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

[Steve Ross]

John and group,

The Forest Service fee schedule  for fiber specifically is set by
individual federal region,  which I have considered a deliberate action to
avoid commitments made in the last summer of Obama administration and in
2018, to do whatever any federal agency can do to facilitate broadband
deployment.

There are also national fee schedules for cellular, broadcast, etc... ones
that vary by populations served (that is, "whatever the traffic will bear")
and not by actual cost to USFS.

What I get is a "we need to hire more firefighters" excuse. Huh? Ask
Congress for the money or specifically tax something everyone wants? Which
is more logical?

Steve Ross
Editor-at-Large and founding editor, Broadband Communities Magazine

201-456-5933
Editorsteve at gmail.com
Steve at bbcmag.com

On Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 1:03 PM John Brown <john at citylinkfiber.com> wrote:

> 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
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>
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