By KATHARINE WEBSTER, InDepthNH.org
New Hampshire is getting the gift that keeps on giving: $191 million in federal money to put every last residence and business in the state within reach of broadband internet service over the next five years.
“This is once-in-a-lifetime money,” Business and Economic Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell said Thursday. “It’s huge. A lot of New Hampshire has access to (high-speed internet service) now, but a lot of rural New Hampshire does not, and in the Internet age, that is a huge problem … whether you’re talking business or health outcomes or kids being able to do homework.”
In addition, the state is getting $4.9 million for computer literacy education and devices for seniors, rural residents, low-income urban residents, new Americans and others that need it, Caswell said.
“We’re running (fiber) by some of these places that have never had internet access, or high-speed internet access,” Caswell said. “We want to enable them … to use the internet in an educated way, and if they need equipment to do that (such as basic laptops or tablets), I think there will be a process for them to get that, either discounted or free.”
Both sets of funds come from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), which included $42.45 billion to extend broadband internet service nationwide to areas of the country that are either unserved or underserved.
Whether the most remote homes and businesses will be able to afford direct connections to broadband lines along their roads or the monthly fees for service is an open question that the state will attempt to address through its contracts with internet service providers, state officials said.
However, within five years, broadband fiber should have been installed on every existing road, so that existing and future homes and businesses can connect easily when and if they are ready, state officials said.
Where the Money Comes From
The broadband infrastructure money is being channeled through the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. In New Hampshire, the highest need is in rural Coos, Carroll, Cheshire, Grafton and Sullivan counties, Caswell said, but there are pockets of unconnected addresses elsewhere.
New broadband service will have download and upload speeds of at least 100 megabytes per second, according to the state’s plan; an area is considered underserved if speeds are lower than 100 mbps for downloads and 20 mbps for uploads.
The state has already received a $5 million planning grant and will get $191 million for contracts with municipalities and commercial internet service providers (ISPs) to run fiber on remote roads in cities and towns they already serve, and then to connect those lines to many individual homes and businesses.
The state will begin accepting and evaluating proposals from ISPs in early January.
The $4.9 million in digital literacy education and devices funding, as well as $520,000 awarded earlier to develop a digital equity plan, comes through the Digital Equity Planning and Capacity grant programs for three years, with the opportunity to apply for more money in years four and five.
Requests for proposals from nonprofits, educational institutions and community groups will likely be issued in late February or early March.
Getting Everyone Connected
Caswell said New Hampshire is fortunate. Thanks to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, the state has already awarded more than $100 million to internet service providers to run fiber down more roads and connect more addresses. Providers also contributed a substantial share.
The commissioner estimates that by the time all of New Hampshire’s $90 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds have been spent – the deadline is Dec. 31, 2026 – only about 10,000 addresses in the state will be on roads with no broadband. That means the BEAD funding should be sufficient to bring fiber within reach of every last home and business address, even on long roads with only one or two houses at the end.
Caswell noted that, before the pandemic-related funding bills and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed, local and regional groups had to scrape together a few thousand dollars at a time to extend service along roads with fewer customers, because laying fiber was not profitable for the internet service providers.
“I often associate this, in the old days, with rural electrification,” Caswell said. “We need to be able to at least provide this access to families, individuals and businesses in areas that haven’t had it just to level the playing field, because we can’t have a state where some have it and some don’t.”
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who helped to craft the broadband portion of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, said New Hampshire is on track to ensure connectivity everywhere.
“The COVID-19 pandemic showed us just how essential internet connectivity is for small businesses to grow and compete, for students to learn and thrive and for those in remote areas to access care,” Shaheen said in a statement Friday. “That’s why I was proud to work with my colleague Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to write the broadband provisions of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
Shaheen and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., have been very helpful in navigating the BEAD and digital equity funding process and ensuring that the state is getting the information it needs from the National Telecommunications Information Administration, said Matt Conserva, manager of the BEA’s Office of Broadband Initiatives.
A key part of that information is a detailed map that shows every single home and business address in the U.S., as well as which ones already have high-speed internet service or are “serviceable,” meaning they could be connected within a week or two because a high-speed line is already on their road, Conserva said. The internet service providers, which used to treat that information as proprietary, must now update the data in their service areas every six months.
While the maps aren’t perfect, there is a “challenge” process for municipalities to correct and update them with locations lacking service or ready access to a connection, he said.
New Hampshire has completed the challenge process, has had its preliminary rollout plan approved, and expects to start sending contracts to incoming Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) and the Executive Council for approval by April or May, Conserva said.
While the state hopes all of those connections will involve broadband, the funding could also be used to pay for satellite connections that provide high-speed internet service, if necessary, he said.
Can Customers Afford Connections and Service?
Under the ARPA contracts, some internet service providers have agreed to provide connections to addresses within a reasonable distance from the road, and Conserva expects the ARPA contracts to include the same stipulations.
For example, Fidium Fiber, a subsidiary of Consolidated Communications Holdings, agreed to extend fiber as far as 500 feet up a driveway, he said.
Unfortunately, that’s left Joel White and his wife, both 80 years old and retired schoolteachers, with a dilemma. The Whites live on Achorn Hill Road in Lancaster, and a subcontractor for Fidium finished digging a trench and laying fiber up their road about three weeks ago.
The subcontractor will return in the spring after the ground thaws to connect every house on the road at no cost – except for the Whites’ home and a neighbor’s vacation cabin, because their driveways are longer than 500 feet, White said.
Fidium representatives told the Whites they will pay to install the first 500 feet, but the couple are responsible for the cost to finish getting the line to the house. If the Whites don’t pay that in the spring, they will have to pay for the full 600-700 feet to install a connection at a later date.
“We would be tempted to sign up with Fidium if we could get the pre-installation that everybody else is getting,” White said. “It’s going to cost us $2,000 to $3,000 to get it installed … (because) our utilities have to be underground.”
Right now, the couple get reliable internet service via radio from Netify, which has a tower on a nearby mountain. Upload and download speeds are both around 21 megabytes per second, White said. But he’s concerned about the trees on a neighboring ridge that are growing fast and could soon interfere with the radio signal.
The state is encouraging broadband providers to go the distance, Conserva said, because of the high cost of installation in areas that require underground utilities. He offered to look into the Whites’ situation.
Whether low-income households will be able to afford the monthly fees for high-speed internet service is also a concern, Conserva said, in part because Congress failed to renew the Affordable Connectivity Program earlier this year. Funding ran out at the end of May.
The program offered a subsidy of $30 a month for internet service to low-income households, including millions of households nationwide with veterans, people older than 50, and children who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.
Before June, for example, Comcast offered an “internet essentials” plan to qualifying households that cost $30 a month, and the Affordable Connectivity Program paid for that, Conserva said.
While the state has not set a price cap on how much the internet service providers can charge low-income customers who are connected with BEAD funding, the state’s preliminary rollout plan says that more than $45 a month would be considered too high, Conserva said.
But the state plan also assumed that the Affordable Connectivity Program would be renewed, bringing the out-of-pocket price for those households down to $15 a month, with everything included. Now, the state will do its best to encourage providers to have a very low-cost option, similar to Comcast’s essentials package, which offers enough bandwidth to work and go to school.
“Our goal is for prices not to go up, at least in the short term,” Conserva said. “But these remote networks in tough to reach areas are also expensive to maintain.”
