Photo: New Mexico broadband coverage map, courtesy New Mexico Broadband Map
By Robert Nott, Santa Fe New Mexican | August 17, 2020
42nd in the country for broadband capability. A NM Public Bank could ensure funding for projects that benefit our state, such as communications infrastructure.
New Mexico needs to centralize its oversight of broadband services to serve the many residents who do not have access, according to a new legislative report.
Though improvements and new investments — a total of $325 million between 2015 and 2018 — have been made in offering and expanding broadband, the fact that so many state agencies play a role in the effort leads to gaps in data and service, experts told members of the Legislature’s Science, Technology and Telecommunications Committee on Monday.
“Broadband is as important as electricity and running water,” John Salazar, secretary designate of the state’s Department of Information and Technology, said during the virtual meeting. “New Mexicans need broadband.”
New Mexico often ranks near or at the bottom in national studies when it comes to broadband capability. A recent broadbandnow.com analysis ranked it 42nd in the country — and behind neighboring states Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Utah — when it comes to connectivity.
The state faces a particularly critical need for those services now, as the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many to stay at home and prompting public schools to conduct learning online — at least for the first few weeks of the semester, which begins in Santa Fe on Thursday.
Somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of New Mexico’s roughly 200,000 homes and businesses do not have broadband access, according to the report.
New Mexico also lags behind much of the nation when it comes to broadband subscriber rates. Nationwide, the average subscriber rate is 85 percent. In New Mexico, it’s 77 percent.
Affordability is a challenge too, Salazar told the legislators.
“Just because it’s available,” he said, “doesn’t mean it’s affordable.”
Salazar said it would cost somewhere between $2 billion and $5 billion to fill in the unserved gaps with a fiber optic connection. A hybrid of fiber optic and wireless would cost $1 billion.
Among the communities most in need are small rural areas and tribal lands. The state falls behind Colorado, Texas and Utah when it comes to providing service for tribal areas, the legislative report said.
Salazar and other presenters said Monday the state can do more to leverage federal aid to expand broadband capability, including CARES Act money and United States Department of Agriculture funds.
There is good news on the broadband front in many respects, based on reports cited in Monday’s meeting. But often those positive steps were offset by challenging components.
While all school districts in New Mexico do have some sort of broadband access, they do not have enough qualified maintenance administrators to support it.
And while state broadband experts are doing a better job of identifying which communities are going without access, more needs to be done to solidify those statistics so the state can then concentrate on providing service.
Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque and chairman of the committee, said he plans to introduce a bill in next year’s 60-day legislative session to create the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion to focus on funding and filling in those broadband gaps.
“We need to see a coordinated effort with how we understand broadband,” said Padilla, who initiated efforts to start a new Early Childhood Education Department to centralize pre-K programming. “How do we deploy it and how do we pay for it and what is it going to do for us?”
He said New Mexico has to climb into the top five states for broadband service “to be competitive.”
