Category Archives: Client Updates

Update on Community Broadband Resources: Accelerate! Program

Client Updates

As originally posted on the Blandin on Broadband blog…

Over the past year, Blandin Foundation has worked with eight rural communities on its Community Broadband Resources: Accelerate! Program. Each community recruited a team of at least eight broadband champions – elected officials and staff, school technology coordinators and superintendents, economic development and chamber officials, and citizen volunteers.  I thank them for their dedication and congratulate them on their progress!

The broadband shortcomings in these communities – six counties, one tribe and one city – do not revolve around getting good broadband to one or two homes, or even a neighborhood.  These communities face persistent and systemic shortcomings crossing, in most cases, the majority of the land area in these places.  Even where cities are considered served, community surveys indicate that many people are unhappy with the reliability of the service and the poor customer service.  The same surveys have documented the efforts that individuals have made in an attempt to obtain broadband services.  Some respondents have called area providers regularly to ask about service availability. many others have simply given up and adapted as best they can to combinations of Internet service – cellular hotspots, traditional satellite, inconsistent fixed wireless service.  Their stories are amazing.

Through the Accelerate Program, these community leaders are creating and pursuing the deployment of widespread, high-quality broadband solutions covering large areas.  They are working intensely with providers of all types in a variety of ways.  Minnesota should not be pursuing strategies or passing legislation that supports treating broadband as a question of getting broadband to one or two, one or two hundred or one or two thousand houses.  We can and need to do a lot better than this type of small thinking.  High quality, at scale.  Solve the problem.

Check out Blandin’s Community Broadband Resources: Accelerate! Program

Client Updates

Originally posted in Blandin on Broadband blog…

The availability of locally controlled federal funds and the opportunity for competitive state and federal funding has motivated multiple townships, cities and counties to move broadband funding up the priority list.  It’s kind of like a kid in a candy store after his after receiving cash gifts.  This kid is faced with so many choices – what kind of candy, how much candy, favorite candy only or mix-it-up?  How can/do they want to share their candy with others?  If not candy, what else could they buy?  One big difference…most kids have some good knowledge about candy and know exactly what they want to do and I expect that many elected officials would not have the same confidence in their decision making.

For those communities wanting to improve their confidence in their broadband decisions and strategies, I recommend that they participate in Blandin’s Community Broadband Resources: Accelerate! Program.  Over 14 weeks, community teams of at least eight members meet weekly and  learn about broadband technologies, review their current situation, interview current and prospective ISP partners, set policies and priorities and create plans and partnerships .

Learn more at broadband.blandinfoundation.org and click on the Accelerate panel.  Or call me at 651-491-2551 or email to bill@communitytechnologyadvisors.com .

Invitation to talk public ownership models at Blandin Lunch Bunch on March 10

Client Updates, Events

As originally posted on the Blandin on Broadband blog…

Stirring the Pot – by Bill Coleman

Part One

For rural community broadband champions, pursuing better broadband has never been more complicated.  Factors that currently have me thinking, if not stumped include:

  • RDOF
    • Will the winning RDOF bidder be approved by the FCC?
    • If yes, what will their buildout schedule look like till 2027?
    • Will they build-out the adjacent non-RDOF areas?
  • Starlink
    • Will Starlink maintain the 100 Mb+ speeds once they move from beta to large customer numbers?
    • Will they be able to deliver, as promised, to 300 Mb and beyond?
    • How will low-income households afford $500 or more in upfront costs?
  • DSL
    • Will other DSL providers follow ATT’s lead and phase out DSL services?
    • Will the majority of rural DSL customers ever see widespread speeds that support multiple users?

We should know more about some of these questions soon; other will emerge more slowly.

Part Two

The 1996 Telecom Act was supposed to spur competition, but we are going backwards. In many communities, from affluent suburbs to small rural communities, residents are effectively subject to the services, pricing and responsiveness of an unregulated monopoly provider.  Community leaders need to decide whether this is that a good thing.

The costs to build a fiber infrastructure in a community are low for a 30-year asset.  Community broadband advocates should analyze the multiple options for creating community-owned networks and promote them to elected officials.  Locally-owned networks serve the community as their first priority.

We are going to talk public ownership models at our Blandin Lunch Bunch on March 10 at noon.  Sign up here: https://blandinfoundation.org/programs/broadband/blandin-community-broadband-program-webinar-series/ .  We will discuss at least a couple models.  Chris Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance will join the conversation.

Ammon ID (https://www.ammonfiber.com) is building and maintaining its own fiber network where residents now have their choice of Gigabit providers for $49.50 per month.  Chattanooga TN (https://epb.com/home-store/internet) offers a Gb for $68 per month and solved its pandemic-magnified digital divide issue by simply providing free 100 Mb Internet to 28,000 students.  A new study documented a $2.69 billion long-term benefit from Chattanooga’s fiber network.

We will also talk about the mixed experience of Minnesota’s publicly owned broadband networks (wonders and warts!), including Southwest MN Broadband, the Cities of Windom and Monticello and Scott and Lake Counties.  And, maybe a bit on how new and expanded cooperatives might accomplish the same goals.  Join us!

Stirring the Pot : Eye on the Broadband Prize

Client Updates, Tech News

As originally posted on the Blandin on Broadband blog…

Community broadband leaders need to keep their eyes on the prize – broadband money!  “To the Victors belongs the Spoils.”  In Andrew Jackson’s day, that meant political patronage.  Today, the spoils are fiber optics!

In addition to the $20 million (with an additional $10 million in play) of Border to Border Broadband grant funds, there is a whopping $20 billion on the table via the FCC’s Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) coming in October.  Large areas of Minnesota are eligible for funding to be allocated via a reverse auction. https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/auction-904-preliminary-eligible-areas/

The state’s broadband fund is designed to give communities input on provider proposals.  A community can choose to support applications via a single letter of support, by rallying multiple letters of community support and/or by providing direct funding.  A community could choose to write a letter of protest to the state if the service to be delivered was deemed in adequate or if the funded project would be a barrier to future fiber infrastructure investment.

The RDOF program incents fiber providers but allows fixed wireless, DSL and even satellite.  While the RDOF program offers no formal role for community engagement, there are important ways for governments to influence the results.  The community need to find a provider who will bid and, preferably, someone ready to deploy fiber optics.    At a minimum, community broadband activists should be in contact with prospective providers to see if they plan to bid and with what technology in mind.  A community could also work with a provider to get adjacent areas deployed via some combination of state, local or provider funds.  Finally, documenting the demand for broadband will help a provider to appropriately bid for the RDOF funds.

The RDOF eligibility map is a patchwork based on claims of existing services by incumbent providers.  If a provider claims one house in a census block to be served with 25 Mb/3 Mb, the entire area is deemed served making them ineligible for RDOF.  CenturyLink and Frontier are now claiming thousands of census blocks as served taking them out of the program.

Communities should work with GIS mapping experts, either consultants or their own county planning staff, to see the impact of these new service claims and to test the reality of those claims.  While there is no formal way to refute the data, communities can act by working through state and federal staff and elected officials to ensure accuracy.

Clearly these RDOF dollars will have a huge influence on broadband deployment; I believe that what a community has for infrastructure and services for the next generation will be determined by this auction.  Don’t just sit and watch.  Make this program work for your area or suffer the long-term consequences.

Stirring the Pot: Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF)

Client Updates, Tech News

As originally posted on the Blandin on Broadband blog…

Community broadband advocates need to take a look at the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) funding that will be made available via the latest FCC’s funding program for rural broadband.  Communities should engage with their preferred provider partners now to encourage them to bid for this available funding.  A preferred partner is one whose deployment plans line up with your community’s vision for future broadband service rather than a provider using these funds to meet today’s minimum broadband standards similar to the CAF II 10 Mb/1 Mb debacle.

Over $20 billion is available and only areas that lack 25 Mb/3 Mb funding, using the current FCC maps, are eligible.   Eligible areas can be found here: https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/auction-904-preliminary-eligible-areas/ along with GIS data tables.  There are large blocks of eligible areas in northeast, east central, southeast and southcentral Minnesota.  One interesting aspect of the reverse auction process will be to reward providers who commit to providing higher speeds and lower latencies.  Frankly, this whole process is very complicated.

A significant barrier to effectively using these funds is the patchwork of eligibility.  The funds would be a great building block in a collaborative funding plan, combining provider, local and state funds with federal funding to cover a wide geographic area.  County and regional broadband planners would do well to commit local funding to their preferred provide partner which would increase their ability to bid confidently on these federal funds.

Smart legislators would empower the DEED Office of Broadband to reserve some of their funds supporting providers chasing RDOF funds.  I hope that they are talking about this.  With a prospective DEED application window in September and the October FCC auction, the timing seems compatible.  Combined, these funds could be used to ensure widespread deployment of fiber to the home networks, especially since so many of the eligible areas are not idea for wireless deployment.  This would be a great opportunity to push the “Minnesota Model” to a new level of innovation.

Stirring the Pot: Working with communities that get State Grants

Client Updates, Tech News

As originally posted on the Blandin on Broadband blog…

Two of the three communities that participated in our Community Broadband Planning Charrette at the October 2018 Broadband Conference formed public-private partnerships that received significant state broadband grant awards announced last week.  That is a pretty good result just over one year.  Both Koochiching (w/Paul Bunyan) and Le Sueur (w/BevComm) Counties were at the very early stages of organizing their broadband efforts and their community teams spent two days with quality broadband consultants (great thanks to Cooperative Network Services and Finley Engineering, respectively) studying maps, analyzing survey results and discussing financing scenarios.  At the end of the conference, both teams understood what was possible and what local efforts would be necessary for a successful partnership.  With both Paul Bunyan and BevComm representatives at the conference, discussions commenced!

Our Blandin team has been discussing ways that we can help those who are either just beginning their broadband development efforts or those that still struggle to attract the state or federal funding necessary to implement a successful project.  We have some ideas.  If the broadband is deficient in your community or county and you think that there would be a team ready to work to solve this problem, please contact me to discuss your situation.  You can reach me at 651-491-2551 or bill@communitytechnologyadvisors.com.  You can also complete a short online form at the Community Broadband Resources Program description at www.broadband.blandinfoundation.org and we will contact you.

Stirring the Pot: Maximizing community broadband

Client Updates

As originally posted on Blandin on Broadband…

It is so interesting to review the Blandin on Broadband blog reports on county connectivity.  Many counties are making great progress on achieving the 100 Mb/20 Mb state goal.  The next big community challenge will be to maximize the value derived from this combination of significant investment by private and public sector partnerships. The question is how to move from being able to tell stories of individual people, businesses and institutions that are making great use of technology to a bigger story of widespread sophisticated use of the network for work, school, entrepreneurship, health care and social life; in essence, creating a world-class environment that retains and attracts people and investments.  It will take a major shift in mindset for community leaders to focus on this even more complex task.

The Intelligent Community framework provides a guide to measure this shift.  The six elements of Intelligent Community are: Broadband; Knowledge Workforce; Innovation; Digital Equality; Sustainability and Advocacy.  It is interesting to note that the MN Department of Economic Development now has key staff devoted to several of these topics.  The beauty of the Intelligent Community framework is that it helps break down the silos between these topic priorities.  Done right, there can be great synergies between these topics though it is sometimes difficult to knock down those institutional barriers.

Great thanks to those folks who attended one of Blandin Foundation’s Intelligent Community workshops this fall and special kudos to those who followed up with a submitted application to ICF.  Minnesota applications jumped from two to five.  Special recognition to Alexandria Lakes Area; Brainerd Lakes Area; East Central Minnesota – GPS 45:93; Koochiching County; and City of Winthrop. Communities can still submit the benchmarking questionnaire at any time and receive their benchmarking report shortly after. When you do so, you will see how your community stacks up compared to 400 other communities around the world.

We all know that broadband does not get deployed in rural places with strong community effort.  It will take that same level of effort to achieve the full benefits of the network.

 

Stirring the Pot: Celebrating community broadband volunteers

Client Updates

As originally posted on Blandin on Broadband…

Minnesota’s communities are full of great citizen volunteers working to improve both broadband access and use as an essential component of community vitality.  In every community that I visit, there is one or more volunteers putting in hundreds of hours for the betterment of their community. Through their efforts, schools and community centers become more active technology centers, broadband demand surveys are collected via online, mail and door-to-door surveys and elected officials learn that broadband investment is smart investment.

I doubt that many local folks know the depth of commitment and level of effort required to move these broadband projects forward.  While many of these folks do not have an official title, I think that they are heroes!  You have my admiration!

Stirring the Pot: Decision making in community broadband

Client Updates

As originally posted on Blandin on Broadband…

Decisions are not getting any easier for community leaders working on broadband.  The pressure to do something is increasing as the impact of being un- or underserved mount, yet new wireless technologies are providing more strategy options.

Consider just these two alternatives from the many out there for consideration:

  1. A cooperative telephone company operating nearby offers to partner on a fiber to the home project that will provide gigabit service to everyone in the area. The project will require relatively large grants from both the state broadband program and from the county.
  2. A wireless company offers to partner with the county to offer services in the rural countryside that will offer 100 Mb/20 Mb service to 80% of rural residents. Implementation of the project will require a moderate sized state grant, but no county contribution.

These two simple examples require local leaders to make judgments that they may feel unqualified to make, considering the following questions:

  • Fiber can deliver gigabit speeds both up and down and more. Wireless can now meet the 2026 state goal.  Will wireless meet the needs of farms, resorts, students and tele-workers far into the future?  What else could our county do with those local grant funds?  Would fiber provide a long-term strategic advantage for our area?
  • Will state grant makers grant our county the necessary large grant to make our project feasible or will they pass us by for solutions that serve more people at lower cost? Conversely, will state funders favor more high-capacity, future-resilient technologies?
  • What about the 20% of rural households that would not be served with the wireless solution?
  • If we only have an opportunity for one state grant, what is it that we really want long-term for our citizens?

Reaching a consensus on these questions will drive each community’s unique broadband solution.   “Go slow to go fast” is wise advice that apparently goes back Rome’s Augustus.  I suggest that you take that advice as you consider your options.

Stirring the Pot: Preparing for MN Broadband Grant applications

Client Updates

As originally posted in Blandin on Broadband eNews...

Thanks to the good work of the MN Rural Broadband Coalition and politicians keeping their promises, there is $40 million of funding coming through DEED Office of Broadband Development for grants to be distributed over the two year budget.  As a result, many community leaders are now asking “how do we get some of that?”

For most communities, there is a lot of work to do between asking that simple question and receiving a broadband grant.  That work starts with these hard questions:

  1. What infrastructure will deliver the broadband services that we will require to thrive over the next 10 to 20 years?
  2. Will we be content to incrementally improve broadband services with better, but not great, broadband speeds and more, but not ubiquitous, broadband coverage?
  3. Who do we want as a long term broadband partner?

There will be strong opinions on these questions but you must develop your community’s own answers to these critical questions.   By working hard upfront on your community’s broadband vision,  you can avoid being whipsawed back and forth between various technology and provider options.

Blandin Foundation has two resources to assist communities as they pursue better broadband service.  First, 32 hours of technical assistance can be obtained through the Community Broadband Resources (CBR) program. The purpose of this program is to help your community get organized and education and to discuss the three questions above.

The second program is the Robust Network Feasibility Fund program which is a grant of up to $25,000 (1:1 cash match required) that allows communities to refine their options for the development of broadband project and partner alternatives.

Information for both programs can be found at broadband.blandinfoundation.org . There is no application deadline for CBR; the next deadline for feasibility fund grants is June 14.

In my experience, communities that skip or shortchange the discussion facilitated through CBR are unprepared to effectively direct their feasibility study consultants towards a desired outcome.  The result is an ambiguous study and a fractured community vision.  My advice: do the vision work up front and then pursue that vision with fierce determination.  Good luck!