Nov 12, 2008

At last week's FCC-NARUC meeting in San Jose, Sharon Gillett (Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable) gave an insightful presentation about her state's efforts to address its broadband gap.

Believe it or not, even though Boston is a major technology hub, there is a "broadband divide" in Massachusetts between the state's eastern and western regions. FCC data had originally indicated that there were no areas without broadband in the state. However, a 2007 state assessment revealed that 32 towns had no broadband access, and another 63 towns had only partial service -- with most of the affected communities clustered in four rural counties in the western part of Massachusetts.

To its credit, the 'Commonwealth' has embarked on a strategic plan to deploy ubiquitous, affordable broadband. As Commissioner Gillett explained, in some cases, even if everybody in the community were to buy a provider's high-speed service, the company may still not reach profitability because of the massive investment required. So, the state faced a question of how to incentivize companies, and it concluded that the answer was to help defray infrastructure costs.

In August, Governor Deval Patrick signed legislation that created the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) and authorized up to $40 million of bond funding to improve broadband access on a regional level through public-private partnerships. The state's "co-investment model" relies on public funding for long-lived infrastructure development, with additional funds provided by private companies who will work to enhance infrastructure and offer services to residents.

Commissioner Gillett explained that the newly-created Institute is still looking to hire a Director (learn about the job here), but it's already kicked off the first phase of its project by issuing a formal Call for Solutions that is designed to start a dialogue between MBI and key stakeholders. The Call for Solutions is open through December 19, 2008 and will help inform the state's Request for Proposal process that will solicit providers to start implementing new broadband networks in 2009. Interested parties can learn more by downloading this PDF.

We'll also keep an eye on this and other state-led broadband efforts as part of our work on the Regional Broadband Innovation (RBI) Summit and Expo we're hosting next April in Silicon Valley.

As a side note, it appears that one of the ways that Governor Patrick became so aware of the broadband divide was through complaints he received from neighbors who lived near a home he owns in western Massachusetts. According to Commissioner Gillett, when he would visit the area, they would remind him that the lack of high-speed broadband was a problem. And, she says, "he got it" and pushed his team to come up with a solution.

Tags: broadband, broadband data, Deval Patrick, FCC, Massachusetts, NARUC, RBI Summit, Regional Broadband Innovation, Sharon Gillett