. Each customer is different. The products and services they need are different. You know, you you have to be that will just take longer. It's you have to be careful with that.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You're welcome. Representative Southworth?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So I guess I just need clarification. I heard you say that this is for DSL and online people. What about people that just have phone lines? Where do they fit into transition

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Finish your statement.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: No. I was where do they fit into this?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Okay. Sorry about that. Sometimes I jump with a pause. They they are have not currently been notified. They will be notified, in the future. We don't have an exact date for that, probably towards the end of the year. We're working on making sure we have a really good replacement product with really good, just understandings and conditions about what that replacement product entails. There's a a tariff rate for a blessed service that we have to offer, which is much it's much higher than our our current VoIP offering. And so we're we're making sure the we have a product that that matches and fits all those definitions before we jump into that transition.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So you don't have an idea yet on the cost comparison between voice over copper or voice over Internet protocol?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Well, I do. So, you know, in in general and there's taxes and fees and slicks and arcs. And if you ever looked at a a traditional telephone bill, it's it's full of things. But say, approximately $40 for a copper a copper phone line, a a VoIP over Internet addition to your Internet service currently is $15. When we make the just voice transition, we will have to mirror the tariff rate, unless, you know, unless something changes in the regulation in the state of Vermont, which I don't foresee.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: During your filing, does that filing, the approval that you just got, does that include the voice only, or is that just the DSL voice?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: It includes the it includes the ability for the voice only, but those customers were not included in the notice.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So you have to file again?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We have to file and re notice. Yes.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: And when are you planning on doing that filing?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We don't have a specific time. I'm thinking towards the end of the year, but we we don't have a specific date for that. So There's the dependencies.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry. I just wanna make sure that I heard what rep Southworth heard, which is it when it comes time to undergo this process for people who are currently voice only, you will have to file with the FCC again. Yes. Okay.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: And two questions. One is why are you doing the voice only separately?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Because of state law requirements with respect to what you have to offer, for service, we are trying to meet all of our requirements, and one of them is a state sort of tariff service that you have to offer currently. That's the current state of affairs.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Got it. And when you switch, a voice only copper customer to voice only fiber, you said you need to match the tariff rate, but I didn't quite understand whether that meant the $40 a month or the plus 15 a month.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. It's the 40. So it's and and I'm I'm simplifying with the 40. There are there are options. There are things. I'm I'm I'm just trying to simplify just to be clear. That is not exactly the rate, but it's, depending, you know, you can get it with a bucket of minutes or you can get it with long distance or it's very complicated, our local service rates. So I'm just trying to simplify to give you a sense.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. So but your sense is the the monthly charge will be roughly equivalent to what the bank offer. Yeah.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. I mean, as we understand it, we're we're required to do that because that's a service we are required to offer in the state of Vermont.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Representative Howland.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: So you had mentioned CUDs and your relationship with CUDs, and I think you referred to Chair James' area as being that she was Phidium and she thought she was a CUD or she mentioned CUDs. In the areas where CUDs deploy fiber, you have not. Are these customers going to be forced to establish a relationship with their CUDs?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I'm just going to back up just a tiny bit. So we have a relationship with four CUDs or CUDs as you call them. And so we are the CUDs partner and we deploy the fiber. So in the case of Southern Vermont and Chair James, she's right. She has Phytium service. It's the Southern Vermont CUD. We have a partnership with them and we deployed the fiber. So that's that's one group. Then obviously, there's other CUD's in which we do not have a relationship. Are deploying their own fiber. Eventually, we will transition off the copper network, but there are no immediate plans, you know, say next two years, certainly no plans to transition in those CUDs and and force them to establish a relationship. But it is impossible for a company to compete with a government funded entity.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: What about purchasing the government funded entity?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I mean, that's I can't speak to that now, but that's you know, obviously, as a company, we'd always look at anything that

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: One of the financial networks came out with Spectrum is now owned by Charter and Charter made some filing and they're just have extremely large debt where cuts do not. So you got to pay interest on debt. How do you compete? Just a a comment and a vision of mine. But the other thing, the CUDs came in, and they when they talk about overbuild, they're putting a fiber over a utility pole that has communications on it, be it consolidated or whoever. And in the wide world of consolidated, overbuild is lashing that cable to the existing messenger supported cable, whether it's all one cable inside and lashed over. So there's a future replacement problem on because you've lashed over a cable you're no longer using, messenger life and and the like.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: There can be. I mean, it it makes it more expensive to take down the copper, but that doesn't mean there isn't. You know you know, copper has value in the world. There is. There doesn't mean it doesn't make any sense to ever do that. Oh. It just makes it more expensive. Like, it's the the copper is supported by the strand and then the fiber is lashed over it. It's not impossible to unlash it. It's not it's it just makes it more expensive if you were to completely take down the network.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I've seen representative Sibilia's pen moving to my right. Think you sounds like you have some questions.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Great. Thanks, Sarah. Can you I wanna ask you about the notice that you provided to Vermont regulators and policymakers. I think you said you noticed the governor and the PUC? Yes. And so not the Department of Public Service? Nope. Not the E nine one one board. Department of Aging and Independent Living? No. Okay. And you have a lot of customers. You have customers that are disabled or aging and rely on specialty communications devices.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I'm sure that is true, but I don't have those numbers.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And do your customers rely on, 911 or to have public health, public safety, respond to them, emergency personnel?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I mean, certainly, we provide a service that allows access to 911. How how reliant on that is they are? I don't know. But absolutely, do we provide access to 911?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And so despite the fact that there have been multiple investigations about consumer protections here in Vermont against your company. Presumably, you would say that you care about your customers? We do. And so can you explain to me why you would not reach out to the nine one one board and the Department of Public Service to make them aware of these transitions?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We we did not do it as as part of our process with respect to the transition. You know, our our fitting fiber customers have the same access to nine one one as our our corporate customers. Nine one one is not impacted by this transition.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So that was my question. My question was why you did not notify the nine one one and the Department of Public Service. When these transitions happen, are there is is it flawless? Are there ever any issues when these transitions happen in terms of loss of service or, you know, people maybe missing the notice, or has this been flawless for you?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: So it's largely I won't say I mean, flawless is like nothing is flawless, but we have had a lot of conversations with customers. We've done 12,000 of these over a year, and we have take each customer individually. You know, we've been on with alarm companies when the customer's like, my alarm company is telling me it doesn't work. We have had people jump on to the alarm company and usually it's the alarm company doesn't want to admit that they want it that there's a new piece of equipment they need to bring out to the customer, those kind of things. But we have not had any complaints from any nine eleven board on this transition and the customers that we've already transitioned to Vermont, we have not. The one question I received from Barbara Neal with respect to this was about continuing independent telephone companies, the small telephone companies trunks to the 911 system and I believe that's because we have a requirement to provide access to 911 no matter the technology and so we do that on on fitting fiber with our fitting fiber customers today. It's no different, they don't lose access to that service.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And so, Sarah, I'm noticing that you're not answering my question still, which is

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We did not notify them. I don't know what else to tell you. We did not know.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: There a reason why?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: No. There was no specific reason why.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, I have I know you probably have other questions, but I had a question about that about the notification process because one of the questions I always have is, you know, are we here in our committee just learning and providing oversight, airing issues or is there a role for us? Is there something that we should do to try to help improve the process or make something better for Vermonters and for everybody? So I was wondering as we were talking about this, what guidelines dictate your notification process? In other words, you file with the FCC. Does the FCC say you need to notify x, y, and z entities? Is there a state statute? I I guess not. That says you should note make sure you notify x, y, and z, you know, agencies or here's how the notification process should work, or is that something that's left to consolidated to determine, what you guys think is the best way to do a public notification process?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: So we have to provide the notice to the FCC. In fact, you know, from our first notice to our last notice, they have provided comments, we have changed the customer notice consistent with their comments. The process is is set by the FCC and preempts state law as I understand it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And so, my understanding, I don't have the citation in front of me. Federal law requires you to notify the governor, the Public Utility Commission, and the secretary of defense. Yes. Or as we are ridiculously calling it, the secretary of war these days.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Can you

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: And we did that too. I apologize. I forgot about that piece, and we did notify them as well.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Sarah, can you I've asked for actual copies of the notice. Can you describe for the committees you said that they were mailed. Can you describe for the committee the notice that was sent to the governor? What form it was in, how long it was, and where the notice occurred in that notification?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We sent a copy of the filing to the governor via US mail.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And how many pages was the filing file? And just to clarify, the filing to the FCC. Is that right?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yes. The the filing we make with the FCC, send a copy to the governor via regular mail. I think a 137, maybe a 157. It is long. It's not short.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And where was the actual notice to the governor in that document?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Sent a copy of the filing. So if you're asking if we sent a separate notice, we did not. It was not in there.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I believe at the end, it felt like the last page maybe notes that he's serving as notice for the governor.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: That's that's right. Yes. Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And, for the PUC, did you send a similar document? Yes. K. No one from Consolidated, say, emailed the PUC or the Department of Public Service to say, hey. This is coming or we have a petition with the FCC. Is that right?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I'm not aware that happened. I don't believe that happened, but I was not in charge of that at the time.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And do you does consolidated pay for representation to be in this building, to represent their interests with legislators and the administration? Yes. And so you pay to have someone here to represent your interests that can communicate with legislators, has relationships with legislators and the administration, but did not think to communicate to those entities through your representative even that that was happening. Is that right?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We we did not.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And, Sarah, can you can you tell me roughly the different types of public funding that Consolidated is accessing to construct anything in the state of Vermont over the last five years? I'm not asking for the amounts. I'm asking for the different types of public funding that you either have access to or have applied for, in the state of Vermont.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: State funding or state and federal funding?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Public funding. So that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: would

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: include federal, that would include state, that would include local, that would include taxpayer funding that does not come out of your pocket.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Excellent. Thank you for the clarification. We have we receive, RDOF funding, in portions of the state of Vermont. We've transferred some of that funding to other CUDs, but largely we receive that through the Federal Communication Commission's RDOF process. So that is to build service of one gig over one gig, which we do via XGS PON fiber in certain census blocks in the state of Vermont. We also receive through CUD's, funding under probably both ARPA and capital projects funds, which are federal funds that are administered by the by the Vermont Community Broadband Board, we receive them. The the CUDs receive the money. They give most of it to us. You know, they keep portions of it, but we receive that to build out again fiber optic service using XTS PON technology. We we deploy service of at least two gigs over two gigs in those CUTs. I think that's I think those are the big ones. I am not I could be missing something. I mean, we receive certainly federal lifeline funding that's not for build out. I think that's largely it.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So, madam chair, I I wanna follow-up on the but before I do so, I do wanna disclose for the committee

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And for those that are watching that I am a member of the Vermont Communications Broadband Board, and my questions and concern related to this issue are as the representative for the Windham 2 District and the notice that my constituents have had in their ability to participate in our democratic public processes and not concerns about what has happened with Consolidated through the BCBB. So, Sarah, in terms of Bead funding, which as you know is significant amount of funding, is that something that Consolidated is participating in that is also massive amounts of public funding?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Consolidated certainly has been preliminarily awarded bid. As I understand it, the NTIA has not approved the state of Vermont's plan. We don't have contracts. So to that is not currently awarded funding, but we have certainly participated. We are a relatively small, particularly with respect to the $93,000,000 that was awarded to the any case to you, D.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So you have

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: participated, as long as you've been here in public, public funding programs? Yes. We do everything we can to build out advanced infrastructure to all areas of Vermont.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And, Sarah, do you understand what role public notice plays in a democracy and, when we have public private partnerships like this?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Am.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Do I under I mean, I think, yes, I guess. And you're just there's a lot there. So yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: What is the role public notice in, proceedings that your company, is engaged with?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I guess I don't know.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: You don't know what the role of public notice is in a proceeding that your company is engaged with?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I mean, if you want to talk about a specific proceeding, I'm happy to talk about the role of public notice. If you're talking about this, I think notifying impacted customers with respect to what changes are coming to them is very important. And I think that's why it's required as part of the process.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'd like to talk a little bit more about the process and make sure that we're not appearing to question Sarah's integrity. I apologize, Matt. Yeah, that felt a little much to me. So just to take a beat here, I would wonder, Sarah, if and it gets back to the line of questioning that I was exploring a little bit earlier, which is whether consolidated might consider, could consider, should consider because you have another round of you have another FCC filing coming up for another tranche of Vermonters. And I'm wondering whether we might all benefit from a more robust notification process because I think everybody in this room, including you, understands, you know, the importance of public participation in a democracy. But, you know, whether there might be I I guess I'm sort of curious about I'm seeing two parallel pathways of notification here. I'm seeing a process that starts four months before where you guys are going directly to your customers and reaching out to them by mail, by SMS if you can, by phone. So you're you're going directly to your customers to try to make sure that they know what's happening, how they're gonna be impacted, and what their options are. I don't know whether I I don't know what I guess I don't have any thoughts on that right now. I'm wondering about the public notification process that happens when you're simultaneously notifying state government and other partner entities, whether they shouldn't be included in a more obvious and robust way, whether they couldn't help get the word out, whether they might think of or have avenues that So I'm thinking with something like this where folks are gonna be impacted about whether there shouldn't be a more robust process with getting DPS involved, know, the E911 board, that folks are we're reaching people in different ways and that there might also be a chance for because when a as a

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: customer,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: if I'm on, you know, if I'm one of the folks you're trying to reach and I get something in the mail or I get a phone call from you, I am thinking only of, okay, how does this impact me? Can I I afford the other service? Do I want to switch over to the other service? I'm not thinking about how can I register public comment on this process in general? Right? And so I'm thinking about how we can empower broader public comment when things like this happen so that Vermonters or impacted parties have a chance to say, wait a second, we don't don't agree because it sounds like the filing goes into the FCC. Thirty days later in the absence of anything, it's approved. And simultaneously, you're letting folks know, but maybe not in a way that would trigger DPS to say like, oh, we should have a hearing. You know? We should get some public comment. So I'm I'm just wondering about I hope that was clear. I'm seeing two tracks here. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. I mean, there's certainly, a role for notification. The one thing that we have to consider all of us is that there is no issue with people commenting on their impacts. The issue is people commenting that are not impacted and the amount of confusion and questions that I get, and I appreciate that though, you know, we're gonna leave people out in the cold, which is not what this filing is doing. That's the risk on the other end. You get everybody all excited and they think that the service is immediately going away and we're never going to serve anyone in Vermont and people are going be left without communications. Right? Because those are the people who who get most excited. Right? I don't have a fiber offering. I don't have anything. You know, if consolidated leaves, which sometimes is how this stuff is presented when somebody's, you know, trying to stir people up, that is the problem. That is what we have to just think about. But yes, there is no problem with notifying, you know, the e nine one one board or the department that this stuff is happening and this is the impacted customers and impacted products because they understand this and and very clearly can speak to consumers and say, you know, you aren't impacted, you are, here's the impact, you know, and as well as us, we have those same conversations in our call center every day. So absolutely. I just like you go too far and you end up with a bunch of people getting nervous that something's happening that isn't happening. And so we just have to consider that line. Does that make sense?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Question. So, Sarah, I first I would like to apologize, for the way that I framed my question. If, I I don't have the exact words, I do not mean to accuse you or suggest that you specifically didn't understand, and so I apologize. And I'd like to actually clarify. I believe that the process the FCC's public comment process is so that the public has the ability to share any concerns they have with the proceedings that are in front of them. Is that also your understanding? Yes. Okay. And so, I am really concerned because I was asking your former representative here in the state and the Department of Public Service specifically about retiring copper, when that might be, and about notification, specifically when the public comment period was open at the FCC. So I did not have that information. The Department of Public Service did not have that information. My constituents who were without service, which I consider to be fairly dangerous in Wardsboro, which is pretty far from department from public safety, did not know what was going on. And so that's really my questions around public notice are, how do we rectify that? That does not seem does that seem right to you that I would be asking just again, I'm asking you I don't that that is what I'm struggling. When I am asking a company directly about something that I anticipate is going to be happening, and there's actually a federal proceeding happening, and I'm not getting information. I have custom I have constituents that would like to comment about their experience, and they are unable to do so. What should I do about it? Like, what is what is the remedy for me and my constituents?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: I I don't have the answer on remedy, but, absolutely, we should have communicated back with you with respect to that this was occurring. It was open public comment period at the FCC. I have I can see no reason why we would not. Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if I have any other questions. Well, you there was one question which was one answer you provided which was that fiber's less expensive in all instances. Is that a contractual statement that you can back up, like, with your customers, is there a certain period of time that that statement is guaranteed to be true, that's offered in a contract?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: No. No. That is that is the current state. It's it's also a little bit economics. Right? We have a new infrastructure that's being deployed that requires less maintenance, requires less. So it it costs us less to operate. And the copper network and this is the problem I'm sure you're all familiar with with what utilities talk about is the death spiral. Right? Like, when you introduce competition in monopoly environment, you lose customers, the best customers. Right? The ones easiest to serve and the ones downtown, you lose. And then you're left with very few customers, but a full network to support. And so that creates a situation where you have to regularly increase prices to keep up and eventually it never ends, right? Eventually it's just upside down. And so that's where I'm coming from when I make that statement. It's the current state of affairs today. And I don't see how that would change in the future based on the economics of running these networks simultaneously.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: One last question. So to the chair's kind of dual pathways comments, I believe I heard and I wanna clarify, you say something about we should notify 911. We should notify the department. Can you clarify? So are is that a commitment to do so every time that you bring these types of FCC petitions to retire copper, in the future?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Yeah. I am happy, and I've told Hunter as much. Barbara and I just connected yesterday, and she only had a question, as I said, about, a specific ITC circuits that serve the independent telephone companies. But I I have no issue committing that the company is happy to share that notice, you know, not regular mail via email indicate we've made the filing to the department and the nine one one board and let them know they're welcome to reach out with any questions and we can share more information that we have. I'm happy to do that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: If we introduce that as legislation, your company would support it.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Probably not because the FCC does preempt in this area. Would I enter into an MOU with the Department of Public Service that said as much? Absolutely.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sure. Great. I'd like to wrap Southworth and then I'd like to give us just a quick break before our next Just

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: a couple of questions and then a comment. What is the plan for continued service and repair for those outside of Consolidated's ability to convert to fiber?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: We continue to service and repair those customers. I mean, there's not it's it's like we do today. We have technicians. We have people that service those customers and repair those customers just as we do today.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So even if you have customers that are years down the road from having fiber available to them, you're still gonna service them and repair them?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yes.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: K.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Do you currently have another filing submitted with the FCC?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: K. My last comment is one of my cons

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Can I just say one thing there? It's absolutely subject to double check because I'm not the one who makes those filings, but but I don't believe so. And I will I will confirm. We have the pending one that is is the what representative Sibilia is talking about with the one that was pending for the thirty days. That has been completed, but the full transition with the customers doesn't complete until the January. So that's sort of still pending in our system because we haven't completed the transition, just so you know. But we do not have anything that has an open comment at the FCC as far as I'm aware. And I will double check and get back to you immediately if we do, but I do not believe I'm wrong on that.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: And just for what it is, one of my concerns with all of this is people having to switch to fiber who lose power, maybe for extended periods of time, then are cut off from communication. Where they have copper, they can still utilize that communication if needed. That is a huge concern for me, and I hope that your company is looking at resolving that issue somehow for these people. Thank you.

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: Absolutely. And and and we do. I mean, there are battery backup that has to be provided, and we do provide, that will provide performance in the case of a power outage because because the issue with advanced technology, as you know, is that the the modem and router needs to be powered. And so if you have a generator, you're fine, but but many customers don't. And so there are a boatload of notifications and things that go out to customers with respect to VoIP service not working when there's a power outage and how they can obtain batteries.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Right. That's an added cost as well. Correct?

[Sarah Davis (VP, Market Development, Consolidated Communications/Fidium Fiber)]: That is an added cost. It's a onetime cost, and it's still lower. If you add the VoIP and that, it's still significantly lower than our current tariff rate for voice service.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. You're welcome.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time, and thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. We have let's see. Barb.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Barb is ready to go in the winter.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. If you'd like to. I just have to run. So Three, five, five minutes. Can we take a five minute break?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Mhmm. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Barb, are you there? Yes. I

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: am. Good morning.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Hi. Sorry that we're running a few minutes late. We will, we're gonna go live if you're ready.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: I am.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. Again, sorry for the sorry for the delay.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: I do have a a hard stop at about 11:10.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So you're That's fine. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: All right. We're live. Welcome back everybody, House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. We are here today with Barbara Neal from the Vermont E nine eleven board. Continuing our conversation about consolidated communications, I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester. Richard

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Bailey, Lamoille two. Chris Morrow, Windham Windsor Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland Torre.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Bram Kleppner, Chittenden 13, Burlington.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Laura Sibilia, Windham Two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Over to you. We invited you in to have you fill us in on, what you know about the about the consolidated, application to discontinue its legacy voice service.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Certainly. So I did, just so you know, listen to Sarah Davis's testimony, which was helpful in clarifying a few things. But for the record, I'm Barbara Neal, Executive Director of the nine eleven Board. I think at the outset, I would say that I am seeing lots of opportunities for improved communications around this whole issue. And it sounds like it's going to be continuing for a few years anyway, as they or months at least, as they continue this transition. So lots of opportunities for better communications. And I truly don't think it's possible to over communicate when these changes are taking place. And by that, I mean from the service providers to what's been mentioned here earlier, Public Service Department nine eleven Board would certainly appreciate these notifications in a more formal manner. So the nine eleven board would have two priorities, does have two priorities related to this issue. One, Sarah referenced in her testimony. One is the essentially the integrity of the nine eleven system itself and a particular service that consolidated provides, under the contract with our nine one one system provider in digital. So there's that priority. And then there's the second priority, of course, of the ability of consolidated customers to reach nine eleven throughout this transition. So when I think about that, typically, I think about the backup power question that was mentioned near the end of Sarah's testimony. So I would like to know more information about how Phytium consolidated is conveying to their customers, the fact that this service is not power dependent, I'm sorry, is power dependent, and how they're essentially making customers aware of the need for backup power if the customer doesn't have their own generator. And certainly if they don't have like a strong cell signal or alternative means of reaching 911. So, let me go back to the first priority I mentioned, which is the integrity of the 911 system itself. So consolidated does provide a service to in digital, essentially to collect or aggregate the 911 traffic from all of Vermont's ARLX, the smaller wireline phone companies, and deliver those nine eleven calls into the digital, the statewide 911 system. Our understanding is or what is that that service is dependent reliant upon copper facilities. So when we learned about the the the plans that Consolidated had, for this transition, I did reach out to them to get confirmation that that service was not going to be impacted or whether it was going to be impacted. I reached out to, my contact there, Scott Brooks, probably in mid December, he gave me his kind of an informal response that that service was, he didn't expect that that service was going to be impacted, but would get back to me with a more solid confirmation. So there've been some transitions there at consolidated, and I wasn't able to reconnect with the now new contact until this past Monday. He was very responsive and included Sarah Davis in our communication. And Sarah did clarify in writing that that aggregation service is not impacted by this transition. So and then a little bit more detail about what specifically they're doing, which Sarah just explained to you, I thought pretty thoroughly. So I had been referring to it as a copper retirement petition to the FCC. She corrected me, think this makes sense that that's not what they petitioned for. They petitioned for a discontinuing of legacy voice service under certain circumstances. So she and I have established a connection now. And I do I will be reaching out to her with a few other questions based on what I heard her talking about just a few minutes ago. That those relate to the second priority, which is the ability of consolidated customers to reach nine eleven throughout the transition. So one of my questions has been, what happens if you have a non responsive customer, you know, who doesn't respond to all of the multiple notices from consolidated and fitting that this transition is going to happen. Sarah explained a little while ago that my understanding of what she said is that those customers, when the deadline passes, which I think is January 27, will be put into a state of suspension. Their account will be suspended. And she said when they pick up their phone, they will be only able to call customer service to figure out what they're gonna do about their line. My question for Sarah, and if she's listening, then she'll know that this will come to her in an email right after this this testimony is will those customers also be able to dial 911 when they're in that state of suspension? That would be of importance to the nine eleven board and to the safety of those customers in my view. So that, that along with the question about how is the need for backup power being conveyed to customers are top of my list. And I'm encouraged by Sarah's quick response to my inquiry on Monday, and hope to continue that good flow, good exchange of information as we go along. But I do think, like I said, at the outset here, there's lots of opportunities to improve this communications process, so that we're not digging around for information, right? It's being presented to us in a comprehensive and coherent manner so that we can relay that to our constituents and people that contact us with questions. And that's really all I have for today. I assumed you may have questions.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have yeah. Thank you. I have a question, which is just a very practical one about whether there is or should be a role for the legislature to play. So, it's not clear to me at this point whether we need to get a committee bill going. You know, because some of these procedures or processes need to be, you know, codified. We need to make clear what we want to see and try to get a bill across the line or whether this is something that, you know, continued oversight, Sarah mentioned an MOU. What do you I

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: have heard mention of that MOU as well. I think that could be effective in getting these structures, if you will, these notification processes in place. We could certainly, I could be in contact with Hunter Thompson to make sure the needs of the nine eleven board were included in any MOU that's developed. I'd be comfortable with that, or there could be a separate MOU if that's the best way to do it. I think I think it may be a single MOU that includes everybody's, you know, the agencies that have an interest in this might be more effective because those agencies need to be talking as well throughout these changes. So, I mean, I could see an MOU being effective, but whether or not there needs to be legislation, would have to defer to all of you on that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thanks for your testimony, Barb.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Can

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: you explain a little bit about Life Alert and how that connects to you and how that connects to their provider?

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Their service

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: So I can go just a little bit into depth on this. You know, I don't have a great deal of of depth of knowledge on all of those various types of systems. There are multiple ways, it's my understanding that those can connect to services. It might be via via wireline, it might be through a VoIP connection on a phone, it could even be a wireless connection. And the customer or I'm sorry, the provider is really the one that's in the best position to explain to customers how their device can or should connect. That is actually I'm glad you brought that up, that would be another concern that we would have is making sure people understand the impact of this transition on those types of devices. I'm sure you're aware of a recent channel three story, where there was a gap in that service, and it was an unexpected gap. So I think there's room for improvement in well, I should step back and say I would like to have a better understanding of how those types of things are being communicated to customers by the company. So typically, though, what will happen with those types of services is the alarm will be activated by the user and the call will go into let's let's use Life Alert as an example. The call will likely go into Life Alert call center who will assess the situation. Depending on their service, there may be different actions that they take. They may contact a person that the user has identified as someone that should be contacted if there's emergency. If determine that there is an emergency that needs police, fire or EMS, they could then connect into our system, and be connected directly to a 911 call taker. So in most cases, those types of services do not deliver, the call directly to 911. There's an assessment by the the service provider first. Some notable differences like the, the smartphone, the smartwatches that have fall detection, those can go, the Apple phones can go into the 911 system. So it depends a lot on the type of service that is being provided. But it's a key component though, in these transitions is to make sure that however they connect is still operational at the end or the necessary changes have been made.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. I have one other question just about the E nine eleven board's experience. So, Consolidated is not the only, they've not been the only telephone provider, voice service provider in the state. Is this a is this typically In terms of communication, is this typical communication from all the providers or when there

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: are Well, I've been not been made aware of any other transitions. There was, of course, when VTel was working through some changes in their network, this issue, specifically around the battery backup issue was, was a prominent discussion several years ago now. In fact, the PUC had a had hearings on it. And I, right now, I'd have to go back to see what if any notification we had specifically from Vito on that, I don't recall. We became more involved in that discussion as a result of concerns from the public, from the customers about how it's gonna impact them. But I don't remember the initial notification or if there was one.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. So besides consolidated in retail, none of the other ILAX, the local telephone providers are transitioning out of copper at this yet. Is that what I'm

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: In fairness, will have to say I don't know, right? Because I haven't been received a notification. I'm not aware of any. But I mean, this has brought to light sort of the communications failures where I couldn't say with certainty that I would know that completely at this point.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Anybody So. Else knows your key, does anything else?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I don't know. I agree. We have a representative from those companies in the room, but I they're not sure. I'm prepared to answer.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Since

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I pointed to him.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I I don't I don't like to just unless you'd like to comment with

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I'll just say off the benches.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Jonathan Wolfe from Premier Piper on behalf of

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: the smaller ILECs. Think Waitsfield, Campaign Valley Telco, think Franklin Telco.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I don't have that answer on me,

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: but I'll I'll find out for you.

[Tim Ashe (Deputy State Auditor)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you, ma'am. Any further questions? So, Barb, unless you have any final comments, I think we'll need to probably stay in touch on this.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Yes, absolutely. I can let you know, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's it. Just to see whether we have a role to play in getting maybe getting to this to a better place for Vermonters. Okay.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: That sounds good. And I will follow-up with with you, on the response about the ability to call 911 when they're in that suspended state. That is top of mind for me right now.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you. Oh, sorry. Representative Howland.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Because this battery backup concept, I'm not familiar with it. I don't have battery backup at my home with my Internet provider, and maybe I should look into it. But if the battery is you don't notice a battery dead So flashlight's in the that's in your glove box when the last time you replaced the batteries or or checked in. And you don't check it till the tire's flat. You need a need a fire bling. And so, yeah, I I'm concerned about a connection that the battery has the the warning light every time. You know, something to tell that that person that it's time to do something. And then the technology that it's a commercially available battery and not something that like a battery for your first camera that the battery replacement is a bucket killer if you can find it because your modem's three years old or four years old.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Rep. Campbell. So that suggests to me another technical question. You may not have the answer to it, but a question I have. Are there battery backups just for the modem or just for the communications equipment? Because it seems like those batteries or those that that equipment might not draw an awful lot of juice. So a battery backup that just powers those devices might might might last a lot longer, might last long enough to be useful. Might not not not just four hours or something, but actually days or

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: even.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Again, I don't have this right in front of me, but there there is an FCC requirement that the VoIP service providers provide for purchase batteries that provide some number of hours of backup power. And I can't I I don't wanna say if it's eight or twenty four. I'm not recalling. So how they deliver that might be very company specific, right? But I do believe there is some amount of time that the batteries need to be operational. Doesn't doesn't address the question of like the the battery backup, you know, the changing the battery, charging the battery, that type of thing. So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, they're charging as long as long as the power is on there. They're always Right. Charged. But I guess you don't know whether those those backups are just for the for the communication devices.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: As opposed to?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: As opposed to anything else that might might be, you know, connected to that circuit, for example.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: I don't know. I mean, I think it's just for the VoIP service itself. So that would imply to me that any devices that are related to that. Okay. Yep.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: It's a technology question.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. This will probably add to the confusion rather than clarify anything, for some reason, my Burlington Telecom cable fiber access Internet exits went down, and the fix they talked me through was to rip out the battery pack, which only powered those telecoms. And I said, What? And I said, Yeah, we don't use them anymore. Just rip it out. It's causing a problem. Really?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: That probably has more confusion than what it does, but it is an actual fact point.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Or concern maybe. Mhmm.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I I don't know quite how to address that. I my understanding is the FCC requires VoIP service providers to provide the option to purchase Yeah. Battery backup. So, yeah, I I guess I wouldn't have enough information to really comment on that.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: No. And I said, my mother VoIP, it was just data.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Oh, okay. Okay. So that that might be a distinction as what you know, it may be related to the voice service that this backup battery is required.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your insight, and thank you for being here.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Vermont E-911 Board)]: Thank you very much. Everybody take care.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. You can

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Thank you.