Rural, urban legislators at odds about mapping out broadband

Friday, March 27, 2009

Two Montgomery County delegates are pushing legislation that would enlist a third-party organization to develop a detailed map, to be updated twice annually, that shows existing broadband coverage and where gaps in service remain.

"This puts the horse before the cart," said Del. Tom Hucker (D), who is sponsoring the bill along with Del. Brian J. Feldman (D) of Potomac. "This gives a statewide view of what's already out there, so we can better target our limited resources in the future."

The legislation is part of a national campaign to close the rural broadband gap through mapping technology called "Connected Nation," which six states have adopted.

If passed, the Maryland Department of Information Technology would facilitate the mapping initiative.

Major telecommunications providers Verizon and Comcast are supporting the bill as long as the independent organization that develops the map is prohibited from publishing proprietary data.

But rural legislators are concerned that the measure, although well-intended, may water down the ongoing work to provide high-speed Internet access to remote communities.

"We've embarked on a rural endeavor and we need to make sure that effort is not diluted," said Del. Sue Kullen (D-Calvert). "Every time we play with urban areas, rural always loses."

"We have a hard enough time in Annapolis trying to get things for our areas," echoed House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert, St. Mary's).

Hucker said he has altered one of the most disliked aspects of the bill, which would have created a new advisory council to oversee the state's rural broadband efforts. Two such groups, the state-run Maryland Rural Broadband Coordination Board and the member-owned Maryland Broadband Cooperative, already exist.

Hucker said he simply wants to add representatives from the suburban Baltimore and Washington, D.C. regions to have a voice on the state-run panel because parts of those regions are also underserved.

"Broadband challenges exist statewide: urban, suburban and rural," he said.

But Kullen isn't convinced that it's wise to tinker with the current setup at this stage, especially since the federal stimulus package includes more than $7 billion to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved communities.

Officials are counting on stimulus money to keep the project moving forward as no state aid was allocated in the proposed fiscal 2010 budget for broadband.

"We're knee-deep into the process, so to begin changing the rules now doesn't help this effort," Kullen said.

The first phase of the project – laying almost 260 route miles of fiber from Wallops Island in Virginia up Maryland's Eastern Shore to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge — is complete. The next stage would extend broadband access to Southern Maryland and later phases would light up rural communities in Western Maryland.

The duplicative nature of the proposed new council greatly worries John A. Dillman III, executive director of the Upper Shore Regional Council and a former cooperative president.

"We believe that this legislation would only serve to hamper the success currently being achieved and would expend unnecessary and valuable financial resources," he wrote in testimony submitted to the House Economic Matters Committee.

abrody@somdnews.com