[1st-mile-nm] US Feds to increase costs for access to Federal Land for broadband

[John Brown]

The US Forest Service just pushed out a notice that they plan to
increase the annual
cost of using Federal Land for broadband deployment.

The USFS has been increasing the costs to use "Comm Sites" for years
and now they want to add more fees because "they are short staffed"
and need more money to hire people.

Each year the Feds collect millions of dollars from comm-site
providers and use those funds for everything BUT comm-site projects.

They DO NOT keep the roads in good repair.
They DO NOT provide security
They don't fence the area in to keep hikers / animals out and thus safe.
When there is a crime, their Law Enforcement side pushes it off to the
local county / city cops
   (yet its federal land)
They don't respond to comm-site owners that are worried about FIRE
DAMAGE because the Feds won't respond to allow us to clear the area
around the site.
They take more than a year to process simple requests and changes.

Yet our leaders say we need more broadband and they want to help get
that deployed.  And then
on the other side they go RAISE the rates to make use of those sites.
DoubleSpeak is what I call it.

I think its time we start doing what ATT has learned they can do.
Pass all of these costs on to the consumer (er voter)..  I'm seriously
think that next year I'll do a

Sandia USFS SIte Cost Recovery Fee.
Federal Regulatory Burden / Cost Recovery Fee




-- 
Respectfully,

John Brown, CISSP
Managing Member, CityLink Telecommunications NM, LLC