Rural Colorado is about to score a major broadband win

Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) is poised to sign a bill to allocate $115 million in the next five years to extend high-speed internet to rural Colorado, a significant step toward achieving his goal to connect the entire state. The measure is a legacy piece for the term-limited governor and a major victory for state lawmakers who prioritized the needs of beleaguered rural communities as a way to bridge their deep divide with the state’s robust urban areas. The legislation will take money collected from fees levied on phone lines and divert it toward building broadband service that operates at a minimum 10 megabits per second. In 2019, 60 percent of the money will go toward broadband, with that portion increasing in 2023 to 100 percent, or roughly $27 million a year. The state is at 77 percent coverage, according the governor’s office, and the goal is to reach 85 percent by the end of 2018. Gov Hickenlooper set a goal in his 2017 State of the State speech to reach 100 percent by 2020. And even though the bill is an acknowledgement that it won’t happen, the governor called it “a huge success.”