Rural broadband funding measure passes first test

    A measure to fund rural broadband to unserved and underserved areas of Colorado passed its first, and perhaps toughest, test last week.
    Republican Sens. Don Coram of Montrose and Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling are the sponsors of Senate Bill 18-002, which would transfer funds from a state account that’s been used to set up landlines to a broadband account that will help make broadband a reality in more rural homes and businesses.
    It’s a matter of economic survival, according to the sponsors and witnesses who testified on the bill late into the day Wednesday, Jan. 31.
    The money for the bill would come from what’s known as the High Cost Support Mechanism, which is controlled by the Public Utilities Commission.
    Currently, 2.6 percent of phone bills goes to the HCSM as a “universal service charge” or something like that. The dollars from landline providers are pooled and then redistributed to landline providers to cover the difference between the cost of providing landline service and the price those telecom companies are allowed to charge for the service by the commission.
    Currently, the HCSM draws in around $35 million per year, an amount that has been steadily declining as more people move away from landlines and exclusively to cellphones. Just a few years ago, the HCSM pulled in more than $50 million.
    CenturyLink receives the vast majority of those dollars, more than $30 million in 2016. And CenturyLink’s portion of the HCSM is what’s being targeted by the bill, to the consternation of the carrier. “We’re not too wild that the bill attempts to solve the broadband problem on our backs,” said CenturyLink’s Tim Goodwin in testimony to the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee.
 

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