Minnesota Should Commit More Public Resources to Broadband Buildout, Adoption, Gubernatorial Task Force Says
Minnesota will fall short of its broadband goals, a governor’s task force said this week. The 13-member group assembled its recommendations over 12 months, it told Gov. Mark Dayton, the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party member who created the group in November 2011. Minnesota should offer grants or tax credits to encourage some of its roughly 120 providers to deploy in unserved areas, the task force recommended. Its members include the presidents of AT&T Minnesota, Communications Workers of America Local 7201, MVTV Wireless and the Midwest Region of CenturyLink. The state should also expand a tax credit for central office equipment to cover fiber and broadband equipment purchases, coordinate the efforts of supplying broadband to anchor and safety institutions to help deploy in rural Minnesota, coordinate broadband deployment with highway construction and develop a Minnesota Fiber Collaboration Database, among other proposed initiatives like funding students in need of broadband scholarships and spending more on library and school computer stations, it said.
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"While the Task Force is encouraged to report that progress is being made toward the state’s broadband goals, we are not on track to meet them by 2015,” said Task Force Chair Margaret Anderson Kelliher, president of the Minnesota High Tech Association, in the group’s report (http://xrl.us/bn533i). “The private sector is continuing to expand service and new technology is improving the quality of the service across the state. But without partnership from the public sector, it will be incredibly challenging to ensure that all Minnesotans have access to high-speed broadband.”
Minnesota is a rare state for including official broadband goals, Connect Minnesota Program Manager William Hoffman told us. The NTIA-funded Connected Nation subsidiary has partnered with the task force to help provide data and analysis and doesn’t advocate for any specific strategies, he said. He described “a big workload” for the task force, which he doesn’t belong to but has worked with -- these recommendations mark its fourth report, he added. It’s important to “counter that view” that broadband is just entertainment and show its “real economic implications,” explained Hoffman, whose organization’s case studies on telework and telehealth were featured in the task force’s report. “It’s not just that you can get your Netflix movie a little bit faster.” Those dimensions factored into a mid-November broadband summit Connect Minnesota and the Blandin Foundation cosponsored, he said.
The task force included cost estimates for some of its proposals. More funding for libraries and schools would come to $4 million in fiscal year 2014-2015, with “a cost of $37.50 per hour to keep an existing computer lab open” and talk of expanding 100 locations’ hours by 10 each per week, it said. Scholarships to eligible students would amount to $840,000 for that same period. Exempting companies from sales tax on broadband and fiber purchases would reduce Minnesota’s income $4.97 million in fiscal year 2014-2015 and $5.81 million in 2016-2017, the revenue department calculated. But “every dollar of public investment would correspond to $12 of private investment by eligible companies,” the task force estimated.
Other states share Minnesota’s efforts to monitor and track broadband deployment and adoption among their strategies. The report showcases municipal broadband incentives like the Mississippi broadband technology tax credit, the Idaho matching grant program and the Wisconsin sales tax exemption and income tax credit as well as mentions the California Fiber Collaboration Database. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission used federal grants to hire a broadband director and create a broadband playbook (CD Aug 24 p6), which it now hopes to present to the Legislature in early 2013, a spokesman told us. The PSC will discuss broadband mapping and adoption Thursday and Friday at the governor’s Northern Wisconsin Economic Development Summit, it said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/TURYpl). Hoffman said the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has monitored the broadband work and met with the task force in November. States like Illinois (CD Oct 17 p10) and Vermont (CD Sept 7 p12) are devoting millions in grant dollars. Native Business Enterprises and Siskiyou Telephone Company formed Golden Bear Broadband to supply 16 rural northern California counties with broadband, the Northeastern California Connect Consortium said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn54cb), and the city of Richardson, Texas, launched a municipal wireless network in the 4.9 GHz licensed public safety band, partnering company Alvarion said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn54cm). Minnesota ranked 19 out of 50 states in a December TechNet ranking of broadband adoption and buildout (CD Dec 6 p19). It’s seen adoption increasing from 53 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2009 to 71 percent in 2010, according to NTIA survey data that report presented.
2010 Minnesota law called for downloads of “ten to 20 megabits per second and minimum upload speeds of five to ten megabits per second” no later than 2015, the report said, describing “incremental” progress since. Remaining unserved areas are pricier, it said. “61.57 percent of Minnesota households can access broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps download/6 Mbps upload -- the minimum speed threshold for Minnesota’s goal of ubiquitous broadband availability at the statutory speed goal,” the report said of October Connect Minnesota data. Minnesota’s economy depends on these initiatives, with the rural economy already “directly impacted,” the report said. FirstNet provides “an opportunity” for more planning and funding and community anchor institutions should be involved, the report added.
Different parties may promote the recommendations in 2013, Hoffman said: Gov. Dayton can accept and advocate for some or all, as can individual legislators who choose to “carry the ball” with one recommendation or another. Other stakeholders also can promote certain policies, he said. The group suggested Dayton create “an ongoing entity” beyond the task force to monitor broadband goals and make recommendations. It will continue to meet and likely draft white papers and recommendations in 2013.