[1st-mile-nm] New Mexico looks for ways to improve broadband service

[Richard Lowenberg]

New Mexico looks for ways to improve broadband service

By Robert Nott rnott at sfnewmexican.com   Aug 17, 2020

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/legislature/new-mexico-looks-for-ways-to-improve-broadband-service/article_41ea7904-e0a2-11ea-aad9-6b44a5e4ab14.html

New Mexico needs to centralize its oversight of broadband services to 
serve the many residents who do not have access, according to a new 
legislative report.

Though improvements and new investments — a total of $325 million 
between 2015 and 2018 — have been made in offering and expanding 
broadband, the fact that so many state agencies play a role in the 
effort leads to gaps in data and service, experts told members of the 
Legislature’s Science, Technology and Telecommunications Committee on 
Monday.

“Broadband is as important as electricity and running water,” John 
Salazar, secretary designate of the state’s Department of Information 
and Technology, said during the virtual meeting. “New Mexicans need 
broadband.”

New Mexico often ranks near or at the bottom in national studies when it 
comes to broadband capability. A recent broadbandnow.com analysis ranked 
it 42nd in the country — and behind neighboring states Arizona, 
Colorado, Texas and Utah — when it comes to connectivity.

The state faces a particularly critical need for those services now, as 
the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many to stay at home and prompting 
public schools to conduct learning online — at least for the first few 
weeks of the semester, which begins in Santa Fe on Thursday.

Somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of New Mexico’s roughly 200,000 
homes and businesses do not have broadband access, according to the 
report.

New Mexico also lags behind much of the nation when it comes to 
broadband subscriber rates. Nationwide, the average subscriber rate is 
85 percent. In New Mexico, it’s 77 percent.

Affordability is a challenge too, Salazar told the legislators.

“Just because it’s available,” he said, “doesn’t mean it’s affordable.”

Salazar said it would cost somewhere between $2 billion and $5 billion 
to fill in the unserved gaps with a fiber optic connection. A hybrid of 
fiber optic and wireless would cost $1 billion.

Among the communities most in need are small rural areas and tribal 
lands. The state falls behind Colorado, Texas and Utah when it comes to 
providing service for tribal areas, the legislative report said.

Salazar and other presenters said Monday the state can do more to 
leverage federal aid to expand broadband capability, including CARES Act 
money and United States Department of Agriculture funds.

There is good news on the broadband front in many respects, based on 
reports cited in Monday’s meeting. But often those positive steps were 
offset by challenging components.

While all school districts in New Mexico do have some sort of broadband 
access, they do not have enough qualified maintenance administrators to 
support it.

And while state broadband experts are doing a better job of identifying 
which communities are going without access, more needs to be done to 
solidify those statistics so the state can then concentrate on providing 
service.

Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque and chairman of the committee, said 
he plans to introduce a bill in next year’s 60-day legislative session 
to create the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion to focus on 
funding and filling in those broadband gaps.

“We need to see a coordinated effort with how we understand broadband,” 
said Padilla, who initiated efforts to start a new Early Childhood 
Education Department to centralize pre-K programming. “How do we deploy 
it and how do we pay for it and what is it going to do for us?”

He said New Mexico has to climb into the top five states for broadband 
service “to be competitive.”



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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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