Communities Must Take Charge to Get Broadband, Say Local Advocates
Connecting communities requires local action and adapting to each location’s challenges, local broadband officials said Wednesday as Next Century Cities, Neighborly and the Internet Society released a digital toolkit on how localities can increase internet access. With “unprecedented federal inaction,” it’s up to local communities to solve the homework gap and other broadband access issues, said Neighborly Director-Business Development Garrett Brinker at the livestreamed event.
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“Cities, towns, and counties have an extraordinary amount of resources that can be leveraged to encourage investment in broadband infrastructure,” said the report. There's no single “perfect model,” but successful communities have “common threads," including strong leadership and streamlined government processes, said Next Century Cities Policy and Program Manager Cat Blake.
Many communities can't wait for incumbents, but a municipally owned network may not work everywhere, said Don Patten, general manager of Oregon's Monmouth-Independence Network. MINET struggled for about six years because of too much government control and overborrowing, Patten said. MINET turned things around by operating more like a business, he said. It has 85 percent customer penetration and is about to double its footprint into an adjacent community, he said.
Governments have a tendency to “squeeze” private entities to get as much as possible, but that’s “not a good way to run a partnership,” said City Council President Robert Wack of Westminster, Maryland. Local government seeks to spur economic growth in the “bedroom community” of commuters that used to have an agricultural-based economy, Wack said. Westminster has a private-public broadband partnership with Ting and plans to finish construction this year, he said. It's a “work in progress,” with sorting division of labor including on maintenance and marketing a challenge, he said. “Sometimes there are misunderstandings … but we work it out.”
By explaining local culture, Kansas City’s government helped Google Fiber better reach its community with messaging, said McClain Bryant Macklin, Greater Kansas City (Missouri) Civic Council director-policy and research. Becoming the nation’s first Google Fiber community shed light on the city’s digital divide -- the city quickly saw that its poorest areas weren’t signing up, she said. Google and the city rethought their approach and increased digital inclusion efforts, including a new focus on connecting public housing, she said.
Local policies to speed deployment include dig once and one-touch, make-ready, the toolkit said. Cities should make template lease agreements and streamline processes for historic reviews and permitting of small cells and other infrastructure, it said: Communities should write digital inclusion plans.
“Motivated communities should seek innovative ways to invest, even when state laws pose a challenge,” said the toolkit. Lincoln avoided Nebraska’s ban on leasing fiber by building out and leasing conduit to providers, it said. State barriers include municipal broadband restrictions in 19 states and 21 state small-cells laws that “limit municipalities’ ability to negotiate in order to create agreements with providers that are mutually beneficial.” San Jose’s small-cells agreement with wireless carriers (see 1810220030) wouldn’t have been possible if then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D) hadn’t vetoed California’s small-cells bill, it said.