Long wait for high-speed: Patrick aims to use federal stimulus money to partner with private industry to get infrastructure up

[ Originally published on: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 ]

NEW SALEM -- With federal stimulus funding to 'turbocharge' the state's $40 million effort to provide broadband service to the least-served communities in Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick hosted a forum Tuesday in a packed town hall where no governor had ever been.

The stimulus legislation has $4 billion available for competitive grants as part of $7.2 billion to help states build high-speed networks, and Massachusetts Broadband Institute Commissioner Sharon Gillett told the approximately 200 people packed into the town hall that the hope is to win more than $80 million to boost the state's efforts at enticing private firms to build those networks.

Patrick said the current financial crisis is making the issue, on which some legislators and regional officials have been working for more than a dozen years, more critical, and has boosted federal efforts toward helping with a solution.

'We know that if it is left to the market alone, it isn't going to happen,' Patrick said. 'Which is why we're trying to blend public dollars and incentives with private market dollars to deliver that service. & Lots and lots of people have been displaced in this economy, and they are making their way by starting a business at home. They need high-speed access. And we're going to make that work.'

Flanked by Gillett, U.S. Rep. John W. Olver, state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg and state Rep. Christopher Donelan, Patrick added, 'Broadband no longer is a luxury. It's not just a convenience. If we want businesses to be competitive and we want people to have business opportunities in every corner of the commonwealth, if we want education to be complete, if we want people to have access to their civic connections with each other and with their government, then we've got to make tools like this to communicate.'

Gillett said the Mass. Broadband Institute, which was created to use the $40 million in state bond funding to spur private telecommunication development in unserved and under-served parts of the state, is preparing to apply for the federal funds once guidelines are spelled out next month. The deadline for applications is scheduled for the end of August, with awards set to be made at the end of the year.

Because the state bond fund is in place, Massachusetts has the 20 percent match required, while many other states may not.

'The good news is there's a lot of money there; we think it will be very useful to us,' she said. 'The bad news is it will take a while until we can access it.'

A $350 million federal fund will also help the states chart where broadband infrastructure is needed, Gillett said, and Mass. Broadband Institute and the state's Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS) have launched a mapping project.

The public is encouraged to visit the Broadband Institute site to help map exactly where provision of broadband is spotty or nonexistent.

Tuesday's 1ﾽ-hour session -- which is scheduled to be repeated in South Deerfield on June 5 from 4 to 5:30 p.m., without the governor -- presented plenty of feedback on frustrations in dealing with Verizon and Comcast and the slow pace of progress.

Warwick Selectman Patricia Lemon told the group, 'It seems Warwick is not alone in having been told by Verizon that we don't have enough subscribers for them to have any interest in us at all, not just for broadband, but for telephone and cell phone service. I find that totally unacceptable. They do use public resources, and it does seem to me they should be much more responsive to the public.

Leverett Selectboard Peter D'Errico said after Verizon rolled out its Digital Subscriber Line service there -- as one of half a dozen Franklin County towns -- it became apparent that the company's wires weren't sufficient to carry the DSL more than a mile from the central node.

'When the reaction hit Verizon, their response was basically silence,' D'Errico said, adding that there have been problems with basic Verizon telephone service.

Rosenberg said he has talked with Verizon officials about problems with basic service in Leverett, suggesting that the broadband money may provide a way for the state to 'partner' with the company to improve what it offers in town.

'It was like pushing a boulder uphill before,' Rosenberg said, 'but here's an opportunity to blend private and public money together and they can improve their basic service as well as meet the DSL requirements.'

Jack Conroy, Verizon's vice president for regulatory affairs, responded, 'Bringing broadband to western Massachusetts and other areas around the country is a difficult thing to do for anyone in the industry. We believe what the governor has done and the federal government has done is right on the mark in terms of bringing broadband to areas like this.'

But Robbie Leppzer, chairman of the Wendell Broadband Committee, said the problem is that large telecommunication providers like Verizon 'cherry-pick' places where there are large concentrations of users and leave more sparsely populated outskirts unserved. He urged the governor and Broadband Institute to put in place policies that will favor locally based service providers and nonprofit organizations that ensure 'universal coverage.

On the Web: www.massbroadband.org

You can reach Richie Davis at: rdavis@recorder.com: or (413) 772-0261 Ext. 269

 

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