The panel consisted of three experts, including Guido Dominguez, a grants and broadband strategy manager from IBT Connect; Denny George, general manager of Central Florida Electric Cooperative and Fiber by Central Florida; and Josh Hildebrandt, director of state government affairs for Charter Communications.
Panel moderator Derek Cooper, vice president of government affairs and network expansion for Comcast, started the conversation by asking panelists about the challenges they’ve seen in expanding broadband and building out rural infrastructure.
Dominguez said no two unserved or underserved communities are the same and have specific needs.
“In the city of Arcadia, we’ve been speaking with the city manager, Terry Stewart, and we were understanding that we had three different providers that were building fiber in the same areas and that the particular number of permits that were going on was way too much for their entire permitting department to be able to do.”
As a result, Dominguez said, it’s important to work closely with local cities and counties to understand their specific needs and be mindful of those who will benefit from future expansions.
For example, he said, “You always want to be a good neighbor, and part of being a good neighbor is letting everyone know what’s going on. When you tell individuals that there’s going to be high-speed broadband Internet available to them, they get excited. But if you’re just a stranger showing up in people’s yards trying to install something, it’s not going to go well for you in rural America.”
From a local electric co-op perspective, a few challenges include physically connecting rural areas that have three to five meters per mile and forming key relationships.
“We’ve heard stories of [transportation departments] in other states that those relationships were not that great, causing delays,” George said. However, “We’ve had exceptional support from others as well as county permitting agencies.”
Forming those relationships well in advance is critical he added, along with addressing the needs of two specific groups of people: “young families that are so busy they can’t throw the laundry in at the end of the day” and “older folks, who regardless of what they have, they are just going to make it work because they don’t want another change in their life.”
Hildebrandt emphasized the importance of not building quickly, but smartly, and getting out there in the field.
“We’re trying to make sure that we don’t have to go back again to pick up more areas that were possibly missed,” Hildebrandt said. “I think using data is so important when you are trying to do this right — so is mapping and surveys, but that takes time — you have to go out there in the field; you can’t just do that purely from a satellite image.”
So, how does BEAD come into play?
- “We need to keep in mind that for the locations that are eligible for BEAD, we’re going to have that final list at the end of November, pending NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] approval. At that point, it’s important that you’re having those conversations with local or other Internet service providers that best fit the needs of your community,” Dominguez said.
- “I think for our area, from a BEAD perspective, we’re pretty covered. So, I think we’re going to lean heavily toward the digital literacy side,” George said. “The other thing I think is a challenge for us, and this is where, if there are BEAD applications that we can do for very specific areas that aren’t covered, we’re working hard at keeping our costs down. Around 24 percent of the co-op customers use less than 500 kilowatt-hours a month, as opposed to fixed and lowest-income Americans.”
- “I think when it comes to BEAD, it is a matter of knowing that we are getting to work. We are building resilient and reliable broadband networks and not giving stopgap solutions,” Hildebrandt said. “I spend a lot of time in rural America, and rural does not like just getting an option. It’s about getting what they need to have the same opportunities as others throughout the state.”
