[00:00.350 --> 00:01.510]  All right.
[00:01.710 --> 00:02.730]  Hi, I'm T-Prophet.
[00:02.970 --> 00:04.810]  I'm the telecom informer.
[00:05.410 --> 00:08.510]  You may read 2600 magazine if you do.
[00:08.630 --> 00:10.050]  It's on page 13 of every issue.
[00:10.230 --> 00:13.270]  If you don't subscribe to 2600, please do subscribe.
[00:13.610 --> 00:20.710]  You can still subscribe somehow for either our lifetime or yours, whichever comes first, for $260.
[00:21.350 --> 00:29.810]  So I've got a pretty quick agenda today and then some bonus content that you can run screaming away from if you're not interested in that.
[00:30.330 --> 00:39.650]  But this is kind of a deep dive into telecom and Internet service in a really unusual corner of the world.
[00:39.870 --> 00:47.470]  So let's talk about Point Roberts, what the currently available Internet options are, the would-be telephone fiber project.
[00:47.470 --> 00:49.470]  There's a whole bunch of fiber projects underway.
[00:50.730 --> 00:51.870]  Telecoms love fiber.
[00:53.230 --> 00:55.650]  And Whatcom PUDs in on the action, too.
[00:55.850 --> 01:01.810]  And then something called PointNet, which is a community-driven project that hasn't delivered anything yet.
[01:02.510 --> 01:04.990]  So first of all, where the heck is Point Roberts?
[01:05.050 --> 01:11.370]  If you look at the map here, you'll notice this little appendage hanging down off of Vancouver and there's this line.
[01:11.770 --> 01:19.410]  And what that line is, the gray line over here, is the United States border with Canada.
[01:19.410 --> 01:20.770]  It's the 49th parallel.
[01:21.010 --> 01:32.650]  And you might notice that this little chunk of territory that's around five square miles, or eight square kilometers, is below the 49th parallel.
[01:32.650 --> 01:34.770]  And it's cut off from the rest of the United States.
[01:34.770 --> 01:37.810]  It's surrounded on three sides by water, on the north by Canada.
[01:37.970 --> 01:40.410]  So there's really only three ways in.
[01:40.530 --> 01:48.610]  A boat, a plane, if you can land on a grass airstrip, or driving 22 miles through the lower mainland in Canada.
[01:50.030 --> 01:56.130]  So some quick facts, and a couple of pictures, because it's pretty and I like to show it off.
[01:56.950 --> 01:59.650]  Located near Vancouver, one of three U.S. exclaves only accessible via water or overland through Canada.
[02:03.330 --> 02:04.970]  So there are a couple other U.S. exclaves as well that are technically exclaves, but you have the ways to get to them through the United States by road.
[02:11.110 --> 02:19.530]  You can only get to us, Hyder, Alaska, and the Northwest Angle through water or overland through Canada, or by air, I guess.
[02:19.910 --> 02:24.450]  The population post-pandemic is around 850 people that live year-round.
[02:24.610 --> 02:26.430]  That's down from around 1,300.
[02:26.850 --> 02:32.530]  And we have, per the governor's census, the slowest broadband in the state of Washington.
[02:32.910 --> 02:36.730]  Nearly $15 million in grants have been awarded to address this.
[02:37.090 --> 02:40.670]  And we'll go through kind of what those projects are and what the results have been.
[02:41.390 --> 02:43.610]  So, just a little history.
[02:43.890 --> 02:50.310]  Point Roberts was previously served by Canadian utilities, and those were BCTEL and Delta Cable or Eastlink.
[02:50.570 --> 02:54.970]  And so, BCTEL provided service really back starting in 1905.
[02:55.170 --> 02:57.510]  There used to be a cannery at Lilley Point.
[02:57.650 --> 03:01.590]  It was called the APA or Alaska Packers Association cannery.
[03:02.370 --> 03:13.030]  The Point Roberts Historical Society points to this and the name Alaska to really lay claim to the fact that this is and always has been American.
[03:13.350 --> 03:15.690]  Most of the people working there were Icelandic.
[03:16.110 --> 03:25.150]  But anyway, BCTEL provided telephone service down there, and they started providing phone service to the rest of the point in 1955 for residential.
[03:25.150 --> 03:35.810]  In 1985, Whidbey Telephone noticed this, and Whidbey Telephone is this independent telephone company that serves the southern part of Whidbey Island.
[03:36.650 --> 03:46.110]  The government wouldn't let them serve the military base there, they got the southern half of the island, which is mostly sheep and llamas, I think, and a hacker named Amethyst.
[03:48.210 --> 03:51.850]  But they noticed that there just wasn't any U.S.
[03:52.010 --> 03:59.810]  phone company serving Point Roberts, and they did some digging and realized that BCTEL had never filed the paperwork in Washington.
[03:59.810 --> 04:13.510]  So this led to a giant battle, and for the first time pretty much in American history, a Canadian phone company got kicked out of providing service, and Whidbey Telephone was able to come in and take over in 1987.
[04:14.670 --> 04:26.730]  Delta Cable, as well, provided cable TV service to Point Roberts, and they were doing this until 2019, and, you know, it just was way too much paperwork.
[04:26.730 --> 04:40.910]  It turned into a real hassle for them to serve, and so they declined to do the fiber upgrades that they were doing in the rest of their service territory, pretty much abandoned Point Roberts and their cable plant, and it's now all falling apart and deteriorating.
[04:41.970 --> 04:48.530]  So, a pretty stark contrast here, if you're looking at these two pictures, on the right-hand side of the road, on the lower one.
[04:49.310 --> 04:57.470]  So the road here is in the United States, and those houses are in the U.S., and these houses here are in Canada.
[04:58.570 --> 05:10.310]  And so on this side of the street, you get maybe, you know, one or two megabits from Whidbey Telephone on ADSL, if they can even serve you with it.
[05:10.910 --> 05:16.370]  Or most people down there do Starlink, and over here, you can get a gig fiber to the home.
[05:16.670 --> 05:18.950]  So it's a pretty sharp contrast.
[05:19.490 --> 05:21.310]  Upper picture is something pretty similar.
[05:21.530 --> 05:35.870]  Those guys have a gig access to, and some of these have, some of these homes are served by multiple gigabit options, because the cable utility and the telephone utility on the Canadian side both have this.
[05:35.870 --> 05:44.350]  So if things had been left alone, and the Canadian utilities continue to serve Point Roberts, it may be a very different picture today.
[05:44.770 --> 05:46.410]  But we have what we have.
[05:46.630 --> 05:50.370]  So here are the currently available Internet options.
[05:50.430 --> 05:52.290]  A lot of loading and waiting.
[05:53.450 --> 05:56.730]  ADSL, LTE, or 5G, and satellite.
[05:57.090 --> 06:03.430]  And so let's just talk about, you know, when you're living outside of a major city, what some of these options and costs look like.
[06:04.070 --> 06:06.810]  Verizon has a really generous option.
[06:07.090 --> 06:10.850]  You get 150 gigs of full-speed data, and then they throttle you down.
[06:10.910 --> 06:17.690]  And this is over their 4G network, because even though they have the best 5G network in the country, that has not made its way to Point Roberts.
[06:17.950 --> 06:20.150]  This is according to their advertising, best 5G.
[06:20.370 --> 06:21.330]  T-Mobile says the same.
[06:21.550 --> 06:28.850]  They actually do have some 5G, a limited amount of 5G spectrum on two channels that's been deployed to Point Roberts.
[06:29.710 --> 06:34.230]  Verizon's $110 a month, plus the hardware, and then you get 150 gigs.
[06:34.470 --> 06:40.330]  T-Mobile gives you 1.2 terabytes at full speed for the low, low price of $160 a month.
[06:40.730 --> 06:42.110]  But they include the hardware.
[06:42.570 --> 06:45.250]  And that actually is 5G.
[06:45.510 --> 06:47.030]  They do have a 5G signal.
[06:47.210 --> 06:49.650]  It's pretty limited, though, which I'll get into later.
[06:49.810 --> 06:50.210]  Starlink.
[06:50.410 --> 06:52.710]  You know, a lot of people say, hey, you can get Starlink.
[06:52.830 --> 06:54.750]  Elon Musk put satellites in the sky.
[06:54.750 --> 06:55.730]  It's really awesome.
[06:55.730 --> 06:58.650]  Well, I mean, for what it is, it's pretty good.
[06:58.650 --> 07:00.470]  But it's $120 a month.
[07:00.550 --> 07:03.870]  You pay $500 almost for the hardware.
[07:04.150 --> 07:06.110]  The speeds are really highly variable.
[07:06.470 --> 07:10.090]  And then they also do throttling based on the protocol.
[07:10.110 --> 07:13.990]  And then they do that if you use more than a terabyte of bandwidth.
[07:14.290 --> 07:16.970]  And then there's our local telephone utility, would-be telephone.
[07:17.030 --> 07:20.510]  They do ADSL up to 25 megabits.
[07:20.730 --> 07:23.250]  $72 a month is the minimum you're going to spend.
[07:23.250 --> 07:25.310]  And it goes up to 80 and change.
[07:25.930 --> 07:30.930]  It's pretty reliable, actually, with pretty low ping times and no data caps.
[07:31.590 --> 07:36.210]  But, I mean, you'd be really hard-pressed to hit a data cap as slow as the speed is.
[07:38.290 --> 07:39.250]  So, wireless.
[07:39.610 --> 07:41.250]  Well, you've got all these wireless options.
[07:41.490 --> 07:45.630]  Maybe they can do some wireless things on the point.
[07:45.790 --> 07:46.770]  Well, there's a catch.
[07:46.770 --> 07:48.990]  There's only one tower on the entire point.
[07:49.410 --> 07:55.050]  And then on top of that, our esteemed county has put in a height limit for towers.
[07:55.250 --> 07:58.210]  So, there's 149 height limit per a county ordinance.
[07:58.370 --> 08:02.170]  And some of the trees on Point Roberts are taller than this.
[08:02.290 --> 08:03.930]  We have a very thick forest canopy.
[08:05.010 --> 08:06.250]  Verizon's in the prime position.
[08:06.410 --> 08:07.750]  They're up on the top with their 4G.
[08:07.750 --> 08:10.310]  And then that second set of panels.
[08:10.470 --> 08:11.310]  And you can see the guy.
[08:11.510 --> 08:15.850]  This is actually a picture taken while the T-Mobile panels were being installed.
[08:16.010 --> 08:20.270]  So, the guy climbing up the tower there was putting those in.
[08:20.770 --> 08:22.650]  That 5G is in the lower position.
[08:23.150 --> 08:30.630]  So, microwave relay to the mainland is how this tower gets its connectivity to the rest of the world.
[08:30.910 --> 08:33.290]  So, that kind of slows down a bit when it's rainy.
[08:33.290 --> 08:37.110]  And if you haven't heard, in the Pacific Northwest, it does rain a bit.
[08:37.530 --> 08:42.170]  So, you know, wireless, yeah, I mean, there's some options.
[08:42.170 --> 08:43.310]  But they're limited.
[08:44.670 --> 08:46.530]  We have a thick forest canopy.
[08:46.670 --> 08:49.990]  So, for all those folks who are saying, why don't you just use Starlink?
[08:49.990 --> 08:52.690]  Well, you know, I need to pull out a chainsaw probably.
[08:53.570 --> 08:55.470]  And then that might make people mad.
[08:55.870 --> 08:58.630]  We have poor line of sight to low horizon satellites.
[08:58.630 --> 09:01.170]  And this is a problem, you know, not beating up on Starlink.
[09:01.170 --> 09:05.450]  This is also a problem with any of the other satellite-based broadband providers.
[09:05.610 --> 09:10.550]  Hughes is another example of a satellite-based broadband provider that struggles with this.
[09:12.170 --> 09:18.190]  We're pretty far north because we're surrounded by tall trees.
[09:18.450 --> 09:19.870]  The satellites are low to the horizon.
[09:21.310 --> 09:25.470]  There's an example of the Starlink dish and kind of what those look like.
[09:25.970 --> 09:28.390]  Starlink works a little bit differently than other satellites.
[09:28.390 --> 09:30.330]  Most of those are geosynchronous.
[09:30.490 --> 09:33.450]  And so Starlink has a constellation of different satellites.
[09:33.670 --> 09:39.550]  And there are multiple, potentially, that are available to use at any given point.
[09:39.550 --> 09:43.610]  So the dish kind of moves around and is able to home in on one.
[09:43.790 --> 09:46.710]  But as it does that, there can be dropouts.
[09:46.710 --> 09:53.330]  So when the satellites hand off to another satellite, you can kind of lose connection temporarily while that's going on.
[09:53.330 --> 09:59.030]  So if you're on a videoconference call, for example, and how many people use videoconferencing?
[09:59.030 --> 10:01.370]  Is that a popular thing for work from home?
[10:01.530 --> 10:01.650]  Yeah.
[10:01.790 --> 10:02.790]  Anybody work from home here?
[10:03.650 --> 10:04.090]  Yeah.
[10:04.190 --> 10:05.970]  A lot of people work from home.
[10:06.150 --> 10:07.790]  A lot of people use videoconferencing.
[10:07.790 --> 10:18.730]  So it's going to be really tough for you on Starlink when, for a few minutes, you know, a couple of times a day, things drop out just when you happen to be talking to your, you know, CISO or something.
[10:18.730 --> 10:19.070]  Right?
[10:19.370 --> 10:22.810]  So the latency is also an issue.
[10:23.030 --> 10:32.410]  So it's lower latency than traditional satellite because these satellites are lower in the, they're lower than a typical satellite would be.
[10:32.550 --> 10:33.950]  Those are pretty far out.
[10:34.170 --> 10:37.170]  But it's around 40 milliseconds to the first hop.
[10:37.330 --> 10:41.710]  So if you're thinking of doing any gaming or just anything latency sensitive, it doesn't work super well.
[10:43.050 --> 10:43.610]  ADSL.
[10:43.850 --> 10:47.790]  So that leads us to the sole option for most of us on Point Roberts.
[10:48.290 --> 10:49.830]  There are blazing speeds.
[10:50.010 --> 10:53.850]  It's 25 megabits down, up to, and three megabits up, up to.
[10:54.070 --> 10:55.530]  Most people don't get the up to.
[10:55.550 --> 10:58.990]  I get 24 megabits roughly where I am.
[10:59.190 --> 11:01.190]  But it's pretty close to the central office.
[11:02.230 --> 11:07.870]  And I'm paying 70 a month plus the modem rental, which works out to 72, I think, currently.
[11:08.110 --> 11:09.490]  They might have raised the modem a dollar.
[11:09.690 --> 11:10.190]  I forget.
[11:11.590 --> 11:14.570]  They've been pushing through quite a few increases.
[11:14.570 --> 11:17.690]  So this is where we're stuck.
[11:17.690 --> 11:27.030]  And this is, again, why in the governor's broadband survey, Point Roberts came in at roughly the lowest speed in the entire state of any community.
[11:28.590 --> 11:33.510]  So the federal government has noticed, and they've started throwing money at this.
[11:33.610 --> 11:37.530]  So would-be telephone has something that they call the middle mile fiber project.
[11:37.690 --> 11:39.790]  It's a fiber to the home and ring topology project.
[11:39.790 --> 11:46.110]  And if you see this guy walk in with this pool of fiber, there is quite a bit of that going on.
[11:46.550 --> 11:48.710]  Not a whole lot going in, though.
[11:49.630 --> 11:52.790]  Because there's 48 miles of underground cable plan.
[11:52.910 --> 11:55.270]  There's 63 miles of undersea cable plan.
[11:55.510 --> 12:01.850]  So I've talked to the advisory committee several times.
[12:02.450 --> 12:09.470]  They have a grandiose plan of how they're going to completely get the federal government to pay to upgrade their entire backbone and network.
[12:10.350 --> 12:11.730]  But there's a problem.
[12:12.590 --> 12:23.610]  The trenching area for this underground cable, underground being the key, is through Native American burial sites in areas of archaeological significance.
[12:23.930 --> 12:32.650]  So they'll dig six feet and, you know, somebody's baby in another six feet and some sort of extremely, you know, important artifact.
[12:32.650 --> 12:42.790]  And every time that happens, they need to shut down and bring in the state archaeologists and tribal archaeologists, and it becomes a big thing and takes several months for each one of these.
[12:43.130 --> 12:45.070]  So this is down off Marine Drive.
[12:45.150 --> 12:54.030]  This is an example of one of the places where, right now, the project is stalled because of archaeological problems.
[12:54.030 --> 13:03.570]  Over $11 million in federal grants have gone toward this, and Whidbey Telephone is claiming that the grants require that the cable be buried.
[13:03.850 --> 13:10.710]  They also have expressed an extremely strong preference in all of their service territories for buried cable and nothing else.
[13:10.810 --> 13:19.270]  So I don't know how much of this is they asked for that to be written in the grant versus that was something that was actually required initially by the grant.
[13:19.270 --> 13:30.570]  But either way, that's where we are, and most of the homes to put the icing on the cake with this particular project that are targeted for upgrade are not owned in or lived by local residents.
[13:30.570 --> 13:42.050]  This is over on the waterfront with million-plus-dollar homes, and most of these are owned by absentee wealthy Canadians who have them as their weekend getaways.
[13:42.050 --> 13:44.310]  So it's kind of an issue.
[13:44.830 --> 13:46.670]  So there's another project.
[13:46.670 --> 13:52.730]  Given all of the challenges that this project ran into, the county got interested.
[13:52.970 --> 14:03.490]  And so Whatcom County Public Utility District has secured some COVID grant funding, 3.15 million, to do an open-access fiber-to-the-home network.
[14:03.510 --> 14:11.450]  And so this is a little bit different model than Whidbey in that the public utility district doesn't plan to be the actual provider.
[14:11.950 --> 14:19.150]  What they want to do is go in, put up fiber, and then have ISPs compete over that fiber to provide service.
[14:20.430 --> 14:34.630]  So the good news is, if you look at this blue-shaded territory with these kind of purple lines, this is the latest plan for where they intend to put it in, which is good news because it looks like it's going to hit my house, which it wasn't going to in the earlier iterations of the plan.
[14:34.630 --> 14:35.670]  And I did complain a lot.
[14:37.350 --> 14:49.370]  And if you look at where our population concentration is, like over here, it's mostly like, you know, million-dollar waterfront homes that people who live here live on the point don't actually live in.
[14:50.150 --> 14:53.790]  And then over on this side is where most of the full-time residents are.
[14:54.030 --> 14:55.750]  So that's a little better targeted.
[14:56.210 --> 15:02.310]  Keep in mind this is being done for a third, less than, well, less than a third the cost of what would-be's gotten for funding.
[15:03.270 --> 15:11.410]  And the difference is that their technology approach is they're going to do overhead cable versus barraid because there's already power lines in.
[15:11.910 --> 15:13.450]  There's already utility poles.
[15:13.650 --> 15:17.250]  So they can just lease space on that and put the fiber up.
[15:17.410 --> 15:21.850]  But their plan really is wholesale infrastructure only without ISP services.
[15:22.170 --> 15:28.130]  And the ISPs are going to have to pay an access charge to use this fiber of around $20 a month per subscriber.
[15:30.010 --> 15:32.410]  So this leads us to PointNet.
[15:32.650 --> 15:38.330]  Now, PointNet is the project of one guy named Bob Hillman, who is pretty credible.
[15:38.650 --> 15:46.090]  He started a cellular provider in rural Canada, following a business model very similar to ComNet Cellular.
[15:46.250 --> 15:52.130]  If you are familiar with that, if you've read my column over the years, I've written quite a bit about this company.
[15:53.150 --> 16:00.950]  Back in the day, there were an A-side and a B-side cellular network, and there were squatter's rights effectively on the spectrum.
[16:01.170 --> 16:12.430]  So if Verizon, AT&T, et cetera, didn't build out coverage in a given area, somebody else could go in there and do that and then sell those services on a roaming basis.
[16:12.430 --> 16:14.530]  And so ComNet Cellular did this quite a bit.
[16:14.670 --> 16:22.490]  They'd find ski areas and other popular places people like to go, and they would squat on that spectrum, build towers.
[16:22.490 --> 16:28.870]  And so basically, Bob did the same thing with his cellular provider.
[16:28.910 --> 16:30.350]  So he knows quite a bit about telecom.
[16:31.090 --> 16:34.570]  His plan is to build a community ISP with zero grant funding.
[16:34.570 --> 16:36.530]  So it's a private-funded thing.
[16:37.330 --> 16:40.190]  Or maybe it's a community volunteer-driven thing.
[16:40.710 --> 16:42.270]  He's not entirely sure yet.
[16:42.270 --> 16:46.210]  But if you look at this, this is an existing...
[16:46.210 --> 16:54.570]  So you remember that plan from Whidbey Telephone to build undersea fiber down to Whidbey Island and, you know, complete a ring topology on their network.
[16:54.870 --> 16:56.410]  Well, this is a fiber shed.
[16:57.250 --> 17:07.590]  And there's fiber heading in two directions, one to the west and built in Seattle, and the other to the largest meet-me point at Harbor Center in Vancouver.
[17:08.030 --> 17:09.970]  And so there's already fiber on the point.
[17:09.970 --> 17:12.910]  It's just, you know, the cable's landed.
[17:13.030 --> 17:14.990]  It's just not serving the local community.
[17:15.170 --> 17:19.570]  And so Bob's idea is maybe just use that instead of building new.
[17:21.370 --> 17:22.850]  So here's how it would look.
[17:22.990 --> 17:26.890]  Whidbey Telecom got millions of dollars in funding to run the new inner-city fiber.
[17:26.910 --> 17:30.290]  But there's already dual-home fiber installations around $20,000.
[17:30.850 --> 17:36.090]  And the cost really is around $1,500 a month per city to light it up.
[17:36.090 --> 17:45.070]  And that would get enough, more than enough bandwidth for the entire population of Point Roberts, even if they are heavy gamers and downloaders.
[17:46.090 --> 17:50.770]  It would provide backhaul and ISP services to those connected by Whatcom PUD.
[17:50.990 --> 17:56.730]  So one of the issues with the Whatcom PUD project is they need a credible ISP to be able to partner with.
[17:57.850 --> 18:06.510]  Whidbey Telephone doesn't believe that they can do this because, for whatever reason, their connection is through TELUS or Bell Canada.
[18:06.730 --> 18:13.270]  They keep saying Bell Canada, but it does not make sense because the incumbent local exchange carrier on the Canadian side is TELUS.
[18:13.270 --> 18:16.890]  But whether it's TELUS or Bell Canada, it doesn't matter.
[18:17.050 --> 18:25.710]  They have limited bandwidth and capacity, so they cannot take on, right now, the additional subscribers that would be provided by Whatcom PUD.
[18:26.350 --> 18:30.190]  And then it could also provide backhaul to PointNet wireless subscribers.
[18:30.430 --> 18:34.770]  So with wireless, how could you build a network really fast for not too much money?
[18:34.770 --> 18:49.070]  If we did a Wi-Fi 6 design based on the University of Michigan reference design, you know, which is campus-wide and enormous, it'd be around $330,000 worth of equipment, including installation.
[18:50.030 --> 18:52.670]  LTE is also a potential option.
[18:52.670 --> 18:59.390]  That comes with a lot of complexity, believe it or not, because it's all carrier-grade as opposed to Wi-Fi 6, which isn't.
[18:59.390 --> 19:02.570]  So that adds a considerable amount of cost.
[19:03.070 --> 19:07.390]  There'd need to be towers constructed as well, so it's kind of six on one, half a dozen on the other.
[19:07.650 --> 19:18.330]  The upside of LTE as an option using CBRS is that newer phones actually just have that built in, and it'll pick up as an LTE carrier.
[19:18.550 --> 19:25.330]  So it'd be pretty easy to use existing, you know, LTE hotspots and equipment, et cetera, to do that.
[19:25.330 --> 19:38.950]  But all of this could be online in less than six months, and I think that's a credible estimate, because the fiber's already there, and putting up Wi-Fi 6 gear or CBRS just isn't all that hard or time-consuming.
[19:40.010 --> 19:41.850]  And where's the grant funding for that?
[19:41.970 --> 19:42.610]  There isn't any.
[19:43.050 --> 19:51.010]  Because, you know, you're not going to keep people employed for many, many years, having, you know, running into roadblocks every step of the way, right?
[19:51.010 --> 19:58.150]  So there's not as much interest, I think, in funding a solution that would actually work.
[19:59.950 --> 20:06.050]  So that leads me to a slight call to action, which is hackers build better.
[20:06.390 --> 20:14.130]  This is a really amazing place to make an impact, and I think that the way to get this done is just to get it done.
[20:14.130 --> 20:32.490]  So if you want to volunteer and you know a lot about wireless and building backbone networks and ISPs, et cetera, then we kind of need you on the point, because my knowledge is relatively broad, but also not super deep.
[20:32.490 --> 20:41.910]  And also, the other folks involved in this project are more on the fundraising and business side, so there is a need for technical expertise.
[20:41.910 --> 20:46.650]  If you want to volunteer, experts are definitely needed to make something like this happen.
[20:47.250 --> 20:50.490]  So, this is bonus content.
[20:51.530 --> 21:07.850]  If you only came because you want to hear about telecom and an exclave, and you don't want to hear the bonus content, I'm giving you an opportunity to get up and leave right now, you don't have to stick around, but, you know, whenever I'm in front of people and I've got you kind of virtually cornered.
[21:07.850 --> 21:17.190]  I like to, you know, kind of tell you a little bit more about this crazy place that I've decided to move and this, you know, small corner of the universe.
[21:17.190 --> 21:26.030]  So, if you want to learn more about Point Roberts, hang out for a couple of more minutes, and I'll just tell you some stuff, but, if you want to run away, that's completely fine, I don't mind.
[21:27.570 --> 21:29.570]  And we're losing a couple, which is okay.
[21:29.790 --> 21:30.190]  Cool.
[21:30.570 --> 21:31.150]  We'll see.
[21:32.170 --> 21:32.750]  All right.
[21:33.350 --> 21:33.750]  Wow.
[21:34.010 --> 21:34.470]  That's cool.
[21:38.450 --> 21:41.150]  And my VPN wants to reconnect.
[21:41.330 --> 21:41.470]  Great.
[21:42.230 --> 21:46.010]  So, one day I asked, what in the heck am I doing with my life?
[21:46.090 --> 21:46.850]  I work remotely.
[21:47.190 --> 21:58.450]  I can live anywhere in the U.S., even really unusual or remote places, but my family lives in the Seattle area, and I like to travel and I like city amenities, right?
[21:58.550 --> 22:04.210]  Because I'm, I just, I don't want to live, like, in a remote corner of Alaska or something.
[22:04.230 --> 22:06.510]  It's just too complicated if you like to travel.
[22:06.510 --> 22:07.290]  So, what do you do?
[22:08.570 --> 22:12.850]  And so, I moved to the Lower Mainland, which you've seen this map.
[22:13.030 --> 22:14.690]  It's slightly below the 49th parallel.
[22:15.390 --> 22:22.930]  I think it's one of the most unusual and beautiful places in the world, and I can literally join my meetings from the beach.
[22:23.210 --> 22:30.030]  Your company culture may vary, but where I work, that's, you know, not, that's not an issue.
[22:31.670 --> 22:35.350]  Canada is literally across the street, shopping's five minutes away.
[22:36.010 --> 22:41.950]  YVR Airport, which is the second largest airport on the West Coast, is 25 minutes.
[22:42.070 --> 22:47.230]  I can get it nonstop to pretty much anywhere, including two airports in the New York area.
[22:48.730 --> 22:50.770]  And the best part is housing.
[22:50.950 --> 22:55.950]  So, if you know anything about Canada, you probably know that the housing costs are extremely high.
[22:56.350 --> 22:58.890]  It's just crazy expensive to live there.
[22:59.750 --> 23:05.350]  Lots of reasons for that, but the bottom line is, because you need U.S.
[23:05.510 --> 23:11.250]  status to live in Point Roberts, it costs a million dollars less to buy a house, on average.
[23:13.330 --> 23:19.430]  Best of all, this is my cat, Jimbo Maidenbauer Meowser, the first, or I'm his human, is probably a more accurate description.
[23:19.430 --> 23:20.930]  And he approves of more space.
[23:20.930 --> 23:26.390]  We were living on top of each other in the Seattle area, and this gives me quite a bit more room.
[23:27.730 --> 23:29.770]  So, a few things to know.
[23:30.370 --> 23:31.390]  Taxes are pretty low.
[23:32.170 --> 23:34.490]  Washington has no state income tax.
[23:34.670 --> 23:36.730]  There's no immigration required if you're a U.S.
[23:36.830 --> 23:40.170]  citizen or you have status in the United States.
[23:40.170 --> 23:43.530]  Because it's legally the U.S., there's no immigration formalities.
[23:44.310 --> 23:45.150]  U.S. taxes apply.
[23:45.390 --> 23:48.310]  There's no income taxes in Washington State.
[23:49.030 --> 23:52.390]  Whatcom County has lower property taxes than Central Puget Sound.
[23:52.550 --> 23:57.410]  So, if you're looking, King County, Pierce County, Snohomish, any of those, your taxes are going to be lower.
[23:58.110 --> 23:58.890]  Car tabs.
[23:59.090 --> 24:01.970]  There are a lot of transit projects you have to pay for in the Seattle area.
[24:02.130 --> 24:05.290]  We don't have any transit, so we don't have to pay for that, I guess.
[24:05.290 --> 24:09.130]  And it makes your car tabs hundreds of dollars less expensive.
[24:09.590 --> 24:13.150]  And then, you know, I kind of feel like I'm getting away with something, honestly.
[24:14.690 --> 24:16.410]  The infrastructure is pretty stable.
[24:17.150 --> 24:20.070]  The Internet's not fast, so that's an issue.
[24:20.470 --> 24:22.530]  But power is marketed by PSC.
[24:22.750 --> 24:24.230]  It's provided by BC Hydro.
[24:24.450 --> 24:28.570]  Water is marketed by the Point Roberts Water District, but it's provided by the City of Vancouver.
[24:28.730 --> 24:31.150]  It's very high-quality water, and we're grateful to have it.
[24:31.150 --> 24:39.070]  But crime is really low, and in part, it's because it's really hard for people with criminal records to get in because of the border checks.
[24:39.330 --> 24:47.810]  So people who are inadmissible to Canada can't get into Canada, and then people that are inadmissible to the United States can't get into Point Roberts.
[24:48.610 --> 24:50.350]  Guns are effectively illegal.
[24:50.730 --> 24:52.950]  So is marijuana, effectively.
[24:52.950 --> 25:02.010]  And that's because of the discharge of a firearm is illegal on Point Roberts, and there's no range.
[25:02.010 --> 25:05.110]  So there's, you know, you can own a gun, but there's nowhere to shoot it.
[25:05.690 --> 25:09.830]  And then it's all federal territory, either by air or sea.
[25:10.090 --> 25:13.990]  So that means that you can't, and our border by land.
[25:14.190 --> 25:19.630]  So even though marijuana is legal on both sides of the border, it's not legal at the border or any way to get to the point.
[25:20.190 --> 25:28.690]  And it's so secure that it's rumored that the Federal Witness Protection Program shelters protectees there in a well-secured location, allegedly.
[25:28.970 --> 25:30.070]  But, you know, that's just a rumor.
[25:31.770 --> 25:33.290]  So here's the opportunity.
[25:33.670 --> 25:36.950]  Unincorporated in Whatcom County, around 850 residents here around.
[25:37.130 --> 25:37.850]  Most are retired.
[25:38.070 --> 25:39.710]  Two-thirds are dual citizens.
[25:40.130 --> 25:45.590]  They don't really like change, but they also know that a reboot is needed for the community to survive.
[25:45.590 --> 25:49.890]  The economy was based on five gas stations, and one of them just went out of business.
[25:50.090 --> 25:51.010]  Everything's going electric.
[25:52.290 --> 25:55.730]  And Point Roberts literally exists because of a border hack.
[25:55.910 --> 25:58.290]  It survives on border hack arbitrage.
[25:58.630 --> 26:03.610]  So I think this place is pretty hacker-friendly, all things considered.
[26:05.370 --> 26:10.950]  So could, with faster Internet built by hackers, Point Roberts be the next hacker city?
[26:10.950 --> 26:12.170]  Well, it's kind of up to us.
[26:12.650 --> 26:17.350]  And so open invite, if you're a hacker, we have a guest suite.
[26:19.090 --> 26:24.070]  And anybody who's seriously considering the opportunity of living in Point Roberts, reach out to me.
[26:24.330 --> 26:27.150]  And, you know, like, you don't have to interact with me at all.
[26:27.250 --> 26:31.910]  Like, you can go in through a code in a separate entrance and not even see me.
[26:32.430 --> 26:34.930]  But I'd love more hackers to move to the point.
[26:36.650 --> 26:38.410]  So with that, thank you.
[26:38.770 --> 26:39.950]  Time for Q&A.
[26:40.330 --> 26:45.830]  So one thing people who are planning a monologue or a speech should know is I have very little patience for that.
[26:46.730 --> 26:52.230]  Please see me after the talk and not during the Q&A so people with actual questions have time to ask them.
[26:53.170 --> 26:55.710]  But, yep, and there's a Discord for Point Roberts.
[26:55.870 --> 26:59.590]  So if you want to join that and, you know, talk to some locals, feel free.
[26:59.690 --> 27:00.630]  The link is up there.
[27:00.630 --> 27:02.990]  I'm tprophet at tprophet.org.
[27:03.030 --> 27:05.650]  And thanks for hanging around.
[27:13.600 --> 27:14.820]  How much time...
[27:14.820 --> 27:16.180]  Not on.
[27:16.360 --> 27:17.160]  Yes, it is.
[27:17.360 --> 27:19.760]  How much time do you spend dealing with border crossing?
[27:20.500 --> 27:21.600]  Very little, actually.
[27:21.900 --> 27:23.100]  So there's a program called Nexus.
[27:27.480 --> 27:29.240]  Relations or criminal record.
[27:29.500 --> 27:32.160]  Then it's very, you know, it's relatively easy to get approved for that.
[27:32.400 --> 27:35.520]  So most people who are local have a Nexus card.
[27:35.820 --> 27:41.220]  And people who are local that do not have a Nexus card learn when to cross the border when it's not busy.
[27:41.540 --> 27:45.580]  And, you know, that's basically most of the time it's not busy.
[27:45.840 --> 27:52.040]  So, you know, people get concerned about the border and it's really not a huge issue coming into and out of the Point.
[27:52.420 --> 27:55.580]  Where it takes a lot of time is on the mainland U.S. side.
[27:56.120 --> 27:58.140]  You know, going into and out of Canada.
[27:58.240 --> 28:00.820]  That's just because they have way more to deal with over there.
[28:00.980 --> 28:04.580]  There's human trafficking and guns and all that kind of stuff and drugs.
[28:05.560 --> 28:07.780]  We have very few of those issues at our border.
[28:07.960 --> 28:10.280]  It's mostly people coming to buy gas and pick up packages.
[28:10.620 --> 28:16.160]  So the border security is, you know, I wouldn't say that it's lax at all.
[28:16.220 --> 28:17.920]  It's just more relaxed than the mainland.
[28:18.520 --> 28:29.080]  Did anyone think about setting up a mesh network from the Canadian side directed south using their abundant quality bandwidth?
[28:30.120 --> 28:33.120]  So, we're up above the Canadian side.
[28:33.380 --> 28:35.500]  So we're actually higher terrain.
[28:36.000 --> 28:37.280]  So I don't think that would work.
[28:37.640 --> 28:39.300]  It would work pretty well the other way, though.
[28:42.080 --> 28:43.720]  You talked about speeds.
[28:43.980 --> 28:47.180]  You said the DSL was three megabits up.
[28:47.620 --> 28:55.960]  But on the other services, you didn't talk about what the upspeed was on the Verizon, the T-Mobile, the this and the that.
[28:55.960 --> 29:01.520]  And you didn't say what speeds PointNet would anticipate a PointNet subscriber.
[29:01.740 --> 29:02.320]  Can you fill in?
[29:02.700 --> 29:03.140]  Oh, sure.
[29:03.360 --> 29:08.160]  So with a Wi-Fi 6 deployment, in theory, it could be symmetrical.
[29:08.580 --> 29:13.120]  In reality, it's not going to be because your transmission upstream is not going to be the same as downstream.
[29:13.820 --> 29:22.760]  But you could easily do a solid 30 to 50 upstream with Wi-Fi 6 without breaking a sweat.
[29:24.740 --> 29:32.160]  It's going to be variable as far as upstream with the wireless carriers because their networks are pretty oversubscribed.
[29:32.340 --> 29:35.760]  There's a lot of variability depending on where you are located.
[29:36.400 --> 29:38.600]  I get pretty decent upstream.
[29:38.900 --> 29:41.520]  I get 50 megabits from T-Mobile.
[29:42.280 --> 29:45.340]  And I can get around 20 from Verizon.
[29:46.500 --> 29:48.020]  So most times of the day.
[29:48.160 --> 29:49.840]  But when it's busy, it does slow down.
[29:50.060 --> 29:52.340]  And then as far as Starlink goes, it's all over the place.
[29:53.000 --> 29:57.780]  And the reason for that is because their network is literally all over the world at once.
[29:57.780 --> 29:59.300]  And there's different handoffs.
[29:59.460 --> 30:02.440]  So it's kind of how far are you from the satellite right now?
[30:02.440 --> 30:04.720]  And are you handing off and et cetera?
[30:05.200 --> 30:06.140]  And is it rainy?
[30:06.620 --> 30:07.900]  That's another consideration.
[30:08.640 --> 30:09.120]  Hi.
[30:12.530 --> 30:13.010]  Hi.
[30:13.310 --> 30:16.710]  Just out of curiosity, what's the postal service situation like there?
[30:17.070 --> 30:18.330]  Oh, postal service.
[30:18.450 --> 30:19.070]  So we have a U.S.
[30:19.150 --> 30:19.650]  post office.
[30:19.850 --> 30:23.070]  It's open Monday through Friday from, I think, 9 to 3.30.
[30:23.450 --> 30:26.950]  And you can order anything you want to from the United States.
[30:27.530 --> 30:28.710]  We get Amazon.
[30:29.410 --> 30:33.070]  I mean, we get UPS, FedEx, USPS.
[30:33.450 --> 30:35.090]  So Amazon works.
[30:35.090 --> 30:42.430]  There's a more limited selection than what you can get in cities because they only ship what they can deliver through commercial carriers like UPS and so forth.
[30:42.650 --> 30:47.790]  Also, delivery is quite a bit slower from Amazon than it would be if you were in New York or someplace like that.
[30:50.390 --> 30:58.170]  The really big problem for shipping is if you want to buy something big and heavy like furniture, then it has to come in by bonded carrier.
[30:58.170 --> 31:03.390]  And we have two ones called Point Roberts Auto Freight and the other is called Edge Logistics.
[31:03.830 --> 31:08.050]  And very often you'll order something and it'll be coming by truck freight.
[31:08.050 --> 31:15.450]  And then they'll realize like when it gets to the warehouse in the Seattle area that it's not their normal rodeo.
[31:16.150 --> 31:31.350]  At which point, stuff often just sits there until you like start calling people and then eventually, when you give them the information of who can bring it that last 22 miles, they get really mad at how much they have to pay and that they're going to lose money.
[31:31.570 --> 31:35.910]  And free shipping stops being an option to the 98281 ZIP Code.
[31:36.350 --> 31:36.970]  Thank you.
[31:40.550 --> 31:45.270]  You mentioned CVRS, and I forget in which context, but I don't think it was in PointNet.
[31:45.630 --> 31:46.230]  No, no.
[31:46.470 --> 31:52.050]  CVRS, like, you know, if you're looking at what transport could potentially work for a wireless solution.
[31:52.730 --> 31:55.130]  CVRS is used by the Coast Guard as well, I believe.
[31:55.490 --> 32:02.210]  Yeah, so CVRS, there's an LTE channel that's reserved that's in the CVRS spectrum allocation.
[32:02.290 --> 32:03.470]  And it actually works.
[32:03.630 --> 32:05.630]  It's, I think, band 48 or 50.
[32:05.650 --> 32:06.570]  I forget which.
[32:06.570 --> 32:07.870]  Somebody here probably knows.
[32:08.950 --> 32:16.050]  But that band, if you were to light it up, that would work on any modern mobile phone.
[32:16.210 --> 32:22.770]  So if you were wanting to do, you know, carrier grade kind of solution, then it could be done over the CVRS spectrum.
[32:23.390 --> 32:23.530]  Okay.
[32:23.690 --> 32:23.990]  Very good.
[32:24.110 --> 32:24.390]  Thank you.
[32:24.610 --> 32:24.770]  Sure.
[32:27.940 --> 32:30.840]  I want to ask why you didn't mention 5G.
[32:30.980 --> 32:32.000]  Did they not have 5G?
[32:32.200 --> 32:35.080]  Does Pac-Bell tell us it's not provide 5G?
[32:35.460 --> 32:35.940]  Yeah.
[32:36.000 --> 32:37.840]  So Verizon has 5G spectrum.
[32:37.840 --> 32:42.160]  They've just chosen not to light it up or do anything with it.
[32:42.300 --> 32:45.880]  And I think it's probably because they need to upgrade their backhaul.
[32:46.220 --> 32:48.440]  Because remember, they're just kind of...
[32:48.440 --> 32:56.200]  They've got a microwave relay over to Birch Bay and their tower there over on the U.S.
[32:56.200 --> 33:01.680]  Mainland, and that's how, you know, bandwidth, that's their upstream from our tower.
[33:01.960 --> 33:07.180]  So if they were going to go 5G, they'd need to upgrade the backhaul, and then that's a project.
[33:07.740 --> 33:12.900]  T-Mobile built it new, and so they were able to bring in sufficient capacity to support that.
[33:16.830 --> 33:17.830]  Another question?
[33:19.580 --> 33:24.690]  Did anyone think of introducing some legislation to just allow a second really tall cell tower?
[33:25.690 --> 33:26.570]  Oh, yeah.
[33:27.130 --> 33:33.170]  So there was a proposal to put in some...
[33:33.170 --> 33:47.370]  So one of the other interesting pieces of border arbitrage is we're, you know, relatively high point in the Lower Mainland, which is a one and a half people, roughly two million population, pretty major Canadian city.
[33:47.370 --> 33:52.990]  And so there was a plan to put in an FM radio station a few years back.
[33:53.030 --> 34:02.950]  And let's just say that there is a tinfoil hat retiree crowd that is politically extremely active and very shouty.
[34:03.390 --> 34:10.810]  And Whatcom County in general is, you know, listens very carefully to shouty people.
[34:10.810 --> 34:20.750]  So you'd have to, like, you know, you'd have to find politicians that are willing to just ignore shouty people, and that's very hard for politicians to do.
[34:28.110 --> 34:29.590]  Did I really cover everything?
[34:29.870 --> 34:30.930]  There's no more questions?
[34:32.790 --> 34:33.330]  Okay.
[34:39.240 --> 34:43.300]  You mentioned that the population recently went from 1350 to 850.
[34:43.600 --> 34:44.720]  Where did all those people go?
[34:45.200 --> 34:46.540]  Oh, really good question.
[34:46.540 --> 34:52.520]  Okay, so for those on the stream, our population dropped quite a bit during the pandemic.
[34:52.640 --> 34:55.080]  And the reason for that is because the border got shut tight.
[34:55.700 --> 35:00.600]  There were a few months that you couldn't go into Canada for pretty much any reason.
[35:00.880 --> 35:05.740]  And then it locked down to essential reasons only, and that was for quite a while.
[35:05.980 --> 35:15.360]  And so it made it very difficult for people who were relying, you know, keep in mind, it's a border community, and there are three key drivers of the economy.
[35:15.360 --> 35:19.080]  One of them is vacation homes that are owned primarily by Canadians.
[35:19.300 --> 35:24.660]  So 75% of the property is owned by Canadians who come down on weekends and enjoy the beach.
[35:25.160 --> 35:29.520]  And, you know, that's pretty much like the majority of the property market.
[35:29.960 --> 35:39.760]  So things like mowing the lawns of these places and, you know, doing home maintenance and that kind of thing, that's like the basis of one leg of our three-legged economy.
[35:40.460 --> 35:44.220]  Second leg of the economy is package receiving.
[35:44.620 --> 35:57.940]  So if you're in Canada and you want to buy something from U.S. Amazon, maybe to get access to a product earlier than it's released in Canada, or you want to buy something that's just not available in Canada, there are many companies in Point Roberts that will happily receive your package for you for, you know, anywhere from a dollar to three dollars each.
[36:00.500 --> 36:03.500]  And that's, you know, one piece of the economy.
[36:03.840 --> 36:05.820]  When the borders close, that doesn't work very well.
[36:05.820 --> 36:11.240]  And then the third thing is our gas is a dollar a gallon, roughly cheaper than in Canada.
[36:11.580 --> 36:15.800]  So that's pretty attractive to people that live on the other side of the border.
[36:15.960 --> 36:20.200]  They come down, they'll literally come down to buy gas, turn around and go back across the border.
[36:20.420 --> 36:22.200]  Like it's, that's just a thing.
[36:23.240 --> 36:37.500]  So yeah, like when two of the three things in your economy are completely shut down, and then one of those three things people don't want to spend any money on because they can't actually go to their house, you know, the economy completely collapses.
[36:37.620 --> 36:40.740]  So people left and they didn't come back.
[36:40.860 --> 36:42.020]  They found other work on the mainland.
[36:42.340 --> 36:43.580]  They found other housing.
[36:43.780 --> 36:46.200]  So that's kind of where things are now.
[36:46.300 --> 36:52.340]  And it makes it pretty tough if you, you know, if you're looking to maintain a community.
[36:53.300 --> 36:59.100]  But if we have a bunch of hackers move in, like where some people see that that's a downside, I see it as an upside, right?
[36:59.520 --> 37:01.200]  Because it's ripe for takeover.
[37:01.420 --> 37:07.840]  So it'd be very, very easy for, you know, hordes of hackers to invade and take over pretty quickly.
[37:09.800 --> 37:14.820]  That's, that quote, I'm sure, is going to show up someplace like in a, in a panic news article.
[37:15.060 --> 37:18.220]  But hopefully you understand the sense of humor here.
[37:19.320 --> 37:21.680]  How far are you from Vancouver, British Columbia?
[37:22.220 --> 37:24.720]  From downtown Vancouver, it's 45 minutes.
[37:24.940 --> 37:28.720]  So if you want to go see a show, hockey game, any of those kinds of things, go for it.
[37:29.120 --> 37:34.620]  I thought that I would go to like to Vancouver proper, Vancouver, Vancouver more than I do.
[37:35.120 --> 37:39.600]  And the reason that I don't is because it's just a pain in the neck to drive in Vancouver.
[37:39.820 --> 37:41.040]  And this is by design.
[37:41.200 --> 37:46.140]  So if there's anybody who's a Vancouverite here, I love our neighbors.
[37:46.980 --> 37:50.480]  But oh my goodness, driving in your city is the worst.
[37:50.480 --> 37:55.920]  So I usually just go to Richmond, which is the community abutting the airport.
[37:56.400 --> 37:58.100]  It's kind of like Flushing in New York.
[37:58.300 --> 37:59.100]  The food's really good.
[37:59.520 --> 38:01.640]  And that's mostly where I like hanging out anyway.
[38:02.160 --> 38:04.860]  So it's like 30 miles of some of the people commute to work.
[38:05.340 --> 38:11.160]  Yeah, I mean, the thing is, there's very little incentive to commute to work in Canada because you're going to pay Canadian tax.
[38:12.100 --> 38:17.220]  You're going to have to drive a pretty long way, although many people have long commutes.
[38:17.400 --> 38:18.600]  That's, you know, it's doable.
[38:18.600 --> 38:24.680]  And then the pay for most jobs is much less in Canada in dollar terms.
[38:24.680 --> 38:26.520]  And then you're getting paid in Canadian dollars.
[38:26.940 --> 38:34.100]  So, I mean, why would you make half the money and pay double the tax if you don't have to and you have status in the U.S.?
[38:34.640 --> 38:36.620]  It doesn't add up for most people.
[38:37.300 --> 38:38.560]  Thank you for the presentation.
[38:38.820 --> 38:40.840]  And thanks, as always, for the Telecom Informer.
[38:41.940 --> 38:44.360]  You were talking a little bit about the political situation.
[38:44.720 --> 38:48.460]  How do you do you like have your own voting on the point?
[38:48.680 --> 38:50.500]  Like, how do you actually handle that?
[38:50.920 --> 38:51.880]  Local politics.
[38:52.040 --> 38:52.720]  Really good question.
[38:52.960 --> 39:05.400]  So we are unincorporated Whatcom County, but obviously the needs of Point Roberts are more like a an incorporated place than an unincorporated place near a major city.
[39:05.880 --> 39:10.240]  So the county has given us an advisory committee.
[39:10.460 --> 39:13.840]  And part of this is because, you know, I mentioned shouty people before.
[39:13.860 --> 39:20.260]  And before this existed, a lot of shouty people would go shout different things at the county executive.
[39:20.260 --> 39:23.840]  And so they'd be getting conflicting opinions from the point.
[39:24.120 --> 39:33.700]  And so the goal of the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee is to try to get some local consensus on what is wanted from the county.
[39:33.700 --> 39:37.820]  And it exists strictly in an advisory capacity.
[39:38.020 --> 39:46.140]  There's no political power, but they do pretty good work liaising between the community and the county for local issues.
[39:46.400 --> 39:51.080]  And, you know, the thing is, some stuff we can't really control.
[39:51.080 --> 39:59.340]  Like, if we wanted to have, you know, big radio towers on Point Roberts, there's going to be people in Birch Bay across the water that will complain about that.
[39:59.520 --> 40:08.040]  There is a significant number of people who are misinformed as to risks of radio.
[40:08.900 --> 40:13.440]  And unfortunately, like, if you're a ham, you probably are well used to this, right?
[40:13.680 --> 40:22.900]  So a lot of things that would make our lives better would require significant radio infrastructure that's very hard to build with the 149-foot tower limit.
[40:23.980 --> 40:28.480]  So apart from that, I mean, there's other local politics as well.
[40:28.660 --> 40:30.220]  But so little happens.
[40:30.380 --> 40:31.580]  I mean, there's not a lot of people there.
[40:31.580 --> 40:34.720]  So there's just not a whole lot that needs to be done.
[40:34.940 --> 40:40.660]  Like, it'd be great if the road maintenance guys could get out and mow more often.
[40:40.660 --> 40:42.780]  But I understand their mower breaks down a lot.
[40:43.020 --> 40:45.320]  So, you know, it's just those kinds of things.
[40:46.540 --> 40:47.740]  Thank you for the presentation.
[40:48.080 --> 40:51.620]  I'm asking for a friend who's actually looking for a place to live at some point.
[40:52.400 --> 40:55.160]  How walkable is the community or the city?
[40:56.340 --> 40:58.180]  Asking for a friend, how walkable is it?
[40:58.360 --> 41:00.840]  So walkable, not particularly.
[41:00.840 --> 41:01.980]  No sidewalks.
[41:02.800 --> 41:04.520]  It's rural Whatcom County.
[41:04.800 --> 41:06.080]  So you have chip seal roads.
[41:06.760 --> 41:07.720]  They're pretty narrow.
[41:08.760 --> 41:11.660]  Everything's designed for cars, but there aren't very many cars.
[41:11.960 --> 41:13.580]  So I take walks on the road.
[41:13.720 --> 41:14.320]  It's no big deal.
[41:14.640 --> 41:17.400]  People, just local drivers are pretty courteous.
[41:17.520 --> 41:18.440]  They'll give you a wide berth.
[41:19.100 --> 41:20.180]  People come down.
[41:20.340 --> 41:23.940]  Like, we're getting invaded by bicyclists every weekend this summer, pretty much.
[41:24.100 --> 41:27.980]  Like, the word has gotten out in the lower mainland bicyclists community.
[41:28.200 --> 41:29.860]  They're a great place to ride your bike.
[41:30.440 --> 41:32.540]  And so tons of bikes on the road all the time.
[41:33.340 --> 41:40.040]  I'd say that it's more bikeable than walkable, just because of the distances between things.
[41:40.260 --> 41:41.320]  But you can walk.
[41:41.480 --> 41:42.320]  I walk a lot.
[41:45.140 --> 41:45.840]  Excuse me.
[41:45.940 --> 41:47.280]  You may have already covered this.
[41:47.440 --> 41:56.100]  I noticed the discrepancy between the housing prices, real estate in the Canadian side versus the U.S.
[41:56.160 --> 41:56.420]  side.
[41:58.380 --> 41:59.420]  Why was that?
[42:01.480 --> 42:04.020]  Was there a housing price crash on the U.S.
[42:04.060 --> 42:05.560]  side because of the economy?
[42:05.560 --> 42:09.100]  Why is property more expensive in Canada than the United States?
[42:09.260 --> 42:10.600]  That is a really great question.
[42:10.860 --> 42:13.120]  So in Canada, there's that border, right?
[42:13.580 --> 42:28.900]  And what you can't see on the map... By the way, like, I hope you guys like this hacker hoodie thing, because I put cyber hacker Q&A into the stock image search, and this is what came out.
[42:29.280 --> 42:36.580]  So, you know... So let's see if I can find the map, just to give you a little more color and context.
[42:37.020 --> 42:40.100]  I guess, and why don't Canadians just buy cheaper U.S.
[42:40.260 --> 42:40.500]  property?
[42:40.800 --> 42:41.100]  Yeah.
[42:41.240 --> 42:43.340]  So why don't Canadians just buy cheaper U.S.
[42:43.460 --> 42:43.680]  property?
[42:43.840 --> 42:44.860]  That would be so much easier.
[42:45.120 --> 42:57.680]  So, if you look up at this map, like, where Vancouver is green, it is just mountains.
[42:58.280 --> 43:01.760]  And it's just, like, sheer vertical face, totally unbuildable.
[43:02.040 --> 43:12.440]  So if you kind of look at where this metro area is, it's a lot of people crammed into a relatively small amount of space and then this very inconvenient border underneath it.
[43:12.980 --> 43:15.820]  Why can't Canadians live in the United States and just commute?
[43:16.100 --> 43:17.740]  Well, we don't let them.
[43:18.060 --> 43:21.280]  They're allowed to be in the United States for 182 days a year.
[43:21.420 --> 43:23.940]  By the way, if you want to do the reverse, that's also true.
[43:24.040 --> 43:29.480]  You can't be in Canada more than 182 days a year if you're living there without getting some form of status.
[43:29.880 --> 43:33.920]  They don't have limits on how often we can visit, though, which is different than the U.S.
[43:34.000 --> 43:36.600]  Like, there's a hard limit for Canadians coming into the U.S.
[43:36.640 --> 43:40.260]  of 182 days of physical presence in the United States.
[43:41.100 --> 43:45.080]  I can visit Canada every day to buy groceries or go to restaurants or whatever.
[43:45.080 --> 43:46.780]  So it's a bit asymmetric.
[43:47.100 --> 43:48.700]  I'm grateful for that.
[43:50.060 --> 43:52.140]  But, you know, that could change any time, too.
[43:52.340 --> 43:54.440]  Like, border rules can be variable.
[43:54.440 --> 43:58.940]  I just want to know about the weather and that little thing there.
[43:59.180 --> 43:59.700]  What's that?
[43:59.840 --> 44:00.960]  I mean, does it snow a lot?
[44:01.100 --> 44:01.360]  Is it...
[44:01.880 --> 44:02.940]  Oh, what's the weather like?
[44:03.120 --> 44:04.500]  So this is the best part.
[44:04.620 --> 44:09.880]  If you're familiar with the Pacific Northwest, you probably think rain and wind and dark and cold.
[44:10.080 --> 44:11.900]  And yeah, it can be all of those.
[44:12.020 --> 44:17.340]  But we are in the sunniest part of place west of the Cascades.
[44:17.560 --> 44:18.700]  This is a rain shadow.
[44:18.960 --> 44:23.440]  The reason we have this thick forest canopy is because we get a marine layer every morning that waters it.
[44:23.780 --> 44:25.480]  We get less rain than Seattle.
[44:25.980 --> 44:28.760]  We get around the same amount as Sequim.
[44:29.100 --> 44:30.580]  So it's just...
[44:30.580 --> 44:39.540]  It's so... The climate is so mild that on the Canadian side, in the community of Tawasson, they grow palm trees all over the place just because they can.
[44:40.060 --> 44:40.660]  Is it cold?
[44:41.140 --> 44:42.080]  And is it cold?
[44:42.220 --> 44:42.340]  No.
[44:42.560 --> 44:46.640]  Like, it gets... I mean, it'll snow like a couple of days a year sometimes.
[44:47.380 --> 44:51.440]  But on average, it's going to be... It's a very rare day that it's freezing.
[44:53.140 --> 44:55.660]  I've got a couple of questions from the virtual attendees.
[44:56.040 --> 44:59.180]  Xatrix asks, what is the typical cost to move there?
[44:59.320 --> 45:01.440]  And how expensive are the building materials?
[45:01.900 --> 45:02.600]  Oh, okay.
[45:02.820 --> 45:05.780]  So building materials, it just depends what you're buying.
[45:05.780 --> 45:12.500]  They can be quite a bit less expensive than in the mainland U.S. because you can import building materials from Canada.
[45:12.700 --> 45:26.820]  They're products of Canada, and under the Canada... It used to be NAFTA, and it's called CMUSA, I think now, because it was renegotiated during the last administration.
[45:28.220 --> 45:33.320]  You can just import anything with no duty from Canada, as long as it's a product of Canada.
[45:33.320 --> 45:35.340]  So wood tends to be quite a bit less.
[45:35.820 --> 45:44.360]  If you're thinking of building though, it is not an easy or cheap thing to get roofers, plumbers, contractors, etc.
[45:44.760 --> 45:52.060]  So you really need a plan if you're going to build, and assume that it's going to take twice as long and cost twice as much as it would on the mainland.
[45:52.600 --> 45:53.760]  What's the cost of moving?
[45:53.900 --> 45:55.100]  I mean, that really depends on you.
[45:55.860 --> 45:58.000]  It's for me, it was a U-Haul truck.
[45:58.740 --> 46:02.120]  I rented it to Point Roberts, but they had me return it in Canada.
[46:02.760 --> 46:04.540]  And it was a couple of hundred bucks.
[46:05.460 --> 46:08.060]  You know, this was a rental from the Seattle area up.
[46:08.440 --> 46:15.780]  If you're crossing the country, it's probably going to be more where you could just throw out all your stuff, like sell it all and buy new on Amazon.
[46:15.840 --> 46:18.400]  And that's going to be like what it would cost.
[46:24.120 --> 46:26.800]  And you could, you know, furnish your house that way if you want to.
[46:28.000 --> 46:29.820]  So feel free to hit me up.
[46:29.880 --> 46:30.520]  You've got my email.
[46:30.920 --> 46:35.100]  I'll go back to that page, tprophet at tprophet.org.
[46:35.420 --> 46:40.980]  Happy to, you know, give you more specific details on specific stuff if you're interested.
[46:42.020 --> 46:43.780]  We've got about two more minutes left.
[46:43.960 --> 46:45.920]  Do you mind answering one more question?
[46:46.200 --> 46:46.520]  Yeah, sure.
[46:46.780 --> 46:48.780]  What's the third space situation like?
[46:48.960 --> 46:51.060]  Meaning, where do people hang out?
[46:51.160 --> 46:51.580]  Bookstores?
[46:51.720 --> 46:52.000]  Coffee?
[46:52.320 --> 46:52.760]  Shops?
[46:52.900 --> 46:53.000]  What?
[46:53.320 --> 46:54.320]  That's up to you.
[46:54.320 --> 46:57.880]  Wherever you want it to be in Canada, I guess.
[46:58.080 --> 47:01.360]  If you're thinking like bookstores, coffee shops, et cetera.
[47:01.620 --> 47:07.480]  We have one restaurant that's open sometimes and another restaurant that's open some other times.
[47:07.860 --> 47:12.780]  And they're both, you know, kind of on the expensive end of the spectrum.
[47:13.680 --> 47:15.360]  A lot of people like to go to the beach.
[47:15.520 --> 47:17.620]  I mean, you notice a lot of my pictures are beach pictures.
[47:17.800 --> 47:20.240]  We have four beautiful beach parks and they're free.
[47:20.500 --> 47:22.780]  So that's where a lot of people hang out.
[47:25.300 --> 47:26.780]  Any other questions?
[47:27.480 --> 47:29.580]  Trying to move fast because we're on a time crunch.
[47:30.200 --> 47:35.020]  Yeah, I was wondering, do you keep a separate Canadian bank account for going up to Canada?
[47:35.020 --> 47:39.500]  Or do you use like a credit card that has a decent conversion rate?
[47:39.520 --> 47:42.420]  Or what's the situation for handling that on a daily basis?
[47:42.740 --> 47:43.440]  Oh, great question.
[47:43.440 --> 47:44.360]  How does banking work?
[47:44.520 --> 47:47.380]  So I personally have banking in both the U.S. and Canada.
[47:47.540 --> 48:00.580]  The reason why I do is that if you want to buy something on Kijiji and pay with Interac from a Canadian, and if you've never heard of these things, they're like local Canadian things, then having Canadian banking really helps.
[48:00.580 --> 48:02.020]  But you don't need it.
[48:02.140 --> 48:03.720]  You can have just a U.S. account.
[48:03.920 --> 48:07.920]  If you get any card from, I hesitate to recommend them, Capital One.
[48:08.240 --> 48:10.140]  None of them have foreign transaction fees.
[48:11.700 --> 48:14.620]  It's really hard to use American Express in Canada.
[48:14.940 --> 48:17.980]  Like, there are far fewer places take it than otherwise.
[48:18.460 --> 48:21.980]  And then also, a lot of restaurants only take cash in Canadian debit.
[48:22.240 --> 48:24.720]  So that's another thing to keep in mind.
[48:24.720 --> 48:29.180]  If you get an ATM fee with no foreign transaction fee, that's a good thing.
[48:30.800 --> 48:36.080]  Oh, yeah, like let's, if anybody wants to get into the weeds of banking, we can do that.
[48:36.680 --> 48:39.580]  Just email me and I'm happy to tell you all the things that I'd recommend.
[48:39.580 --> 48:40.920]  There was one last question.
[48:40.960 --> 48:42.080]  I think we couldn't get to it.
[48:42.680 --> 48:46.140]  That's too bad, because that's COTEC, and I'd love to hear his question if we can.
[48:46.380 --> 48:46.800]  All right.
[48:50.390 --> 48:54.290]  So the person asking the question is, is an actual, can I say?
[48:54.950 --> 48:55.390]  Sure.
[48:55.830 --> 48:57.150]  Is an actual COTEC.
[48:57.270 --> 48:59.530]  So like, you know, all the respect.
[49:03.500 --> 49:09.680]  Oh, is that a ferry terminal just northwest of Point Roberts where BC Highway 17 ended?
[49:10.300 --> 49:10.960]  Yes, sir.
[49:11.240 --> 49:18.940]  So the, we're right next to the, there's a major British Columbia ferries terminal that, that's the Tawasin, Swartz Bay, and many other locations.
[49:19.260 --> 49:20.100]  Ferry terminal.
[49:20.500 --> 49:25.680]  Ferries that are going to Vancouver Island, this is a fun piece of trivia, go through U.S. waters.
[49:26.100 --> 49:27.220]  Our waters, in fact.
[49:27.380 --> 49:36.120]  So if you take the ferry between the lower mainland in BC and Victoria, British Columbia, you are passing through America.
[49:36.740 --> 49:39.120]  Well, with that, I think we are done.
[49:39.980 --> 49:41.580]  Again, open invite.
[49:41.920 --> 49:43.540]  I'm actually serious about this.
[49:43.700 --> 49:47.460]  I'd love people to come check out Point Roberts and hopefully move there.
[49:47.680 --> 49:52.660]  And feel free to contact me on that email if you have any questions about the city.
[49:53.400 --> 49:55.100]  Join our Discord as well, if you like.