[1st-mile-nm] Two Reports

[Richard Lowenberg]

FCC Staff Report Reveals Potential State-by-State Eligibility for 5G 
Fund Auction in 2021, FCC Staff Report:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-363633A1.pdf

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... and the NM section of the following:

“State Broadband Initiatives: Selected State and Local Approaches as 
Potential Models for Federal Initiatives to Address the Digital
Divide”, from the Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46307

New Mexico
In February 2020, the New Mexico Department of Information Technology 
announced a new public-private partnership aimed at building out 
broadband in the southeastern portion of the state. The partnership, 
between ExxonMobil, the state of New Mexico, and Plateau Communications, 
is to develop a $5 million fiber network offering advanced broadband to 
businesses along a 107-mile route, with completion scheduled for August 
2020.

Leveraging Existing Infrastructure Assets
It can be difficult to build out new broadband infrastructure in certain 
areas—especially in suburban or rural areas—due to terrain or other 
hindrances, such as limited or prohibited access to land that is 
publicly or privately owned. One option to address this challenge could 
be to leverage existing infrastructure via a rights-of-way or permitting 
process. A rights-of-way grant is an authorization to use a specific 
piece of public land for a specific project, such as electric 
transmission lines, communication sites, roads, trails, fiber optic 
lines, canals, flumes, pipelines,
or reservoirs.  Federal assets such as tower facilities, buildings, and 
land can also be made available via permits that allow their use in 
deploying broadband infrastructure to lower the cost of broadband 
buildouts and encourage private-sector companies to expand broadband 
infrastructure.  Through the American Broadband Initiative—a 
comprehensive effort to stimulate increased private sector investment in 
broadband33—the NTIA has been working with other federal agencies, such 
as the Department of the Interior and the Department of Homeland 
Security, to streamline the federal permitting process and make it 
easier for network builders to access federal assets and rights-of-way.



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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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