Task force addresses internet issue

COEUR d’ALENE — A gathering of Idaho’s Broadband Task Force convened at The Coeur d’Alene Resort last Wednesday, where some of the most influential minds in Idaho politics, as well as representatives from a vast array of tech companies, continued to work to solve the issue of limited internet in Idaho.

Among them was Shoshone County Commissioner Mike Fitzgerald, who has long been searching for a resolution to our county’s broadband issue.

After meeting a few times in the Boise area, this meeting moved to North Idaho, where rural broadband access has become one of the most important concerns to local leaders and their residents.

Shoshone County is no different, with the exception that a major highway has the county slowly becoming a bedroom district to Coeur d’Alene.

The task force had been broken into specific groups prior to this meeting to work on specific projects, Fitzgerald was assigned to Group A, where they explored rural areas heavily.

“Group A looked at rural areas with populations greater than 3,000, but less than 25,000,” Fitzgerald said. “The Silver Valley and the general Grangeville area were identified as the most underserved and unserved broadband areas in Idaho. Our problems include middle mile, last mile and delivery of 25 mps (megabits per second) download/5mps upload, redundancy, lack of competition and cost.”

After identifying the issue, the group was asked to prepare and give their recommendations at the meeting.

Those recommendations were read as follows:

- Having the state of Idaho invest an estimated $5 million to complete the installation of missing fiber optic conduit beneath I-90 from Cataldo east. Our group feels that this action, for its cost, would provide the largest and most immediate change in the overall landscape for broadband in the state.

- Introduce legislation that prohibits the overselling of broadband services. In short, this recommendation is aimed at protecting the consumer and will increase the over internet experience and reliability.

- Require the installation of empty/additional conduit for all new and major road projects. It is much easier to install subsurface infrastructure with an eye on the future during construction than to do it later.

- Create a statewide conduit bank. The concept is that when a large road project is to be completed, broadband service providers/government entities will be incentivized to pay for conduit installation. This investment in-turn can be for their own use or as a way to accumulate collateral to swap for conduit in other portions of the state where the entity needs conduit.

- Ensure technology neutrality. Understanding the differing terrain, rock type and end users, the full pallet of broadband technologies is needed.

- Initiate and fund a state broadband office to coordinate and direct broadband deployment statewide. Our group felt that there needs to be a centralized voice and advocate to move broadband efforts forward.

Colleen Rosson, the director of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corporation sees better, more reliable internet as a must-have for any sort of economic growth in Shoshone County.

“I see a tremendous advantage in so many aspects of our community through stronger internet,” Rosson said. “I have spoken with several soon-to-graduate college students who are set up to telecommute. They would prefer to live in the Silver Valley because of the lifestyle and culture, and higher speeds and reliability would give them that ability. Shoshone County has an amazing entrepreneurial culture. Startup businesses able to operate in a global marketplace set them up for success. With a small local population to draw from, exporting is very important.”

Education is one of the primary concerns that was voiced during the opening conversations at the meeting, especially by Idaho District 7 Sen. Carl Crabtree, who was concerned with students in his district not being able to submit homework assignments because the internet can be so slow in various places throughout Idaho and his particular district.

Crabtree’s sentiments were echoed by Rosson as well.

“Having the ability to do homework online is becoming a necessity. We have to be able to offer reliable internet,” Rosson said. “It used to be that you didn’t have to have high speeds because the sites were pretty static. Now there are videos and, in some cases, virtual classrooms that require better connectivity to attend. With the task force including the last mile in their conversations and acknowledging that there is an array of technologies needed to serve our rural areas, I feel they are on the right track to serve those who do not have proper access.”

The term “last mile” is a phrase widely used in the telecommunications, cable television and internet industries to refer to the final leg of the telecommunications networks that deliver telecommunication services to retail end-users.

More specifically, the portion that reaches a customer’s physical property or premises.

In Shoshone County, there are many providers who are promised internet speeds that fall well short of what they are paying for, forcing the last mile conversation means that local leaders are taking that issue seriously and looking to the companies to resolve it.

Education isn’t the only commonality needing better, more reliable internet.

The medical industry is now, more than ever, using telemedicine, which connects residents to vital health care services by using things like video conferencing, remote monitoring, and electronic consultations with physicians and specialists.

In today’s world, the internet is no longer a luxury, but is a necessary tool for people and businesses if they want to succeed.

“We live in a very connected world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to live and work without reliable high speed internet,” Rosson said. “Beyond the entertainment aspect, we have moved to eco-friendly online storage rather than paper, school assignments and classes are online, colleagues are in different states instead of different rooms. It is important for our community to continue to grow a strong economy and strong internet is a foundational piece of that growth.”

The task force was formed after an executive order from Idaho Governor Brad Little last May, with the goal of better mapping of Idaho’s existing services and identifying gaps in infrastructure, while also developing a statewide plan for helping close those gaps.