2023-05-24 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy
2023-05-24 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - During of the joint committee on telecommunications utilities and energy to order, before we start, I'd like to introduce the members who have joined us today to my right is representative Moschino from the great town of hull. And to my left rep Owens from Watertown, and representative Steven Howard is online. And great to see everyone here. This testimony will be on matters involving towing, and Missili telecommunications towing and miscellaneous bills. We have people who have signed up, so I will go in the order in which they have signed up and invite you up to testify beginning with James Hor and Heidi Mahoney.
SPEAKER2 - Morning. Good morning.
SPEAKER1 - Great to see you.
SPEAKER3 - We as well.
HEIDI MAHONEY - GO NET SPEED - HB 3208 - Chairman Roy, and members of the joint committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy. My name is91 Heidi Mahoney, and I'm the manager of government affairs at GoNetSpeed. I offer this testimony on behalf of our company in support of H 3208, which aims to establish standards for full attachment process to facilitate the construction of broadband net works. GoNetSpeed is a facilities based broadband provider dedicated to deploying fiber optic network in Central and Western Massachusetts. This proposed legislation represents a crucial reform in expanding broadband access throughout the Commonwealth. It has the potential to accelerate122 and expand both private and public investment in broadband infrastructure, benefiting consumers and businesses across Massachusetts. The importance of broadband services has significantly increased in every sector of the economy.134 Broadband is now an essential infrastructure that supports education, health care, commerce, entertainment, and employment. To meet the growing demand for connectivity, particularly in underserved residential areas, it is vital to establish conditions that facilitate the construction of broadband infrastructure.
Regrettably, there are parts of the commonwealth where broadband availability is lacking, and even more areas that have limited access with only one single provider. Our experience in other markets demonstrates that competition among providers leads to lower prices and improved service quality. By entering the market, GoNetSpeed not only benefits our own customers but also enhances the experience for all users. To deploy our fiber optic network, GoNetSpeed requires access to existing utility infrastructure, primarily utility poles owned by electric utilities and the telephone company. Although Massachusetts and federal laws provide for poll access, poll owners often cause unwarranted delays and obstacles, impeding the timely provision of critical broadband services to the citizens of the Commonwealth. Companies like GoNetSpeed must apply to poll owners for access to the polls and in, Massachusetts, that process can take years. For example, GoNetSpeed is currently planning the expansion of our fiber optic network in Amherst, We submitted our poll attachment applications to the relevant owners in October of 2021 and received make ready determination in December of 2022, a delay of 14 months.
Unfortunately, that is just the beginning of the delay. The completion of the make ready work can add an229 additional 6 months to the process. In comparison, other New England states that have adopted standardized poll processes like One Touch Make Ready, are processing Make ready determinations within two to three months with Make ready completion in one month. In conclusion, the passage of H 3208 is of paramount importance to promote the development of robust broadband networks in Massachusetts, by establishing clear standards for the poll attachment process, this legislation will enable timely and efficient deployment of broadband infrastructure ensuring that all citizens have the right to high speed Internet. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Questions? Yep.
SPEAKER1 - You're gonna testify as well?
SPEAKER4 - Yes.
SPEAKER1 - Why don't you both testify? And then we'll open it up for questions.
SPEAKER3 - Excellent.
SPEAKER1 - All
SPEAKER4 - right.
JAMIE HOARE - GO NET SPEED - HB 3208 - Chairman Roy and members of the Joint Committee, I am Jamie Hoare, chief legal counsel for GoNetSpeed. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of H 3208. H 3208 will establish one touch make ready in Massachusetts, bringing the Commonwealth into competitive parity with the other states of New England. OTMR has been around since 2018 first being rolled out in FCC regulated states. Today, more than 30 states nationwide have OTMR protocols in effect, and the process has been shown to be effective at accelerating the pole attachment process. More importantly, the process has been shown to ensure the safety and reliability of the electric and communications networks where the process is used. Clearly, safety and reliability are of paramount importance to GoNetSpeed. Our workers and our contractors work on these polls, our customers rely on328 our work and the electric network as well. OTMR has internal guardrails to ensure the safety interests poll owners, adapters, and most importantly, the public. Importantly, the OTMR process applies to work only in the communication space on poles and does not apply to work on electric facilities. Allow me to describe the OTMR process. First, a party wishing access to the polls conducts a survey, the actual survey is conducted by contractors approved by the poll owners, ensuring that any engineering decisions will be consistent with the poll owner's standards. The applicant must provide notice to the poll owners and any other affected parties that the survey will take place and all are permitted to attend.
After the survey is conducted, the applicant submits the376 survey with engineering determinations to the poll owners, and they have an opportunity to review those determinations. That is, the poll owners may reject the application where the engineering does not meet standards. The poll owners may also reject the application where the proposed make ready work is not simple. For example, poll replacements or work outside the communication space on the pole. Thus, in addition to the use of approved contractors for survey and engineering, the poll owners have the opportunity for direct input as well further ensuring their safety and reliability standards are met. After the survey and application are completed, and the poll owners have had the opportunity to review, the applicant gives notice to any affected party and the poll owners that it will be performing the actual make ready work on the poll. The affected parties may be present during the make ready work, and the work is conducted by appropriately428 bonded and qualified contractors. After this construction is completed, an inspection further ensures that the work is correct. Safety is the poll star of the entire process. Passage of H 3208 will help bring broadband construction in the Commonwealth into parity with the other446 states in the region, attracting more private investment and ensuring public broadband funds have maximum intended impact. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Well, thank you very much. Let me start with a few questions and ask members of the panel if they have any tee them up, and we will entertain them. But before I do that, I want to welcome rep Sousa from Framingham. At Rep Liparabedian from Melrose. Couple questions. What's
REP ROY - Talk to me about the current process, in what accounts for the 14 month delay and maybe take me into the room where you're having discussions about this?
HOARE - Sure. Under the current process, an applicant submits an application identifying which polls they would like to attach to and the poll owners each conduct separate surveys. Then after taking the measurements of the facilities on the poles, then they conduct their own engineering.
ROY - Who pays for these surveys and engineering at this point?
HOARE - The applicant pays for it. Okay.
ROY - And then you'd pay for it under what you propose in the Bill as well?
HOARE - Yes. We would be directly retaining the contractor to do those surveys. The contractor is approved and ensured that they understand the standards of the poll owners but we would directly retain those contractors. So there isn't539 really a cost shift that goes on under the process, we're using an outside contractor. In other states where it's used, it's typically the same outside contractor that the poll owner would use for its own work. This third party poll attachment work typically is not prioritized by the poll owners. In some case, we're in direct competition with566 the poll owners in the case of the electric company, they're571 clearly focused on on other matters.573 So, by allowing a direct relationship between the applicant and the contractor who does surveys, it sort of cuts out the delay of the middleman, that aspect itself doesn't do much to address at cost either way.
ROY - What's different about your process596 that we'll get this under 14 months?
HOARE - So first, because we are contacting directly the605 contractor, we can control the timing of the survey. Contractors once they've been approved and trained, we can have discussions with them, give them a sense of what our expected activity in the future is going to621 be, and they can staff up appropriately. So it really does give us more controls over the timing.
ROY - Do you have any sense as to what the poll loan is going to tell me about this particular Bill? I didn't see them on the list signed up to testify, but perhaps you can look in your crystal ball.
HOARE - Well, I guess I don't need much of a crystal ball, right? As I said, this process was first established by the FCC for states where the FCC regulates full attachments. That was in 2018, and there was a pretty extensive rulemaking at the FCC before that. The poll owners, the arguments they made were typically arguments about safety and reliability and that's sort of why I address that in my oral testimony. For the survey process, we're using approved contractors, the contractors get approved when they understand the systems of the poll owners and the695 engineering requirements and the safety699 requirements of the poll owners. So on the survey side, that's absolutely taken care of. It's called one touch make ready, and I haven't really addressed what the make ready is and how one touch applies to it. So make ready work is the work of moving facilities around on a pole, so you might be raising facilities up a little higher to make room underneath them or you may be pushing facilities down.
In more extreme cases, you could have to replace polls with taller polls to make room. When we talk about one touch make ready, we are talking about, it's defined and it's simple make ready and that is work in the communication space. So, we're talking about cables, telephone, competitive fiber providers,751 we are not talking about electric facilities.753 Second, there's even work in the communication space that would not be simple, right? So if the make ready work that needs to be done is something that would cause an outage for the company being moved, if you had to cut their cables to do it, that is not simple make ready. So what we're really talking about is moving cables on a pole and taking a measurement to make sure you're moving it to the right place, it's very simple. Depending on where it is, that practice between competitive providers has actually800 been a longstanding practice where802 a competitive provider because they are using the same contractor to actually do the moves808 might act cooperatively with another poll occupant, they have both812 moves done at the same time.
So you can see that rolling one truck to a given pole to do the make ready and having all of those moves done with one truck roll is clearly more efficient. You know, the worst case scenario of doing it otherwise is the first party moves, gives notice to the next party you has to move, they have to schedule a crew, so it isn't just that they say, you moved, I'll hop in the truck and go, they have to schedule a crew, there is a delay there. They move their facility, next facility moves and it does require a certain amount of coordination. That coordination adds a lot of inefficiency into it if you're not rolling one truck and so that's really on the860 make ready side of it, the real virtue of862 one touch make ready. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Well, thank you very much. Wanna welcome Vice chair Hagerty from from Walburn. And I873 do see that we have a quite from Representative Howard, and then I'll talk to the ask the folks here online. So Representative Howard is all yours.
REP HOWITT - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I have a couple questions. My first question is, there a master list of whole ownership I know in the past894 through my transportation position, sometimes polls are tough to move because no one seems to know who actually owns it. It could be telephone company, it could be the electric company, it could be a cable company. So that would be my first question. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Right? Can you repeat that because you were on the the small speakers? We now have you on the big speaker, so we can hear you loud and clear.
SPEAKER5 - Okay. I'll try it again. Thank you, mister chair.
SPEAKER3 - I was wondering
SPEAKER1 - good rehearsal for you.
SPEAKER5 - Yeah. Yeah. I hope I can remember my
SPEAKER1 - Factor, I know you'll remember your last.
SPEAKER5 - Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir. Is there a master list of poles within towns? I do know from my transportation position or committee that sometimes finding the ownership of a poll can be rather time consuming as many polls are owned by different companies. You could have 5 polls owned by, let's say, the electric company, and then 1 might be owned by Verizon in the same lineup.
HAORE - Yes, that can be a challenge. The way that the system works is typically, you have a choice of one of two owners for any given pool, I suppose three. The poll could be owned by the electric company and in that case, you know their service territory, so you have an988 idea where to start there. It will be owned by the telephone company and again, you know, in most cases, that will be Verizon but not always, there are some smaller telephone companies around the state as well, but, again, you know their service territory. Also, the polls can be jointly owned by both the telephone company and the electric company. You know, in my experience, the record keeping has not always then perfect but during the survey process, you can get an indication of who owns the polls and certainly through the application process, you can get that sorted out.
HOWITT - Then secondly, is there a time period that they are required to respond to you? That they understand that there is a situation that needs to be addressed and at least they get back to you or can they take 14 months?
HOARE - So there's the statutory provision that says if they are going to deny access, they have to do it within 45 days.
HOWITT - So as it is, 45 days, a month and a half seems to be quite a long stretch which adds to the time frame?
HOARE - Yes. And as I said, that's to deny access. If they say, well, we're not denying access, we're just trying to figure out a way to get you on the pole, there really is no statutory or regulatory time frame for that, and that's what is causing the survey process to be so long. Now in in other jurisdictions, they have made regulatory time frames for how long each phase of this should take. I will say that frequently, those deadlines are missed, and by frequently, I mean, routinely. So what the model has been is moving towards ways of when those deadlines are missed, coming up with some fashion of1124 self help to allow the applicant to attach. One touch make ready sort of eliminates the entire deadline paradigm though so that poll owners aren't missing regulatory deadlines, which is not good for them, right? And the process1141 is just a step by step process to get on the poles and the timing is largely driven by the applicant. There are some time frames in the OTMR process for how long poll owners have to review items. If they miss those deadlines, the process moves forward. So the key is, first, they're given an opportunity for direct input, and they should have that opportunity but secondly, if they miss that opportunity for direct input, they can have confidence and the public can have confidence that the folks doing the work are actually qualified to do it and there isn't going to be a negative impact from that work. Really, the difference is that the facilities get up quicker, customers get served sooner, and the public has access to competitive broadband much more quickly. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - I'll set there, rep, Howard?
SPEAKER5 - Yes. Thank you, mister chair.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Questions? Rep ons?
SPEAKER6 - Thank you, miss Jim, and
REP OWENS - Thank you for your testimony today. I just have a quick question about how this would impact, you mentioned, you know, putting up new wires, this is what this is designed for. How1220 would this impact you know, replacing poles or if you had to put a new equipment on a pole or if you had to prepare or put in a new one, how would this change that process? Because I know that process is also very, very lengthy and I get a lot of complaints about that.
HOARE - This does not address the poll replacement process, so poll replacements are not one touch make ready. There are alternative methods of attaching to polls that are available if you want to, avoid the pole replacement and we're sort of working that process through with the poll owners right now. I should have brought a model of a utility pole with me, if you visualize a pole in your mind though as you're driving down the street, you will notice next time because nobody notices utility poles but you'll notice next time that the facilities tend to run down the street side of the pole. The backside of the pole typically is kind of greenfield opportunity and so if there is a pole replacement required because you need more space on the street side of the pole to make room for the new street side of the pole, so if a pole replacement is required because there is not room on the street side, but you have all that wide open territory on the backside of the pole, then, you know, place the facility there and you avoid the cost, the delay and also the sort of unsightly circumstance of having two poles as you're going through the replacement process, which can be complicated. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
All set? Seth, thank you. Other questions?
REP MESCHINO - I was just curious, is there ever a situation where they would just say no because there's already too much? I mean, if you look at utility polls now, it's shocking how much there is, and now even with some of the antennas that they put on top and everything. So is there ever a situation where it's like I'm sorry, there's just too much on that poll, and that's not going to happen, and I guess that would not be a ready made thing, but I just was curious.
HOARE - Yes, we haven't run into that, it's more common in sort of underground facilities to run into a true lack of capacity situation because to add more conduits, you have to dig up streets, right? And that's not great. But with utility poles, they come in 5 foot increments and so if you're going through an area that has 35 foot poles, you can put in a 40 foot pole, and that opens up a lot of space on the pole. There are some construction practices like putting cabinets on poles and that sort of stuff that really do congest things and do complicate the attachment process for other attaches1435 but1435 you1435 can always add vertical space. Now1437 full replacements range from very expensive to breathtakingly expensive, right? And so in the simple case, it's thousands and thousands of dollars and then complicated case where you had transformers on the pole, a lot of electricity or a lot of electric facilities on the pole, that can be a a much more expensive process. But poll replacements are hard and they're expensive, and they cause a lot of delay. This is not addressing that situation and if you can avoid the poll replacements or separate them out in the application and say, alright, we want to get a head start on these polls because we know it's going to take a while. But the simple stuff when it's ready to go, let us do it, we'll build our network, you still have benefits from that.
MESCHINO - So they can't tell you no, as it stands now? It's just a question of how and who pays and the quality?
HOARE - Yes, how, who pays, how long it's going to take and the quality of the work. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
I understand. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Any other questions?
Seeing none, I wanna thank you for your testimony. Who knew we would spend all this time on polls this morning,
SPEAKER1 - but appreciate it. And thank you for deepening our understanding of the issue.
SPEAKER3 - Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Our next witness that is signed up to testify is Christa a stack?
What?
See if you can top that. I'm cool. Who's got
SPEAKER8 - She's here.
SPEAKER1 - Hey, let's let's get it all rolling
SPEAKER8 - in this movie.
CHRISTOPHER STARK - MASSACHUSETTS INSURANCE FEDERATION - HB 3698 - HB 3174 - HB 3692 - SB 2185 - SB 2085 - Chair Roy members of the committee. Thanks for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Christopher Stark, and I'm the Executive Director of the Mass Insurance Federation where we represent about 80% of the private passenger automobile market in the Commonwealth today. I'm here on five Bills, I guess, today. For the record, the Federation is opposed to H 3698, H 3174, H 3692, S 2185, and supportive of S 2085. When it comes to a House Bill, 3692 S 2185, those Bills increase exorbitant traits for towing. But what it doesn't take into consideration, which is one of the good parts of S 2085 are all of the ancillary fees that are out there. So even though this rate has been fairly static, there are many fees that have increased exponentially over the years from administrative fees that can exceed $150 on the storage and towing bills to gate and yard fees for non secure off street parking locations, so how can you charge gate fees when there are no gates. We need to have a consumer focus1636 when it comes to towing and storage and those ancillary fees and some of the bad actors that are out there today in this space, we just don't want to incentivize these abusive pricing practices without taking efforts to curtail some of those practices.
As for H 3698, the tolling reform, that Bill, as it appears, changes the application of the lien for those on the scene of an accident to non consensual towing operations. I believe that1674 where we should be going for our consumers in this state is in the opposite direction of where this Bill goes and more consumers, even are educated policyholders that may understand that there is a non consensual towing fee schedule that might exist out there. At the scene of an accident, when they're shaken up from that accident or something that was severe enough that their vehicle has to be towed from the scene, they don't necessarily understand that the moment that they make a choice to have that vehicle sent to any location other than the towing operator storage facility that none of the fee schedule aspects apply. And for those Bills, we start to extraordinary Bills. So I would urge this committee rather to go in the opposite direction and some states have and define that any accident that is police ordered is a non consensual tow, so the people have that protection.
Obviously, we would have to put in some constraints into that to ensure that it wasn't abusive to the towing operators and themselves in terms of having to go excessive distances or anything like that but we see many instances where we see exponentially larger Bills coming in for towing and storage on these when they passed the other facility that the policyholder wanted their vehicle delivered to in between the scene of the accident and where the towing operator's storage facility would have been. So we would urge you to go in an opposite direction on H 3698, which a few states have done in an attempt to protect all consumers that are involved in an accident. S 2085, Senator's Brownsberger's Bill, we highly support this legislation. Knowingly or not takes into account a lot of the recommendations of the National Counsel of Insurance Legislators Model Act on towing, which focuses on consumer protections, like making sure that consumers have access without fees to their vehicles.
Many times, consumers will leave car seats or medications in their vehicle and then have to pay and access fees in order1820 to get that. The Bill also makes clear that any fee that is not fee scheduled for a non consent tow1826 cannot be charged, so that I think is a very pro consumer piece of legislation. The other thing that I would say in terms of making sure that we're trying to confine the storage fees and the towing fees in the commonwealth is that there's an unintended consequence when these grow out of control, and that's what they impact the total loss valuation. So you may end up having more vehicles that become total losses because of the total expense that wouldn't otherwise. So really here today with a consumer focus and hope that we can continue to constrain1865 the rate of growth of towing and storage rates and maybe even pass some of these great consumer protections that are in S 2085 as well. Thank you, Mr. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Chairman.
Thank you very much. Just 1 quick ask if you could provide us with the other states and examples from the other states that would very helpful.
SPEAKER8 - Absolutely. I'll have some examples and those states in our written testimony.
SPEAKER1 - Appreciate it. Any other questions from the committee?
Seeing none, I thank you for your testimony.
The next person who has signed up to test if I is Georgia Balo, Georgia?
Get a handwritten note, I like that.
SPEAKER5 - Oh.
GEORGIA BARLOW - METROPOLITAN AREA PLANNING COUNCIL - SB 2108 - Good morning, Chair1920 Roy and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of Senate Bill 2108 filed by Senator Crighton. My name is Georgia Barlow, and I'm a government affairs specialist at the Metropolitan area planning council. MAPC is the regional planning agency for Greater Boston serving the people who live and work in the 101 cities and towns of the region. We work to build a more equitable region by promoting smart growth and regional collaboration. A safe accessible and affordable transportation system is integral to our mission. We've been working with our cities and towns to understand and plan for the implications of transportation network companies or TNCs like Uber and Lyft that quickly emerge and have become a staple of our transportation system in recent years. We support this legislation to update the fee structure of TNCs, not only to raise additional funds for transportation infrastructure, but because it's an opportunity to encourage mode shift, and get more people using public transportation or active transit.
MAPC's recent fair choices report found that almost 60% of ride hailing trips would have used a non polluting travel mode if ride hailing was not an option. As the state is working to implement policies that encourage more sustainable modes of transportation, it's experiencing rapid growth in this industry that is adding to the carbon footprint of the state. We estimate that TNC drivers spend more than 1/3 of their time driving without passengers while waiting for ride requests clogging our roads and adding to the congestion and emissions. Currently, Massachusetts has a flat fee rate of 20 cents on each TNC ride, that's then split between the municipality where the ride originated, the Commonwealth Transportation Trust Fund to support the MBTA and RTAs across Massachusetts. In the past six years of these fees, the Commonwealth has raised about $74,000,000 through this. But this fee is dramatically lower than other metro areas and states across the country, including Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and the state of New York.
This legislation would increase the fees to 40 cents for a shared ride, $1.24 on a typical ride and $2.20 cents for a luxury ride. It would also give municipalities within the original MTA system the ability to charge a congestion assessment up to $2.25 cents for rides taken during regular MBTA hours to target trips that could have been utilizing public transportation. In 2019, the MBTA lost an estimated $21,700,000 in net revenue as a direct result of ride hailing trips. We estimate that if we use this new fee structure that's more in line with the other states and other metro areas, we could generate over $100,000,000 a year when we see the return to pre pandemic ridership, which is on the way at the moment. Recently, within last week, the DPU released their data on 2022 TNC trips, and one key takeaway is that in 2022, 338 municipalities had at least one rideshare pickup and 47 municipalities saw more last year than they did before the pandemic. Ridership in general is returning, and though we have not yet seen the ridership we on 2019, there was a 52% increase from 2021 to 2222, suggesting that this transportation mode is here to stay. We're engaged in continued research in this evolving sector, and we'll also be submitting written testimony with further research and information. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great. Thank you very much for your testimony. Just 1 question.
ROY - Does this Bill do anything to improve public transportation and make it more reliable so that people would be encouraged to use that service?
BARLOW - Hopefully, with some more investments, we can create that reliability, SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
right?
Mhmm. Any questions from the committee? Yes?
MESCHINO - Thank you for your testimony. I was just wondering the revenues, what are they used for?
BARLOW - So at the moment, they're being split between cities and towns where the rides originate. So they've been used for projects such as ADA compliance projects, some shared streets initiatives, bike infrastructure, depending on where they are in the state. It is up to the municipality as long as they report that and then the other 50% is used to support the MBTA and RTA work across the state.
MESCHINO - So both congestion, mitigation, driving to public transportation, and then supporting the infrastructure?
BARLOW - Yes. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thanks. Any other questions?
Seeing none, I thank you for your testimony, and want to welcome Lita Jones, who's participating with us online.
Those are all the witnesses I had signed up for testimony. Is there any 1 here who would like to testify on a matter that did not sign up for a testimony. Please.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER - Of the value for that, but I would like to mention that already, there is a pendula, state law, that the months, they do demand satellite digital telecommunication, we buy devices that are data and they were talking on paper optics, on coaxial cable, on different previous technologies, so we got to make sure that we are on digital satellite communications the only one's secured.
ROY - Which Bill are you testifying on?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER - What it's all about telecommunications. My agenda is about making everything...
ROY - No particular Bill?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER - No particular Bill. It's everything the basis for all of us. To know2271 what in the digital era we2273 buying devices, computers, mobile devices, everything, microwaves, everything we got to focus on digital communications, the only ones are touchable by thieves, not telephone center. No telephone operators to make mistakes, this is the bottom line. So always to be secured and safe. The banks are safe and secured. If we allow counterfeit motherboards to go everywhere without any inspection of what we have, then all of us who are at loss. This is my agenda, and I believe we need to focus on digital telecommunications. The safe and secure means to communicate because we do everything, jobs, careers,2318 research everything laboratory's, imaging in hospitals. Because if we allow anybody to come in and say, I give you what you said or what you want without any inspection, we are a trust. We need a Bill to educate everybody in digital satellite, telecommunication, and understand what the work is are giving us. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Anyone else who has an offer any testimony under the bills that are before the committee?
Rep Howard.
SPEAKER5 - Yes.
HOWITT - HB 3174 - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a Bill before the committee, 3174 deals with towing. I'd like to speak on that for a moment if you would give that time to me. This Bill, I've re filed. It was brought to my attention by a constituent who owns a security company. Apparently, one of his small vans about the size of a compact car was dispatched to a company up in Boston and on the way home, early in the morning, 2:00 in the morning or so, he must have fallen asleep, went off the road. The state police called in the wreckers and because he had a commercial vehicle with commercial plates, even though it was probably the size of an escort, a vehicle small band that they used, a major crane was called in and the excessive fees for towing amounted into the thousands of dollars because2417 it was registered as a commercial plate on the vehicle. So what this Bill does, it differentiates based on the GBW and CDL requirements, which is 26000 pounds and that a vehicle such as this would not be considered a commercial vehicle, and therefore the fees would be much less and that's the basis of it. Apparently, there's different fee levels based on whether it's a commercial plate or a noncommercial plate. So that is the basis of this particular Bill. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
That's house 31 74. Correct?
SPEAKER5 - Yes, sir.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Thank you very much. Any questions?
Seeing none, I thank you for your testimony. And ask 1 final time, any 1 else who would like to testify on a matter before the committee today? Seeing none that called the sharing to a close. Thank you very much.
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