{"id":96818,"date":"2018-12-07T16:14:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T23:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fiber-project-in-cortez-raises-questions-about-federal-involvement\/"},"modified":"2018-12-07T16:14:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T23:14:06","slug":"fiber-project-in-cortez-raises-questions-about-federal-involvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fiber-project-in-cortez-raises-questions-about-federal-involvement\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiber project in Cortez raises questions about federal involvement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Cortez
Cortez is seeking a partner to help deliver a fiber optic internet connection to homes and businesses in the city.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Five years after starting its quest for citywide broadband internet, Cortez is looking to private companies for help and is receiving unclear signals from the federal government.<\/p>\n

Broadband access has been a problem across rural America for years now, and it affects how towns operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow not having broadband impacts communities and citizens is much wider ranging than most people think,\u201d said Miriam Gillow-Wiles, executive director of Southwest Colorado Council of Governments. \u201cWe think of broadband like, \u2018Oh I want to do email, I want to watch Netflix,\u2019 things like that. \u2026 But it is also access to education, it is access to workforce, it is access to the justice system in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without fast internet access, economic development could stall.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything you think of, some aspect of it is based in connectivity,\u201d Gillow-Wiles said.<\/p>\n

Cortez City Manager John Dougherty compared internet expansion to rural development of electricity, which was built on federal loans provided by the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so important for us in terms of economic development,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we\u2019re shooting for, to come into the 21st century and get to the point of there\u2019s no excuse why you could not set up a business here that is primarily based on the internet, but right now you can\u2019t do it. We want to see in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillow-Wiles works with local governments to solve regional problems such as the expansion of reliable broadband.<\/p>\n

She said towns face three major obstacles that inhibit internet expansion: low population density, distance between communities and topography, especially mountains. The obstacles make fiber projects costly for towns and companies, she said, because low population cannot produce a return on investment or incentive to become a sole internet service provider.<\/p>\n

Gillow-Wiles helped Cortez officials bring in state funding matched by local funding. The city used its funds for the fiber-optic project, which expanded on existing infrastructure because Colorado Senate Bill 152 prohibits local governments from participating in public-private partnerships to purchase connectivity. In Cortez, the City Council and a private company might partner on a broadband expansion project.<\/p>\n

Cortez opted out of SB 152, like other towns in Southwest Colorado, because it had started its broadband expansion before the bill was passed in 2005. According to the Colorado Wireless Association\u2019s website, 29 counties and 66 municipalities had voted to opt out of the restrictions by January 2017, yet over half did not have access to up to $20 million in aid meant for broadband expansion from the Department of Local Affairs because of the bill.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 5, Cortez took a step in creating a private-public partnership. The city released a request for proposals, seeking a private company to partner with the city on financing, designing, installing, operating and maintaining the fiber network, or any combination of those responsibilities. General Services Director Rick Smith said the company could help the city install the fiber network, possibly without a tax.<\/p>\n

The decision as a city survey found that an overwhelming amount of Cortez residents supported a sales tax to finance the fiber-optic installation program, which was draining hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from city funds. Survey results revealed that 64 percent of respondents said they would support a temporary sales tax, and 18 percent would support a tax if it meant lower prices and better service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to the point, in my viewing, that it\u2019s not paying back its debt \u2026 and we have not done a good job of marketing the broadband around the communities where it is available,\u201d Dougherty said.<\/p>\n

Gillow-Wiles said subsidies are available to companies to expand broadband into rural areas.<\/p>\n

Smith said CenturyLink received $500 million in subsidies between 2006 and 2016 in Colorado, but the company is an ISP in mostly urban areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur belief is that just because we live in rural areas doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t have telecommunication,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Gillow-Wiles said CenturyLink\u2019s market dominance doesn\u2019t allow for innovation because it excludes competition from local providers who might know the area better.<\/p>\n

In Washington, D.C., Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation has moved to bring fast internet to Southwest Colorado. But local officials hope for more simplified solutions.<\/p>\n

Republican Rep. Scott Tipton, who has echoed sentiment that broadband is becoming a necessity, said he is working on several bills for his fourth term to help fund broadband in rural areas.<\/p>\n

Sens. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, and Cory Gardner, a Republican, have worked to provide the federal funding that Gillow-Wiles mentioned. In March, Bennet launched Connect Colorado, an initiative to help connect every Colorado community to high-speed internet through competitively awarded federal grants, after helping to secure $600 million in funding in the March spending bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh-speed, reliable, affordable broadband is essential for our communities to thrive in the 21st-century economy,\u201d Bennet said in a news release. \u201cColorado\u2019s local leaders, especially in rural areas, have been at the forefront of innovative approaches to deliver that caliber of service to their neighbors. We must do everything we can to build on their work, with the goal of delivering high-quality broadband to every community across Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet also secured funding for high-speed fiber-optic service to the Silverton School in 2015.<\/p>\n

Gardner introduced the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum Act, or Airwaves Act, in August 2017 to direct revenue from the sale of spectrum by the FCC toward rural broadband expansion. The FCC auctions broadband for tens of billions of dollars to private companies \u2013 10 percent of which would be reserved for expansion projects like the fiber-optic project in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Gardner\u2019s bill awaits a vote in the next Congress.<\/p>\n

However, Gillow-Wiles said it\u2019s not enough. She said the multifaceted need of internet requires a multifaceted solution including public-private partnerships, public-private subsidies outside of incumbent companies like CenturyLink, simplified government regulations and application processes, and access to established ISPs\u2019 maps and grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give a lot of money to really big companies that don\u2019t necessarily know what the challenges on the ground are or are not invested in the communities,\u201d Gillow-Wiles said. \u201cWe just need more infrastructure to bring access to people\u2019s residences and businesses. The hard part is the cost and the willpower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dougherty and Smith also think legislation should provide funding for broadband expansion, as it did for electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the federal government would step up and say, \u2018We have subsidies for providers,\u2019 and not just give them to the cable providers who already don\u2019t do the service anyway but they\u2019re taking the money, we\u2019d all be better off,\u201d Dougherty said.<\/p>\n

Smith made an analogy between the infrastructure for road development and broadband expansion to show how poorly the system is set up in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we treated roads like we did telecommunications, any road going out of Denver would be a gravel road,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Emily Martin is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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