(TNS) — A special program will bring high-speed internet to Nevada homes and businesses through local partnerships as part of the federal government’s Internet for All project, which aims to connect Americans to affordable, high-speed internet. provided.
“We created a set of program rules,” Evan Fineman, director of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, said in a phone interview from his Washington office. “These rules create very broad guardrails, and states have an opportunity to chart their own paths between those guardrails in a way that makes sense to them.”
He said the program is “not a top-down federal program that just picks winners and losers.”
“Rather, this is a partnership between the federal and state governments that will bridge the digital divide and ensure that every American home and business has access to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet connectivity. Masu.”
The program will work with states to develop reasonable plans that follow the rule’s guardrails, he said.
The nation then implements its plan and carries out two large-scale operations. The first is a challenge process to amend the state’s FCC internet access map. “This appeals process is a way for states to determine what is correctly classified and what is incorrectly classified on state maps,” Feinman said.
“Nevada is actually in the middle of that process right now,” he added. “There is now an urgent need for citizens to ensure that their homes, businesses, or both are accurately represented on maps.”
examine the map
Regarding Elko, he says, “Readers should look at the FCC map and make sure the map accurately indicates whether they have access to a high-speed internet connection. If they don’t, they should check their local internet connection. We need to be able to access it.’ The government knows that right away, so local governments can let their state broadband authorities know. ”
Nevada residents can submit a challenge at beadregister.nv.gov.
“Once the State Broadband Authority has identified all the areas that need service, it will select grant recipients.” In other words, “We will give the grant to Nevada, and then Nevada will give the grant. “Our grant to Nevada was just over $416 million,” he said.
“The state will then award grants to private partners, which are internet service providers, to build networks for the approximately 50,000 homes and businesses in Nevada that do not have access to the internet.”
The program helps homes and businesses that lack internet, as well as those whose existing internet access is of poor quality. “There needs to be a challenge process to identify thousands more people who have access to the internet but have slow speeds. And once they do that process, ISPs need to be able to provide service to all these different people. They will compete and choose a winner, who will be evaluated based on a transparent and free scoring rubric, which will then be reported to the National Telecommunications and Information Authority.”
Once the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program verifies that the awardee followed the agreed-upon process, the awardee will receive funding to build their internet network.
“All of these networks are going to be built on a reimbursement basis. This isn’t about handing a check to an ISP and trusting them to get the job done. We’re going to let them do the job.” Once you’re done, you’ll be reimbursed as you go,” Feynman said.
rural network costs
“The reason the private sector has not been able to solve this problem on its own lies in the basic mathematics of building telecommunications networks in rural areas of the country. The cost of a mile of fiber in Reno or downtown Las Vegas is “That’s about the same as the cost of a mile of fiber.” “There’s fiber running all over the rural parts of the state. But you can imagine both cities getting more customers along that mile of fiber.” . So the revenue you get is huge,” Feynman said. “The income you get from rural areas might only get you two, three, four customers. So if you charge them $50 or even $100 a month, you’re not getting back what you invested. “I guess.” ”
He said building partnerships with internet providers “reduces costs so it makes economic sense for someone to build and operate the network. Our customer density is pretty low.” .
He said another major obstacle facing internet installations in Nevada is permitting.
“Nevadaans know that there is a lot of federal land across the state, and we are currently working with partners across the federal government to significantly streamline our approach to permitting. We’re making it possible to build these networks quickly” and with minimal red tape. ”
Monitoring/Supervision
The final challenge is to ensure that internet service providers “do what the taxpayers pay them to do,” Feynman explained. “We’re working very hard on both ourselves and the state to make sure that when taxpayers sign a contract and say, ‘We’re going to build a network with these people and get them,’ we can do that.” We’re going to put in place a strong surveillance and monitoring system to ‘online’ our private sector partners to do what they’re contracted to do. ”
What will the timeline for this project look like?
“We are very close to approving the second part of Nevada’s original proposal,” Feynman said. “They had until the end of last year to submit a plan to us on how they would do this, and we approved the appeals process part of their plan.”
He said the next step is to select a provider, known as a subrecipient, and put out bids the areas of Nevada narrowed down by the appeals process. “It will take a couple of months and then we will document everything and put it out for public comment. The public will see, this is what the state is planning to do and how we are going to get it. Everyone is online. ”
He said Nevada “will then absorb that comment and submit their plan to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and we will approve it. And then they’ll be off to the races, Internet service providers. We can sign a contract with.” Then start building right away. ”
But he said he’ll go back to that challenge process first. He said: “I really want to emphasize the importance of the appeals process. The window closes on March 28th.”
Even though the FCC’s map shows that some people don’t actually have access to the internet, “there’s no way to know if they need the service or not,” he said.
“We really need broad public participation to make sure this plan works and that everyone is on board.The second thing that I think is very important is that eligible challengers are local governments. , a tribal government, a nonprofit organization, or an ISP.”
As part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded more than $35 million to tribal groups in Nevada, including $500,000 to the Te Mouk Tribe of the Western Shoshone Nation.
“Citizens need to take these issues to the state broadband authority through local governments and nonprofit organizations, and local governments are the best bet,” Feinman said.
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