Last month, Georgia’s Public Service Commission approved a policy for broadband expansion to unserved areas that requires electric membership cooperatives to charge a simple $1-per-year fee for entities to attach to utility service poles for a 6-year period. Commissioner Tim Echols recently joined the Fiber Broadband Association for Fiber for Breakfast, a live, weekly video series, to discuss the new policy and why connectivity is becoming more important than ever—and how fiber is paramount to this mission.

“A lot of folks here in Georgia, they don’t have internet at all,” he said. “They’re going to McDonalds to get their kid’s homework done. Fiber is a fantastic product and if you can get it deployed from the get-go, you can solve that problem for a very long time.”

The commission is tasked with setting utility rates, among other things, and began looking at this issue a few years back. Fee rates had been a point of contention between telecom companies and electric membership cooperatives for years. When they were looking at expanding areas of broadband coverage, they thought a great solution would be to remove some of the barriers to access and get providers to run networks on the poles.

The $1 fee would be set for six years. For those operating in areas currently served by broadband would be $27.71 per pole per year. According to the commission, this is an “at cost” fee that covers service and upkeep of the poles.

Echols said when the commission was considering which formula to use, they looked at what made most sense to Georgians and the electric membership cooperatives. They also wanted to make a rate that would adequately encourage network providers to expand in rural parts of the state.

“All of our formulas reflect what we thought was fairness and something that was commercially reasonable,” he said. “We wanted to make this work for everyone.”

While it’s too soon to tell whether this method will work, Echols said the commission is planning on documenting how many network providers break into rural areas using the $1 rate. In 2022, they hope to have a full report on whether there was an impact. He said they’re also using this as a chance to talk to other people—especially those making policy decisions—on ways to improve internet access.

He said many laypeople don’t understand the mechanics of how networks are built. Having groups like the Fiber Broadband Association and its members help educate members of the public—and those in government—who recognize the importance of connectivity but need guidance on how to act on it. He added that because many people don’t know the difference between the types of internet, educating them about the benefits of fiber is key.

“This is a problem you work on every day,” he said. “But there are many people in Georgia that don’t have a decent option for internet, and they’re thinking ‘How can we do this and how long is it going to take?’ You have to help people understand—the average consumer, the policy makers—you have to have them thinking about it. They have to say, ‘We have to do whatever we need to do to get everyone connected as fast as possible.’”

“Connectivity is the electricity of the 21st Century,” Echols said.

New initiatives like the $1 pole attachments show that policy change in small ways can hopefully have a major impact.

“Connectivity is the electricity of the 21st Century,” Echols said.

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Founded in 2004, UTOPIA Fiber is a group of 13 Utah cities that share an open access fiber network that provides both high speed fiber internet to homes and businesses across the state. Since its inception, the company has managed to offer up to 10 Gigabit service on a publicly-owned network that allows for ample competition among more than a dozen internet service providers.

At a recent Fiber for Breakfast live video series, two executives from UTOPIA Fiber talked about the benefits of an open access network, and how their experience has allowed people across Utah to access some of the best internet in the country.

“We’re the infrastructure and we enable private sector companies to ride on our lines,” said Kim McKinley, CMO of UTOPIA Fiber.

Open access networks allow independent service providers to operate on a shared network. In UTOPIA Fiber’s case, they build the network, manage it and update it over time. By entering into agreements with cities and communities around the state, they’re able to finance the projects and pay for them using revenue from the networks, said UTOPIA Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman.

What makes this open access model different from others is that all customers go through UTOPIA Fiber to get their internet and the company lets them select the service provider of their choice. Timmerman compared it to an airport: UTOPIA builds the infrastructure to house the “planes” and passengers decide which airline to select.

“We put in a fiber system and allow all these different companies to come in and use it,” he said. “This makes the network work in big cities, it works in small cities and it’s a really exciting model for bringing competition to rural areas that used to typically have no good options or none at all.”

McKinley said allowing this type of competition has increased customer satisfaction overall. Amid a pandemic, the company was able to add new cities to their roster, improve their overall customer satisfaction and secure new bonds for network expansion in the future.

“We’re the fastest growing municipal network in the country,” she said. “We are growing incredibly fast and it’s an exciting project and an exciting industry to be in now.”

One of the major benefits of the open access model is the expansion of competition. Timmerman said while UTOPIA hasn’t seen too many monopoly providers in their state—besides some cases in rural areas where there’s one provider—but as more companies are beginning to create their own networks, they’re interested in joining communal solutions. This helps drive prices down and gives customers options when it comes to things like speed and capacity.

“Being the monopoly is good for one entity—and that’s the entity,” he said. “I think there is a compelling case for them to participate [in open access models] when they’ve lost the market.”

McKinley and Timmerman said what makes UTOPIA Fiber most unique is its approach to the customer. Being able to provide reliable internet at competitive prices for cities large and small—and doing it with a direct relationship to the customer—allows them to serve areas previously overlooked.

“This was an effort by communities and people coming together to identify a need,” Timmerman said. “On their own, they wouldn’t have been able to pull this together. But through partnerships we’re able to get a good economy of scale. We serve those communities, we don’t have shareholders and we reinvest in the communities.”

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At a recent Fiber for Breakfast live video series, John Greene, CEO of New Lisbon Telephone Company (NTLC), spoke about what fiber in the rural Heartland looks like, and why fiber is becoming essential in delivering service. While many rural areas have increasingly relied on fixed wireless solutions—including NLTC—the topology and geographic characteristics of Midwestern and Heartland cities make them better candidates for fiber networks.

“In a lab or in a pristine environment, it’s absolutely possible and has been proven that you can provide gigabit service over fixed wireless,” Greene said. “The issue has to do with range and line of sight. If you’re in the desert or you have large open expanses, you have line-of-sight and can see your customers and their houses, you won’t have to worry. It’s when you move further east of the Mississippi where you have a large preponderance of trees—that’s when it’s going to be very challenging.”

Established in 1901 as a rural telephone provider, NLTC provides voice, video, fixed Ethernet and broadband internet. Currently they serve more than 3,000 customers over five counties in Indiana, and recently acquired a small phone company in Pennsylvania. For the past several years, NLTC rehabbed it’s old copper DSL network with fiber.

Right now, NLTC has converted nearly 95% of its network. While two thirds of its customers are on fixed wireless connections today —Greene said the shift to fiber, and specifically fiber-to-the-home, is the way of the future. Fixed wireless models have high maintenance costs and often require a lot of small cells. While that may work in some urban areas, in rural communities where homes are spread far apart, small cells aren’t ideal.

While fiber networks can be expensive to initially install, they often offer better overall service and longevity.

“We’ve literally got customers that we hooked up with fiber six years ago that we’ve never heard from—everything works and it works perfectly,” he said. “You’re not constantly visiting your customer’s house because they’re having a problem.”

These networks are also futureproof. Greene said rural communities investing in fixed wireless now might not have the technology to increase capacity. Recently, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction announced its major winners, including fixed wireless companies building out gigabit networks. Greene said in the near future, though, we’ll be looking at networks that can handle upwards of 10 gigabits—something current wireless technology can’t handle.

“At the end of the day, that’s what we need to be thinking about,” he said. “What are consumers going to get out of this? How are we going to make high frequency gigabit wireless networks work in these areas?”

While he recognizes hybrid models are successful now—which his company is proving—in order to ensure strong connectivity and reliability, there need to be more conversations about what that technology looks like. He said rural network providers need to start moving toward fiber-based backbones to ensure that as capacity needs grow, their networks will be able to handle it.

“Are we always going to be playing catch up, or do we need to figure out a way to get in fiber?” he said. “Because in four to five years we’re not going to be dealing with gigabit speeds, we’re going to need to offer 10 gigabits for each customer, and fiber is the way to do that.”

Join us for our next Fiber for Breakfast live video series on Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 10 am ET. The topic: Fiber Data Delivery in the Mid-West.

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