So the goal is to stand up to you guys right now.

Okay.

Oh.

Okay.

All right.

No problem.

No problem.

All right.

I don't hear the bells chiming outside, but it is 11 o'clock per my phone.

So we will get this committee meeting started.

This is a there they go.

Okay.

This is a committee meeting for neighborhood preservation for just a update pre-budget decisions for the broad brand, the community broadband program.

With me today, I have Counselor Hudson, Counselor Nave, President Piniagua, Councilor Monto.

I thought I saw somebody else.

Wasn't somebody else wear?

Well, that's it for now.

So we will just jump right in if you want to give us um your name just evaded me.

Yes.

Jen.

Jen to Jen, you could say whatever your title is, because I'm not sure if it's sure.

Um, and then just give us a little background.

Sure, yeah, happy to.

Um, so um I'm Jen Tift, I'm the director of strategic initiatives um in the mayor's office.

And um, and yeah, happy to give you all a little bit of background, although I think you're all pretty um pretty familiar with with the program, um, and where we're you know, focusing today and and where we kind of see um see this heading and happy to answer questions.

So um, so I think as everyone remembers, you know, back to the early days of the pandemic, you know, there were obviously lots of um concerns, not just here, frankly, but all over the country and the world about um the digital divide in many communities and how that really impacted pretty much every aspect of life, and it just became so much more apparent during the pandemic.

Um, you know, especially for accessing educational and healthcare services, which were obviously super key during that time.

Um, you know, we were obviously looking at the data um around Syracuse, we noticed and and had been, you know, recognizing frankly for a few years at that point that we were one of the worst digitally connected cities for mid-sized cities in the US.

Um at that time, uh more than a quarter of our households had no source of internet, including cellular connectivity.

Um actually when you looked at it just by the uh most uh the the lowest income census tracks, it was actually close to 50% of households without internet access, which um when you think about that today, it's just that's kind of mind-boggling.

Um and then unfortunately, about one in three of our K through twelve students were also without you know, high higher speed internet at home.

Um so you know, we really recognized we needed to try to do something about this, and at that time, you know, this was five years ago or so now, it's kind of crazy how how time flies.

But we were fortunate because we did have resources that were not previously available to cities like ours to try to actually directly address this head on.

The other thing I'll say, which you know, we were you know, kind of looking at as well and acknowledging is that from the city's perspective, we also didn't have a lot of you know direct investment in uh telecommunications network infrastructure as a city, you know.

The only place we really had fiber optics was under this building, you know, basically connecting this building to City Hall Commons at the time.

Um so you know, as a city in terms of just operating ourselves and for the resilience of our own operations, you know, we relied pretty heavily then and and frankly we still do today on third-party internet providers.

So outside of you know, connectivity in this building, if we need to connect over at the parks, you know, headquarters or at any of our firehouses, we pay you know, the private market for those services.

Um, all of that, you know, really is kind of the backdrop to in 2023.

And I think at this at this point, everyone will remember there was an affordable connectivity program at the federal level that actually allowed us to offer internet for free.

Um and we were really truly targeting um both the the least connected locations in the city as well as you know those very low income households that we were really trying to help uh you know during the pandemic.

So that was sort of how we got started.

Um about a year and a half later, we actually were successful in um being awarded a 10.8 million dollar grant from the state of New York to then expand that effort.

So in the in the handout, you'll notice a map on the first page, all of the areas shaded in blue, which is essentially like the entire midsection of the city.

Um those are the areas that we are now able to offer service in.

Um and so it's about 40% of the city, about um 24,000 households that actually thank you.

Would you mind?

Yeah, perfect.

Thanks, Nature.

Um so uh so yeah, so we've we've been obviously operating for about two years, we've been expanding that service.

We are like I said, um, able to connect uh you know, an area that includes about 24,000 households, um, which is a pretty significant amount.

Um, and and as of right now, we've connected over 1700 um residents.

The vast, vast majority of them, even today are still kind of the lower income income qualified residents.

And so um, as the program is structured today, we actually provide a subsidy to keep service at a $15 a month level for those customers.

Um when we get into some of the costs that that is one of the things that frankly drives the city's cost just in terms of operating dollars.

So when they sign up for it, do they just have one choice?

It's $15 a month or they're right now, yes.

There's there's a single level of service, and because we're participating in uh basically a federally sponsored program, um, we have to provide a minimum of a hundred megabytes per second um upload and download.

So um so we have a single service tier, we don't have you know multiple tiers at this point, um, and then just a single price level.

So it's $36.99 if you are uh uh family usually, but then if you do qualify based on your income level, that amount is basically discounted to 1495, I believe, technically.

How long is that locked in for Jim?

It's locked in for perpetuity, basically.

We don't, yeah, we don't put like uh an expiration date on it.

We don't have any expectations that we would change that at this point.

And in fact, as a part of our grant from the state when we applied for the grant, they asked us a lot of questions about what's your pricing um structure.

Of course, the state's very interested in making sure there are affordable options um for all different types of families.

And um, as a part of our grant term for the 10-year period that we have to maintain the physical infrastructure, we also have to maintain uh 1490.

So I mean everything has a term limit.

So what I'm saying is there's no you don't have it where it's locked in with the provider for at least the next five years that this is it, or the next three years or the next two years, just to give people idea.

I mean, things change, right?

That's a part of like how long are we locked in to like that for that rate that you gave me.

Yeah, so well, so a couple things on that, just so everyone kind of is aware.

The city is only under contract with the current provider that we're using to administer this program through the end of this year.

So um, so we don't have a commitment with the current internet service provider that we're using to manage this this service beyond that.

However, as I was saying, with the state grant as a city, the state is going to expect us to as long as we operate, you know, or or maintain the infrastructure, which like I said, um, when we accepted the grant in 2024, we had a 10-year commitment.

So we have to at least maintain the network until 2034.

Um, and through that time, we would have to have a contract in place with a provider that that does stipulate they will be providing a you know, a tier of service for 14 95.

So I don't think that is going to change unless we wanted to go back to the state and ask them to, you know, to adjust that agreement.

So when happens when the contract ends at the end of the year.

That's a good question.

So we're still, you know, I think evaluating some different options.

Um of the things that uh is actually kind of referenced on the back here is you know after this year.

So we're um we're currently doing the network expansion right now, which um really primarily uh involves installing fiber.

So we've got um, I think as as everyone has heard me say before, this is a fixed wireless access network.

So the way that service ultimately gets delivered to end users is through wireless um signals, it's not fiber to every single home.

That said, um we have a fiber backbone to the network, and that's what ultimately allows us to provide the service.

We've been when the the program started a couple years ago, we um we were renting a fiber connection from a fiber provider, um, which is you know kind of a common thing to do.

Um, but the state grant allows us to actually make a capital investment in that very valuable infrastructure.

So um we're now in the process, we're waiting on some um, I know this came up in the committee meeting yesterday, we're waiting on some national grid permits um for pull attachments, which uh folks learned yesterday takes quite a while.

Um and so we're expecting by the time we get to summer fall, we'll be able to install the the fiber that we're going to own um and be able to utilize for this network.

It creates a pretty robust um fixed wireless network.

Um we're installing over 17 um miles of fiber to connect our infrastructure.

Um in the current scope, we're connecting, I think about a half a dozen city facilities, um, some firehouses, um, one of our recreational centers, one of our community centers, for example.

Um, that's gonna obviously allow us to reduce some internet costs at those facilities in the future.

Um of this is being done this summer.

At that point, the city will own that that physical infrastructure.

And one of the things we're really focused on right now is how to structure it so that we can lease that infrastructure to a third party who can then you know provide service on it.

Um, but that is not gonna, you know, necessarily be a managed service, like fee-for-service type arrangement that we currently have.

Um that would be more of a leased arrangement, um, kind of similar, honestly, to how we lease other city right of way and assets to third parties who then charge a fee for service um, like with the bust up arms and the uh school zone cameras and some of those things.

Um and so that creates more revenue streams for the city um based on that infrastructure that we have.

Um, but it really um kind of takes us a little bit more out of being responsible for providing service, funding, a subsidy, like those those types of things, which is how our contract is currently structured now.

So we've got you know, the next few months to kind of figure out ultimately how we want to do it, and then we're gonna have to, you know, go go out with an RFP and um and things like that.

But those 17 months of fiber we cover all of this area, correct.

Oh, so of the 1700, how many are qualifying for the subsidy?

98%.

Okay.

Yeah, it's it's the vast, vast majority.

And we're starting to see over the last couple months that change a little bit.

Um let me give up part two to that question.

The reason I asked that is so is the expectation that we're going to carry that we're gonna have to carry that subsidy, we're going to have to pay for that year over year when the grant money runs out.

Like, is the honest answer to this is going to cost the city money to subsidize broadband year over year is the honest answer yes, we probably should expect this to be a budget item forever.

So I don't I don't think so.

And that's and that is again because we believe there is an option to lease the assets.

And um that basically kind of flips the economics of it, where we are basically collecting from one or more ISPs who could use that infrastructure, basically a lease fee.

We might deduct part of that because we'll want them to offer internet service to some of our municipal facilities and things like that, right?

So that's where we get value from having that physical infrastructure installed at firehouses and things like that.

But regardless, we basically collect rent for those assets, and then you know, can stipulate certain things like as a condition of this lease, you will provide a tier of service for 1495 or whatever you know, the the stipulations we want to put in place, but it's ultimately on the provider to make the economics work.

And it's you know easy, quote unquote, for a lot of um internet service providers to do this when they don't have to cover the costs of all the capital infrastructure, because we've already paid for that.

So it's a little bit of a different model, you know.

We had to structure because we were getting something off the ground from nothing.

We had to structure a contract to include a capital project itself, the design and build of the network, as well as you know, getting a service up and running on that network.

So do we need a certain ratio of people paying the full price to over to get over the subsidy or well, so for the net the rest of this calendar year, which does include obviously part of fiscal year 27, we're still in our current contractual um scenario with the existing provider.

We do carry cost to that, and so that's where if you're looking on the back side where there's the budget costs, um, you see the program budget on the top and then the capital project costs on the on the bottom.

So the program budget that would include the managed service fee that we pay to the provider, which includes subsidy for the qualifying customers.

We're estimating that amount um as of right now to be about um 450,000 for next fiscal year, and I believe that's what is um in the budget.

So and of that, so the subsidy the 1700 times the 22.

So 100,000 of that is the subsidy.

What's the other 400,000?

So no, so that's all that that is all the subsidy.

All of it?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So there's there is some additional funding, which we're anticipating, um, which is actually capital expenditure.

And I believe this um I I have to double check with Evan.

I think it was in the it's it is labeled like capital in the in the budget.

So um, as everyone will recall, we um when we applied for the original 10.8 million dollar grant, we had a 1.4 million dollar local match.

So we still we've been paying some of that.

Um we've spent um I think about 650,000 of that to date, but we still have um a little bit more.

And so again, as of right now, these are estimates, but I it's gonna be around 700k, I think that you know, ultimately carries into next fiscal year for that.

Um, but that's that is specific to the New York State grant and not the subsidy.

So maybe maybe I'm confused.

So is the is the delta between the full price and the $15 that is that the total amount we're subsidizing?

So $22 times the $1,700.

Oh, no, I'm I'm sorry, counselor.

Okay.

So the the city pays a cost, which with our our contract with the service provider.

So the cost of service is more than the $15.

Of course, but it's less than the $3699.

So the city gets um earned revenue basically for every unsubsidized subscriber that we have.

But we don't have many of those, right?

Right now we don't have many.

The more we get over time, at least while we're under the current contract, okay.

That obviously means you know more revenue.

I don't think it's possible between now and December, let's say, that we're going to achieve the ratio that we need to come anywhere close to breaking even.

So the ratio that we would need again under the current structure, which we're currently looking at at alternatives to get away from, but under the current structure, um, we'd need about uh 60% to 40% ratio, 60% being kind of market rate um consumers to 40% subsidized to break even.

Are you working closely with Jen with anybody from the school district um talking to them?

I know at one point I was in several meetings when this first kicked off with a school district, or you know, or SU everybody, right?

Was that a part of the table?

Making sure that our students are aligned to this because this is the part that we want to make sure our students have the necessary Wi-Fi.

We're still meeting with them.

So to be honest, since the change in superintendents, we haven't really been engaging as much with the school district.

Um it is on the list of things to do to reach out to Superintendent Odom.

Um, I know she was also involved in those conversations previously, but a bulldog graduate, just so you know.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Uh not being front here, counselor.

I I appreciate whenever we invoke the high school competition.

There's three of us here that are bulldogs at the table.

It's actually four on council, but it's three of us right now, just to give you a little lack.

Nice.

Yeah.

Um yeah, you are you all are a force, uh, to be clear.

Um and so, yes, uh, Superintendent Odom, I know has been in those conversations.

I think that that conversation was really being led by the former superintendent, and so it is definitely worth you know having the conversation.

Um it's interesting.

There's another um, there's another community-based program that we um we kind of look to as kind of the gold standard for this, which is in Cleveland.

Um their program is called Digital C, and they've been at it a little bit longer than we have.

Um, they actually also um have a fixed wireless um network, so the technology is the same.

Um like C Digital C like Cleveland.

Yeah, so um, so their program is great.

They they've actually been able to deploy throughout the entire city of Cleveland, so they cover like a hundred and twenty-two thousand households, I believe.

Um interestingly though, their take rate is actually pretty similar to ours, um, even though we're only in a portion of our of our city.

So I do think um, you know, with them, one of the things we just learned, they they actually just entered into a contract with their school district.

So their school district actually directly funds service for every school kid that wants their service, and so that of course has you know exponentially boosted their subscriber base.

So the school district actually funds the families that fit in those pockets.

So the school district must have wrote a grant with probably.

I'm guessing probably yes.

Let me ask you a question, right?

When you talk about being a portion of the city, how long do you think the total build out of the city is gonna take?

Well, it's that that's a great uh question, counselor.

So um, so I will say after um after we get through the the current grant that we have is expires in December of 2026, and the state is using a federal source of funds that is expiring then, so that's really why the the grant term expires then.

Um there really are no other federal or state grants on the horizon that would fund urban build out of this type of infrastructure.

So um we are you know, obviously having conversations with different elected leaders with uh you know within our own administration team.

I think it does warrant a conversation with with you all about ultimately like the level of investment we want to collectively make um in the infrastructure.

So one of the benefits of doing a fixed wireless deployment is that to cover the remaining, you know, let's call it 60% of our households.

It may not actually be a really intensive investment if we want to do that mostly with the wireless equipment, you know, kind of deploy them on rooftops.

We can connect those rooftops into the existing fiber backbone.

So we could do there's there's kind of like uh a low-cost option and a slightly more high cost option.

The low cost option would be, you know, we basically don't expand our fiber ring much at all, but we try to just add pops, you know, the the wireless um rooftop equipment to the east side and parts of the west side that are basically not connected today.

Um so east side and west side are the two dead pockets.

It's it's it's primarily the east side.

The only parts of the west side that really don't have connectivity today are um wink uh Winkworth and Strathmore.

Um, and then there is a part of the inner harbor that you know we would obviously like to connect.

Now there's not as much currently developed there, but of course we all know the hope for redeveloping the inner harbor.

And so we kind of purposely held the inner harbor.

Um, you know, but I think as that develops, there will be enormous opportunity.

Actually, one more question, um Janet.

So and Polly was already asked, so I apologize if it was.

Um you could just say that.

Yeah.

For this, you know, new tech, right?

There's new tech is just what the new wave is, right?

So for this fiber optics under the ground, up on the roofs, all these things that you're saying, right?

What is the comprehensive plan in the next like five to ten years, right?

Because as things change, I'm listening all the time in different departments, um, IT, everything, right?

Things are updating and things have changed.

So taking on this role that we're we're doing, how is that going to later on affect us as far as supporting the upgrade if we don't get grant money?

Like what's the comprehensive five to 10 year plan if feature for this?

Yeah, that honestly is a really great question.

And I do think something we all need to talk a lot more about.

I will say candidly, we don't have we don't have one as a city.

Um of the great things though, through the state has an office called Connect All, which is where we got our current grant through.

Um, they actually offer a planning grant, which has no match requirement.

They offer it about twice a year.

So our hope is that the next time that gets offered, which um I was just talking to Vinny about this yesterday, because of course, this is where you know I work really closely with um with his team, frankly, on the plan for the infrastructure itself.

Um, you know, we want to go after that grant.

It would give us, I think, up to 250,000 to do a real study and that the exact plan you're talking about, like a five to ten year, this is what we need to invest in.

This is what we need to set aside to maintain the infrastructure.

This is what we could, you know, hope to do from a leasing and a revenue perspective using the infrastructure.

Um we need to also have a better marketing plan.

Well, and so to be clear, like I I do think one of the things to just keep in mind um in the future with this is if we ultimately end up leasing out the infrastructure.

Um, anyone we lease that infrastructure to, if it's the current provider we're working with, if it's a new provider, if it's multiple providers, because that's an option, um, it's gonna be on them ultimately, right?

It's it's their business.

They are going to um, you know, be incentivized pretty much exclusively at that point to grow their business.

And so, you know, right now the the current structure we have with this kind of fee for service contract where um we really have very little, arguably no marketing budget in that contract and you folks that we would be leaking out to they owner.

So we would put that in a stipulation in in our RFP.

I wanted to ask you right now, what is the percent of people that do have community broadband in the city?

What is the percentage?

So it's um it's on the oh, I didn't put the percentage here, sorry, uh counselor.

It's about six point seven percent.

Over at 6.7 percent.

So what will SurgeRink do to promote this?

Because there are many people who do not have a computer, do not have uh a cell phone, they're very uh scared of you.

So what does Search Link do?

Do you promote a free cell phone or a discount to encourage us?

Yeah, so SurgeLink is is very specifically internet access.

So it's it's an internet subscription.

Um there's you know, there's very limited opportunity, I think, at least from a budgetary perspective to offer devices or that kind of thing.

We try to partner with community-based organizations that do um more digital literacy and digital training type services.

With like uh Verizon or any other that would what we want to uh participate in this program.

No, so we tend to work with um community-based organizations.

So, for example, um the Northeast Community Center is one organization that does a lot with digital literacy.

They actually just received a $750,000 grant from the state to do digital literacy and training programs uh citywide.

So through that program, they actually have a budget to um give um families devices to your point.

Um because we know that is a barrier.

Um, and so we work with them and they help to promote SurgeLink as an affordable community-driven option um for service, obviously in in the parts of the city that we can provide service to.

And then uh you're putting more locations, right?

So my understanding you're putting one uh where the uh fire apparatus station on State for Boulevard is.

Is that correct?

No.

So I think uh you're probably remembering the recent conversation we just had.

We are um planning actually this week to apply for an additional grant through the state for some additional capital dollars to add more city facilities to the existing network.

That's not going to impact our ability to serve more residents.

That really just adds fiber to the overall uh infrastructure to improve the resiliency of our network, but it does enable us to do much better connectivity at those municipal facilities.

So one of them is the fire training facility at State Fair.

We're working at putting one there.

It wouldn't be uh it's not gonna be a wireless pop though, it won't have the ability to transmit signal to the community.

All right, it's just connecting the fire training tower to fiber.

So it'll be there even if they close the facility.

It will, yes.

Okay, yes, thank you.

So can I go back and beat let me beat the dead horse just so I make sure I understand this?

Yeah.

So we're subsidizing for the for the 1700 households.

We're subsidizing it's about 265 a year.

Right?

12 months times the 22 dollars.

So the 500,000 special objects, that's just to cover the subsidy around there.

Correct.

Okay, okay.

So you have no other money in the budget to actually market to people or get like so.

How do we increase because I'm just thinking our budget does not include at least you know, with the within the current contract, our budget does not include marketing.

So for the foreseeable future, we should expect that we're gonna have to cover the subsidy inside the city budget.

Until until we move to a different contract.

So, like I said, we're um one year.

Our our contract right now, also um a couple a couple things because I should clarify this.

I'm not saying that's a bad gen.

I want to be clear.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I think like we we've kind of been under the impression that this thing's gonna pay for itself.

I'd rather that we just know about to get to the no, that and that's why as as we've learned more about obviously what it takes to operate under the current structure, and in talking with you know our provider, a lot of other providers, frankly, our friends in Cleveland um and other places, you know, it will take probably three to five years to get there.

That's what I wanted to say.

In the meantime, in the meantime, there are other options though.

So um, because I think there's also a question of, you know, does the city want to ultimately treat the infrastructure asset like we do um parking garages, for example, right?

Like we have a managed service contract for that, we pay a provider to do certain things on our behalf, but they charge us a fee for those for those things versus you know we own an asset, we lease the asset, we collect revenue from that lease, but we say, you know, providing the service and making the economics work is on the market, which you know, frankly, the the market is pretty adept to.

Yeah, and I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I think it's clearer for us when someone says this is going to cost us money for the next few years.

That's the expectation instead of like this might happen or this might happen.

I I to make the math math, I think we have to know for the next few years we're gonna have to invest at least $500,000 a year to cover the subsidy.

But to me, it doesn't make sense.

We need to get over that.

We need to get higher numbers, more people on the service to make it make sense.

And let me just jump in on what you're saying, right?

Because in an innovative way, I'm just sitting here thinking about more services and getting more people on.

So this is just my little take on it.

You know how you see all of these um cell phone companies in the low-income areas.

Is there a way that we can partner with them to maybe do the connectivity for the folks that we're talking about?

Yeah, so I mean, there are a lot of, I think there are a lot of different options and and opportunities, frankly.

So one of the things that we're interested in doing, and I think this is maybe even like the very first, yeah, the very first bullet on the on the second page.

So we're in, you know, conversations right now with our current provider about frankly, just offering more services than we currently do.

You know, to keep things very simple, we said we're gonna offer a single tier of residential service.

But frankly, even the infrastructure that we currently have in place, we can be providing service to small businesses.

We can be providing additional tiers of service.

So if someone really wants to pay a little bit more for um 300 megabyte, you know, download speeds or 500 megabyte download speeds, you know, we can do that, and then the revenue to the city, frankly, under our current contract structure is way more than it is for the single tier that we currently offer for 3699.

And then the revenue to the city, frankly, under our current contract structure is way more than it is for the single tier that we currently offer for 3699.

Do we see any of that now?

No.

I'm sorry, good.

Do we see any of that now?

Well, we see it for just the two percent of the customers that are at the market right now.

Okay.

Um, but my my point is, you know, we're getting a lot of feedback, having now done this for you know, two years or so, that there is actually more interest in the market, and why we're not necessarily getting more subscribers is because a lot of families do want more than a hundred megabyte speeds.

So you know, they will now you're talking about the micro megabytes, whatever that goes, wherever that goes.

I not really know much about that, so that's why the question probably is more for you.

So with a hundred, which is what we're what we have to provide.

And it's the baseline, yeah.

So does the amount of computers or items inside the household that are trying to connect impacts that number.

So are we getting any feedback of it does it work or not?

When you can only pay for the 100%, yes.

So I do think there are some families that would be like super users, right?

So families where there's five children in the schools.

Correct.

Right, game and yeah, so so for them, you know, we are hearing that they prefer to have a slightly higher plan, for example.

That's why I'm asking.

Um, you know, a hundred over a hundred is definitely considered like very high speed.

The you know, the the first number is really important for doing most of the things that we all do.

Upload speeds become super important when you're doing things like telework, um, you know, those Zoom and Teams calls that we all take all the time, you know, you need good um upload speeds for that.

So having a hundred over a hundred symmetrical service is really great.

It is high speed.

Um, if you've got two people in your family, that's probably very sufficient.

Um, unless you're like uh an a professional gamer or something.

But if you do, like if you have kids who do esports, if you have five or six people in the house with device you have to internet.

Yeah.

As far as devices, you have you know cameras, um, range cameras, all of it.

Television, all of things included.

All the it all uses the Wi-Fi.

So I do think um we can roll out, um, and we actually have a uh meeting in the administration later this week to to flesh this out a bit more, but we can start offering tomorrow, you know, higher tiers of service on the existing infrastructure.

Our provider obviously really wants to do that.

Um that will start to um add more revenue from the city's perspective.

Same thing with small business service, you know, small business service is we get a lot of interest from businesses for SurgeLink.

Um the low-income families um need, I'm not gonna say desire, need right that that next tier up.

Does that automatically kick them into the 3699?

Or is there an in-between where you're competing?

But they need to be able to pay it.

Yeah, so I mean, we'd need to evaluate the um, I mean, I I think there's a there is a way to tier, it starts to get a little um a little more complicated, but again, that's why we have a provider that we look to to manage all of this.

Um I think even 3699 is still cheap.

Yeah, no, of course.

So I do think um I should say for some we'll have to look at at yeah, the the pricing for you know, for subsidized families at that point, but um, but certainly I think we have uh a really good idea of what it could look like for the market rate services at different tiers.

And the more folks we can attract to higher speed service, the more businesses we can attract to a business priced service, um, that does start to really kind of shift.

But yeah, as long as we have kind of a single, you know, 100 over 100 residential service, um, it's gonna be, you know, certainly this year impossible to hit a break-even type of a scenario.

Yeah.

Um, and I do think, like I said, you know, we'll and and you know, within a few months we'll have um options to bring to you all.

But I do think the other option really is to sort of shift away from uh the scenario where this where the city really incurs operating costs um because we have these assets that we can lease.

To what Helen said, so and this might be a Vinny question, but so there seems like there'd be value in tapping into a provider when we RFP it, tapping into a provider that has the money to market it for us if there's a revenue share in there, right?

I mean, is that is that something does that exist, Vinny?

Yeah, because you figure with all those phones are given away, but that there's a marketing.

Yeah.

So Vinny, I mean, I do think we want to be a little careful though about who who we partner with, because we do know from having been around for a few months, right?

Like our few years at this point, there are some um, you know, kind of uh less than savory characters, especially in the kind of cell phone space.

Um, some some companies with predatory practices, especially in our lower income neighborhoods.

And so I do think we need to be careful about that.

I will say um while I I'm always very upfront about the fact that we don't have budget, you know, really dedicated for things like marketing.

Our current provider um has really taken it upon themselves to spend um, you know, a significant amount, frankly, of their own money on marketing.

Um, you know, they obviously get to share those resources across the other markets that they're in.

So it's kind of a shared service, it's not necessarily, you know, just Syracuse.

But um, but that said, I mean, their incentive, of course, is to try to get as many people on the network because that's how they make more money, frankly.

So they are spending marketing dollars and our state grant for the expansion areas, it does fund uh a marketing, uh actually two marketing staff for them.

Um, and so they kind of um they they are doing marketing activities.

Um I think where, you know, if it was again just kind of they were leasing the network from us and they had to operate their business, they're gonna you know, operate their business the way they operate it in other parts of the state and region where they have service, which includes like you know, all the marketing and the promotions and things like that.

Um they're somewhat kind of hand tied a little bit by our contract right now, because they're basically providing a professional service to us, and because our contract doesn't have lines in it for you know, mailing and social media and all of those things, right?

Like they are generally in a little bit of a conundrum of like, do we do it, do we not do it?

Whereas if we had more of just a lease arrangement where it's like, you know, we're leasing the physical network, you figure out how to operate the business, they would do what they had to do to operate the business.

So all I'm saying is, you know, and again, just kind of the way to think about it now is we have a current contractual structure based on the last RFP, but contractual structure does not have to be how we do it moving forward.

And so I do think like it to your point, counselor, if we wanted to continue with a similar contract, then yes, the best thing for for you all to keep in mind is we are looking at probably a 500k a year operating expense for the program.

If we are open to exploring alternative structures, I think we have to be almost, right?

Exactly.

Then that number might change entirely.

But yes, under the current way we've structured it, um, for the foreseeable future, let's call it three years, we would anticipate having to carry operating expenses.

It's a tremendous community benefit if we get it in enough houses because what it really gets lost is it allows it allows disabled people to work from home, it allows older people to go back to work that we may not want to drive or take a bus or a you know an Uber.

It'll you know it allows kids to do things that they couldn't do without the business.

So many things are requiring like telehealth and stuff like that, like is like just like pushing you into not seeing you or doing stuff on your own.

Yeah, it's becoming harder actually to do things like go to doctor's visits without it, right?

And we certainly don't want a predator in the corner stores pushing, and I don't think that's what Helen meant.

Like we don't know.

We don't want the those stories where you know Newport cigarettes used to only throw up right in there, but we don't want that in the neighborhoods just because they're predators, but I think like finding a bigger company that has the juice to market it.

Yes, I think there's a lot of people out there in the city that have no idea this is even an option.

Yeah, no, of course.

Um yeah, I mean, I think we are we're we're learning more about the various players kind of in this ecosystem.

You know, one of the tricky parts about it, obviously is that we are kind of a direct competitor to Spectrum Verizon, though those companies.

Um that said, um, you know, frankly, a lot of those companies as well might be customers of ours because again, the network infrastructure that we could lease could support things like redundancy in their operations and things like that.

So I do think some of the players that we've kind of been um, you know, uh relating to more as competitors today, you know, we might have a different relationship with them in the future.

But we expect them to possibly bid if we put it out, but would the big ones be interested in actually taking over the current contract?

So I don't think so.

Too small.

Um probably, and they tend to provide primary service through their own network.

But what they do is a lot of times they will buy bandwidth basically as backup or redundancy for their networks.

And so that's really not using, you know, that wouldn't be using our our network infrastructure as the primary delivery mechanism, for example, but um, but that's like a fairly frequent construct.

So this grant that you just got to increase the infrastructure makes us a little more valuable to them.

Correct.

Okay, okay, I got it.

Now I'm not sure.

I wanted to uh I got it.

Part of part of the reason why, I mean, it makes a lot of sense for cities to have fiber optic infrastructure for so many reasons.

Um, that we can figure out a way to also provide internet to neighbors is something that not many cities do.

Um but it's kind of like a win-win-win, because you know, in theory, right?

The more the more of our neighbors who have you know better reliable home internet, they can also use online tools to do more business with the city, which then you know helps us deliver city services more efficiently and effectively and things like that.

So it is all part of a bigger, you know, kind of plan, if you will.

Um, and that's really where Vinny and his team come in, because I I do think, and and to counselor Caldwell's question about like what is the five to ten year plan, you know, we have an enormous opportunity with the infrastructure that we've you know started to seed here to drive a lot more um value, you know, to the city in terms of leveraging that those net those network assets for cities use.

Um, even things like you know, we're we're actually talking with the police department right now, they want to actually move part of the cops cams data like to this network.

Okay.

Um and so that's gonna be both a cost savings for us, plus it actually is a much more um cyber secure network.

Um, and so you know, that's another really great example, like um not just you know, connecting a physical firehouse, but you know, if we need uh cellular or um telecommunications capability for, you know, different things we're doing with cameras for drones, like for whatever the case may be more smart cities stuff.

Um, you know, you know, that came up a lot yesterday with the street lights.

Um, you know, there's so much more we can do leveraging this network outside of you know, providing service to people.

But of course, I think we're all in agreement that providing service to people, especially marginalized folks who really need this service, um, is kind of cool.

So what's your campaign?

Hold on one second.

We do have um about I wanted to end like three minutes ago, but sorry, I guess.

We do have a bullet, so I wanted to have us take a break before, but quick.

My question was your you have a plan for this year.

Are you gonna go to public events in the park this year?

Yeah.

Yeah, the team has has been doing a lot more of that.

So they actually um this is where I think our our provider um added some additional staff beyond just what we're paying for through the state grant um to do a lot more community-based marketing.

So it's pretty labor-intensive, right?

It's a lot of like hand-to-hand, you know, combat type stuff.

But they are going to all of the parks events, they're going to a lot of the other community events.

They actually got quite a lot of leads from Winterfest and things like that.

So I think that team is um doing a lot of outreach right now to both our parks and rec team as well as to all of the neighborhood-based community centers to try to plug into their programming.

Um, I know they're doing a lot at Southwest Community Center right now.

As I said, there's a partnership with the Northeast Community Center.

Um, that's gonna grow with the Northeast Community Center because they did get this big digital literacy grant.

Um so the more opportunities we have, um, because they do have some um staff resources that they can send to events and table and hand out flyers and things.

Um so as you all, you know, hear of good opportunities for them to get plugged in there.

Um, obviously just let us know.

But um, but yeah, I do think they're doing a much better job, you know, now than they were even through sectors.

Someone aligned with that.

Um so in the past we talked about the numbers that required by the grant or for the residential subscribers was a little low.

Have we met these numbers yet?

Or are we still far behind?

No, so I so the grant is to be clear, we we don't have like a target where um we need to hit it for like performance reasons.

Okay, we budgeted a certain amount that the state was willing to fund in terms of those in-home devices.

So part of our 10.8 million dollar budget was for um in-home devices.

Um and so if we don't deploy as many of them, we just don't, you know, we don't get the grant money for those.

But that's not uh So it's a reimbursement.

Exactly.

It's just a reimbursement grant.

So we won't we won't expend the money, but then we won't get anything.

Can we still beat that?

Or probably not at this point.

So we we had a very aggressive number in the grant budget.

Um I think you know, we it took like six months longer to get the GDA than we anticipated.

So we had um, I want to say like a 4700 number um in terms of what we asked for for funding to cover in-home devices.

Um that is a very, very large number for the expansion population.

Um so probably a little optimistic.

Um but uh but like I said, in addition, um we just wouldn't expend, you know, wouldn't expend all the funds.

I thought it was I thought it was like 1500, 1400, 1500.

No, so that first year um no, I think we had a we had a target, I can't remember what the 1500 target was.

We had a different 1500 target that we were looking at, but that was I think even before we got the state grant.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thank you all.

Thanks for coffee.

Yeah, if anyone has other questions, uh I know this stuff is very complex, but I appreciate everyone's time.

All right, Jin with call to commit and adjourned.