[1st-mile-nm] Broadband Network to Connect Underserved in Sierra County, N.M.

[Richard Lowenberg]

Broadband Network to Connect Underserved in Sierra County, N.M.

A $6.1 million federal grant will allow Sacred Wind Communications to 
deploy a 271-mile fiber-optic network to connect about 1,600 people who 
live in zones where many residents lack access to high-speed broadband.

BY KEVIN ROBINSON-AVILA, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL / NOVEMBER 16, 2020
https://www.govtech.com/network/Broadband-Network-to-Connect-Underserved-in-Sierra-County-NM.html

  (TNS) — Sacred Wind Communications is using a $6.1 million federal 
grant to extend broadband coverage in rural Sierra County through a new 
partnership with Sierra Electric Cooperative.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $20 million in grants in late 
October to four New Mexico telecom companies to build out high-speed 
Internet in underserved rural areas. The grants will connect up some 
1,400 homes, businesses and public buildings in seven rural counties, 
according to New Mexico's congressional delegation, which pushed for the 
funding through the USDA's Reconnect Program.

In Sierra County, the grant will allow Sacred Wind to deploy a new, 
271-mile fiber optic network to directly connect about 1,600 people who 
reside in zones where 75% of residents report lack of access to 
high-speed broadband. Sacred Wind will piggy back off Sierra Electric 
infrastructure, said Sacred Wind CEO John Badal.

"The co-op reached out to us to partner with them on providing broadband 
to their customers because they don't have the in-house expertise to do 
it," Badal told the Journal. "We're doing the final preparation work now 
and staking out the exact routes to run fiber to homes. The co-op is 
helping us identify each pole that will have fiber attached to it."

Construction will begin in a few weeks and conclude by year-end 2021.

"Customers will start receiving service as we finish segments," Badal 
said. "We'll light them up as we go."

It's the first such local broadband partnership between a rural telecom 
company and an electric cooperative, Badal said. But he hopes it will 
inspire more joint efforts, ideally through a statewide strategy to 
replace individual, isolated projects with a centrally-coordinated 
approach to bridge the digital divide.

"I've been saying for years that we need a statewide plan," Badal said. 
"We need a central, coordinated effort that pulls in all state and 
federal resources to accelerate things. The COVID pandemic has shown us 
how urgent that is."

That's especially critical in Native American communities, where lack of 
broadband is particularly acute. Federal funding has helped to extend 
coverage there, but a lot more is needed, said Irene Flannery, director 
of AMERIND Critical Infrastructure, which assists tribes in deploying 
high-speed Internet.

A new Federal Communications Commission program to award unassigned 
spectrum in the 2.5 gigahertz band for free to tribal entities may help. 
The FCC awarded 154 licenses last month, 16 of them for New Mexico 
tribes.

It's processing another 350 license requests from tribes nationwide. But 
advocates want the FCC to accept more applications, because the pandemic 
impeded many tribes from meeting an August deadline to apply.

"We're happy to see many New Mexico pueblos among the first list of 
licensees," Flannery said. "But many more in New Mexico and elsewhere 
were unable to apply because of COVID-19."



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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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