American Connection Project Aims To Fill The Gaps In Rural Broadband

welcome to z cast everybody i'm zeus caraval from zk research i'll be your host as always i'm joined uh by a very interesting person teddy bekeley the cto of uh lando lakes but uh there's a we're gonna be talking uh rural broadband and a couple other things before we get started though i want to give a quick shout out to eweek my media partner all z casts are done in conjunction with the ewe key speaks series uh so teddy uh thanks for joining today why don't you just give a quick introduction of yourself what you do for orlando lakes sounds good and first of all thank you for having me here i'm really happy to be having this this conversation with you uh so i'm teddy be kelly i'm the chief technology officer atlanta lakes so um i'm responsible for anything technology within our organization and rely on a very strong team to be able to deliver value both to our uh customers as well as to our employees ultimately my job really breaks up into three areas one is around the kind of maintaining all the systems for our organization the second is around the digital transformation of our company and how we go to market and working with our businesses on that one and the third one which is really the most interesting and a large part of our conversation here is how do we use technology for good and how do we use it for our members how do we use it with customers uh in ways that are super interesting and really benefiting the society and really bringing rural broadband as a specific example is one of the areas we focus on quite a bit we're a farmer-owned cooperative farm to fork so our members are made up of dairy producers about 2000 of them and these ag retailers that are in rural communities and there's nearly a thousand of those and they work with all the different um farmers in those communities and we touch about 300 000 farmers and half of the harvested acres in the united states so a lot of bigfoot big footprints in the in in rural communities and so we see the problem of what happens in those communities as well as through our land o lakes consumer products good butter and cheese that most people recognize it for we also touch a lot a lot of different consumers so our goal really is how do you connect that consumer with the farmer and how do you bridge that digital divide yeah well i'm glad to hear that landlinks has taken uh you know the the task of trying to do the world some good seriously i think this is something that we've seen a big pivot in from companies uh you know and uh some companies just donate money but it sounds like you guys are taking action now i know landlakes is a found was the founding member in fact of a project called the american connection project or acp um explain what acp is and what it does and why it was important for landlakes to get involved absolutely and this is something we started actually even before the pandemic but really got accentuated during the pandemic and when everything started right like i said we saw this problem of you know we're trying to bring technology to rural communities and you know through the efforts of our businesses obviously using technology in day-to-day work for productivity is critical uh whether you're in a dairy barn or whether you're gonna you know you're feeding animals on the farm or you're uh you know planting seeds and harvesting those crops right so there's lots of technology that happens in that space but what we saw is because no matter what kind of interesting tools we developed when you tried to deploy it to those folks in those rural communities a lot of them didn't have the opportunity to use it because they didn't have the broadband highway to leverage and so ultimately they would say you know love all the stuff you're bringing to us but i can't take advantage of it so i'm still stuck back in the stone age not being able to do things uh in addition to that we also saw that you know there was educational barriers right if somebody wanted to do some long-distance learning and obviously when you live in a rural community getting somewhere you know it was quite a bit of a drive and they weren't able to do that uh weren't able to connect with a doctor and when the pandemic hit that really got accentuated because now the kids were staying at home and having to do homework from there uh or where some people were trying to get in touch with a doctor instead of having to go an emergency room and drive 80 miles they want to connect with loved ones and again and conduct their work on a day-to-day basis so all that just really amplified during the pandemic and really accelerated some of our work so the american connection project really is an initiative really focused in three areas number one is awareness just like you and i are doing right now talking about the lack of broadband in rural communities and we know that there's you know today the fcc will say something that's 18 million uh households that don't have uh internet connectivity and that number is true but if you go a little bit deeper actually that number might expand to 42 or 50 million and a large part of those individuals live in those rural communities right and that's and that's so that's something that was kind of matching with what we were seeing so how do we raise awareness the second one was advocacy how can we get more other organizations like ours to understand this problem and become advocates so we created a coalition and there's about 170 companies or more actually we're higher than that today that are part of this coalition and we're all advocating working both at the state and federal level to be able to push more funding into this broadband space to be able to create subgroups around education broadband education healthcare and even connectivity from a productivity standpoint so that was the sort of advocacy piece and the third one was really around action let's do something right and when during the pandemic we took a lot of our locations and a lot of our partners in the in the coalition also took a lot of their location and enabled guest wi-fi so if you you know you're near one of these locations you could go to the parking lot and be able to use that uh the internet that way and we saw a huge spike as soon as uh people became aware of that service uh we're also working today with companies like microsoft to be able to put antennas on towers and be able to propagate the signal that way and offer broadband in a more unique uh fashion and then we're also connected started an initiative called the american connection core um which we're putting fellows in these communities and uh making sure that they can fully take advantage of these capabilities so um that's the american connection project sort of in a nutshell but lots of work going on with lots of different individuals but it's it's pretty exciting yeah you know it's funny world broadband has been a hot button topic of mine for uh oh the better part of the last decade uh as a nation i i almost think we should be embarrassed at the state of high-speed broadband in this country we're the most technically advanced country in the world we invent everything but yet we can't get basic internet connectivity to a big part of the country so um what why is that what exactly is the problem why why is there still such a big gap in uh in connectivity speeds in different parts of the country yeah that that's a great question and really at the end of the day it comes out to uh it's it's unaffordable for some of the providers providers to be able to provide um fiber or even some sort of connectivity in these communities because you're in a rural area the terrain is diverse right so you have lakes you have trees you have mountains you have valleys and so putting fiber down in the ground is not as simple as well as once you put it in the ground because the households are so spaced apart right like miles away and then sometimes even the household is not just off the road it's another half mile off the road and so you started to dig in a line and you know we're talking about costs that could be anywhere around forty thousand dollars a mile right to put that to put that fiber down and that becomes you know when you're looking at a rural community just becomes for a broadband provider like we'd love to be able to connect everybody in this county or everybody in this region of the state but it's just not financially feasible for us we would be completely upside down that's why sort of the federal side and some of the funding could help with those type of pieces because broadband as you and i know today it's a it's a basic need right just like in the 30s we had electricity and then we had phone lines and water like you know we need to have the same thing with broadband today because that's just how good work gets done that's how you again education healthcare all those kind of fun things come together including what's interesting with this productivity piece on the work side climate change right so we have tools that we deploy out in the field today that can help farmers become more sustainable on their field with providing them good uh agronomic insights and giving them good practices but they need the technology to be able to execute upon that and without it they're not able to do so so and they could have a huge impact on being carbon sinks in the future uh or even reducing some of their emissions at the moment and they could be a good solution for climate climate change in the future yeah the um i think in this country too with all the social issues going on i think uh in good quality internet and education is the great equalizer in the world right we've seen that in different parts of the world and it's funny because in this country we can't do it now you you touched on uh a number of government initiatives i know the government itself has pledged billions of dollars right although there's still a big problem get that money rolled out as hasn't been easy uh and so there was a need for private initiatives like this i think we can't just companies like yourself i suppose are saying that you can't just sit back and wait for the government to do something you're going to augment that so um explain to me how initiatives like acp are kind of filling that gap between what the government programs are yeah you know again um i don't i don't envy the job of the folks in dc that have to figure out how to how to solve this problem right because um different states have different requirements have different needs they're in different states of different levels of maturity right and to figure all that out but i think that's our job from a private standpoint we can step in and provide some of that insight some of that expertise so i today for example sit on a task force that's a joint task force between the usda and the fcc focused on precision ad connectivity letting them know here are the technologies coming in the future here's the demands for broadband going forward so some of the minimum or the standards you've established today may not be enough they may need to be higher and by the way when you deploy some of these programs out whether it's various agencies unless you have a coordinated effort not only amongst the federal agencies but also with the states this funding is not going to go in the direction you need it to go so here are some interesting ways where you could deploy this and we provide sort of that feedback and those recommendations back uh to the to the to the government agencies so that's one way you can you can collaborate another one is like i said earlier like our companies like we work with a number of those thousand retailers in those rural communities and they have um high altitude uh infrastructure right so grain silos fertilizer plants and we say but we know part of the cost of deploying this is land as well as a tall infrastructure we may have some of those things in place so you know let's work together with you and we will reduce the cost of bringing some sort of broadband connection into those rural communities and that's one way you can work with with private agencies i know companies like tractor supply for example have also done interesting things where they've said look anybody somebody downloads the tractor supply app in one of the the stores they will donate one dollar towards this cause right so that's another way of a private uh company be able to contribute back to the larger cause so those are all exciting things and i think when you have that private public partnership and they hold hand in hand we can solve big problems like this yeah it's interesting too because you brought up like the high altitude silos and things like that that it's funny the different places that i see technology being used like iot and things i was in vermont last year and i ran to the small little syrup farm that had iot enabled uh there's their syrup vats because the farmer was telling me that he constantly have to run back and forth to see if it was full now through a simple app on his phone he can tell very quickly you know when it's getting full he's a lot more efficient that way and so iot is being used everywhere today including these forums and it's really kind of a become kind of a game changer so now you mentioned tractor supply company right they they joined lambo lakes an organization that's helped with uh bring a lot of major retail or deployments for free wi-fi but what um you mentioned microsoft what are some of the other vendors that are helping with these deployments so uh we have a number of like i said there's healthcare companies in it like a mayo clinic for example or central care but we also have big technology companies like hp that have participated in this and they've offered up the some of the infrastructure that we use actually it was a huge help when the pandemic was going on and like i said we had those uh 3000 plus locations that were offering guest wi-fi where we had to have routers out and it was routers that had to be able to reach the parking lots right so again you wanted to be safe you didn't want people to come into the building and cause more issues for themselves and others in the building so from the parking lot from the safety of your car be able to access uh internet and good reliable internet right you don't want it to be all choppy and kind of breaking up and all that especially if somebody's going there a number of people did not only to talk to a doctor but to attend the class right you're doing homework and listening to the teacher and all those types of things so uh partners like that's kind of stepped up and were able to offer what they could with their expertise in that space um and we were able to deploy that during the pandemic and we continue now now even as we go and continue to deploy some of these towers and some of these capabilities those are the technologies we're using and that's exciting that everybody recognizes the problem and it doesn't matter what was interesting is it didn't matter what sector you belonged in or what industry you were focused on like there was a way for you to contribute and that's how we got to this you know 170 plus members in this coalition which i thought was very exciting uh and also applaud every single organization that decided yep we understand this problem and we want to be able to support and participate and help kind of solve that um so yes very very exciting yeah and when you mentioned the hp uh hewlett packard enterprise i believe from my notes on this on the initiative uh you were talking about specifically with the aruba group within hp right the company that makes wi-fi and i want to drill down a little bit because obviously wi-fi connects everything today but it's becoming more and more advanced uh in fact i think i read somewhere in a study that millennials would rather uh give up their car than wi-fi right so it's become an integrated part of our life uh can you uh just drill down a little bit on what aruba is doing and um and how important have they been to the success of this initiative yeah absolutely and and i should have mentioned that i mean obviously the uh the aruba uh networking they're kind of the remote um capabilities that they offered us uh were critical right so again for us to be able to see where the infrastructure was deployed how it was performing and also i mean we had to you know since the first day we enabled the first wi-fi location right we had to keep track of you know how many people were coming what was the traffic looking like did we have the bandwidth to be able to kind of serve the the population there did we have to add an extra router did we have to bring more bandwidth to the to the to the building itself right so we were able without having to you know obviously there were some folks that were at that location but really most of the heavy lifting was done kind of from our central um from headquarters here in minnesota right so we were able to see what was going on and where we needed to make adjustments and be able to work with the local folks to be able to do that and the aruba solution is really what helped us do a lot of that in the process so we were it was great it was it was an awesome experience for us and really i mean it's a relationship we had even before the pandemic but you know we talk about all the capabilities and all the things we can they can bring to the table um but it really shine during that time right because now not only were we doing it to run our normal business and the normal kind of infrastructure we have uh for for our company but now we're offering it to a much broader base and for a much different reason yeah so you you mentioned uh i think you just mentioned that you had familiar with aruba before and uh did that factor in to you choosing them to assist with acp or did they just step up and do that um you know you know on their own no i i think it was a combination of both right so it was one is we had the relationship we knew what their capabilities were but when we got into into this the situation we actually you know talked to a number of our of our partners and said we're trying to go solve this problem and they certainly stepped up and said we can certainly help you in the space here's here's actually uh beyond what you know about us today here's what we could do in addition to that and here's how we can help you support some of the efforts you're trying to put out there and so they were critical in helping us do that so they they yes we had their relationship but they certainly stepped up during the time of need yeah well that's certainly good to see i mean a lot of these companies are you know very big they make a lot of infrastructure so it's nice to see them redirecting that back and to make the country a you know a better place in so many different ways um now ac acp um you know the initiative has been ongoing for a little bit uh can you point to any recent success that you've had and some proof points for uh how the program has been working yeah so i mentioned earlier we uh just recently uh recently spent a couple months now things are moving so fast but we just deployed the american connection core right so part of what we saw is okay broadband is required we need it in these rural communities we know funding will come at some point we know we need to deploy the infrastructure and the base technology but the other piece was well is there an affordability issue uh in these communities right if it's available are they going to take advantage of it do they know how to take advantage of it where's the first place okay let's say there is funding and this county is going to get connected where would be the first you know places to deploy uh this capability so what we quickly found out was that you know we could have uh we created a program called the american connection core made up of 50 fellows that really were recently you know like uh graduated students from colleges or whoever else needed to apply but primarily in that in that age range that wanted to go back to their hometowns and be able to contribute and give back so we kind of got you know kind of going through an interview process and got 52 different individuals and now they're going back in these communities and really becoming uh the evangelist for why we need broadband there how to get it deployed get folks to understand look if there's an affordability issues here are some programs you can apply for and bring down that cost on a monthly basis uh here's how you can best use it here's how to get it set up if that's if that's what's needed right and it's been hugely successful and we've deployed across 12 states and um kind of now talking about the second batch of fellows that we may well put out there with working with lead from lead fund of america so very exciting and so that's been a huge success for us uh as well as you know there's right now i mean i think i would say from a broadband uh need perspective when you look at the uh the dollars that are being discussed right at the the federal level to be deployed in these communities you know we've been talking somewhere around 80 to 100 billion is what's needed to close the gap and there is you know in that in the latest infrastructure package there is about 80 billion dollars and it's a it's a bipartisan alignment on that piece and maybe there may be some disagreements in other areas but when it comes to this piece there's actually like alignment and cooperation um from from from the different government entities which is which is very exciting for us yeah well that is good to hear because uh um you know there's really very few things in the world today that are bipartisan issues so uh but this is one that should be and uh although i've always said never uh never underestimate the government's ability to not get along with each other so but it sounds like in this area they're all aligned uh so now you've got some recent proof points the initiative is going on what's next for you so next i think is you know like let's um now that let's get let's get broadband in there let's take advantage of it right um part of it is for example like you know we talk about why you mentioned it at the beginning why do we care about broadband in rural communities yes we're a technologically advanced nation and we should be able to do this right i mean it should just be a right for every citizen of the country absolutely but secondly i mean like when you look at rural communities i mean that's the source of food fuel and fiber for the entire country right so and it touches us in one shape or form so we need those communities to be technologically savvy and to be able to take advantage of the latest technologies i'm not now talking really latest technologies edge computing artificial intelligence right blockchain if that's the case especially around the traceability perspective how do we deploy these type of capabilities into those rural communities and what's super interesting is as the farmers become more technologically advanced the community around them becomes technologically advanced because they're going to need help from folks to run some of the equipment potentially uh it brings more capability even from tech companies back into these communities uh you need to deploy you know if it's doing telemedicine and we can even have a center that's sort of autonomous without having somebody be there but somebody show up and be able to use the equipment and be able to interact with the doctors if they were really there so we can unlock all of that right so now the question is okay how do we make that happen there's great visions and what we want to do there but we want to make sure that that comes to life so that is probably the the next step for us in this in this evolution um and i think it's exciting i think there's lots of fun things we could do and get even the younger generation to be excited into farming again that that would be super exciting for me and you know i live in an urban community and i have two kids and would love for them to aspire to somehow be connected to agriculture and do something even if they didn't live in a rural area yeah well i suppose sort of the technical advancement of that industry would help get more and get more young people interested in it uh i think it's been an interest it's been lacking innovation for a long time but clearly everything's set up right now so hopefully that'll happen uh anyways uh teddy uh from uh cto natalie's i want to thank you for joining me and i also want to thank you for all the the work you and your company are doing in this to to try and bring broadband to the rural areas of this country uh you know it's uh it seems like you've got a full-time job already with lando lakes and this you're doing on the side of the uh you know as part of your job but also i know it's a it's a topic that you care about so thank you very much for that if more people were willing to do that i think this issue wouldn't be a problem so thank you for having me and being able to tell the story and by the way it's these types of opportunities where we can talk about not only the issue what we could do about it but also the possibilities of the future that are exciting and you're helping us do that so thank you okay well keep up the good work and uh that wraps up our z cast everybody don't forget to click to subscribe and i'll see you next week you

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