Localism

Regional utility districts formed among multiple towns or municipal entities represent one of several emerging frameworks for providing broadband service to unserved or underserved areas, particularly in more rural parts of the country. Historically, such utility districts have been formed to build out infrastructure and provide essential services.

Investor-owned utilities, typically large, publicly-traded electricity distributors, can play a critical role in bringing broadband services to rural and underserved areas by allowing providers to use their existing infrastructure to provide the middle mile network for making high-speed internet connections. Rural areas present a challenge for broadband providers: These regions tend to be more costly and less profitable to serve than densely populated urban and suburban areas. Connecting rural communities requires middle and last-mile networks.

State policymakers have increasingly sought new solutions to improve the availability of broadband, including allowing electric cooperatives to offer service, the formation of regional utility districts to provide broadband, and the use of investor-owned utilities to improve the availabili

Tucson Connected, a public-private partnership in Arizona, aims to link the digital inclusion efforts of several entities in a unified effort to reach residents. The project, which launched in the fall of 2021, is meant to unify a number of entities with a stake in increasing regional digital equity and address the barriers impeding Internet adoption. The coalition’s primary focus will be identifying barriers and connecting stakeholders to available subsidies.

Beaver County (PA) Commissioners took the wraps off a two-year plan to bring the internet to about one-third of the county where logging on is slow or impossible, giving the onetime smokestack-industrial heartland a head start in connectivity. In all, some 2,000 homes in parts of 28 of the county’s 54 municipalities will be able to get online by 2024, according to Commission Chair Daniel Camp III.

For many years there have been people extolling the huge benefits of public-private partnership for broadband. For all of that talk, there is not a big number of partnerships, but there are some successful examples around the country. Communities that are looking for broadband solutions might want to consider public-public partnerships and non-profit partnerships. I’m seeing public-public partnerships develop that are similar to the more traditional public-private partnership. Existing municipal internet service providers (ISPs) are reaching out to help neighboring communities.

The Williamson County (TN) Commission stated its willingness to help fund broadband internet projects in the county in two resolutions approved unanimously March 14. The money would come from the over $46 million Williamson County is slated to receive in American Rescue Plan funds meant to provide relief from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rural counties are facing some interesting dilemmas about where to offer local support for the giant upcoming federal grant funds that will hopefully build broadband in their counties. Counties that are willing to provide local matching grants from American Rescue Plan Act or other funds may well rise to the top of the list of lists of who gets funded. I think many counties fear that nobody is going to seek the $42.5 BEAD grant funding in their county – and some are probably right.

The city of Houston (TX) has started the deployment of digitally interactive kiosks, which will offer wayfinding information and act as Wi-Fi hot spots. In the two years since the COVID-19 pandemic shifted schools and government alike to operate virtually, digital equity has become a top priority for cities. Local governments have taken a number of routes to establish more public Wi-Fi hot spots, deploying them at libraries and even in smart streetlights.