~Anne Boswell
(Colorado) — Bringing broadband to more rural areas of Southeast Colorado certainly could be moving out of the fast lane and facing a challenge. One Southeast Colorado company thinks the brakes are definitely being pumped.
SECOM Chief Business Development Officer Jon Saunders brought Kiowa County Commissioners up to date at the regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, November 30th. Saunders explained that CDOT, the Colorado Department of Transportation has been asking for a right-of-way fee to build fiber along highways. Saunders furthered that it could increase the cost of construction and significantly increase the monthly costs of high-speed internet to the residents of rural Southeast Colorado.
Here’s the breakdown of the fees proposed by CDOT:
· Spring of 2023, CDOT releases they will charge .87 per foot.
· In late summer of 2023, CDOT lowered the rate to .27 per foot.
· November 2023, CDOT lowered the rate again to .03 per foot.
While that sounds considerably better than the first fee proposed, Saunders says it will seriously impact how much SECOM will be able to build.
The challenge with this is that telecom companies historically have had right-of-way fees waived along with power companies, and gas companies. Saunders feels this should be the case now as the push to build fiber to underserved areas of the state is emphasized.
As of this writing, CDOT was not available for comment. In an article in Sum & Substance, What Matters To Colorado Business, CDOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Manager Alexandra Axley said the cost is 90% less than the original cost proposed in March of 2023.
Saunders expects legislation from Colorado Counties Incorporated (CCI) that will help fight the fees although the draft hasn’t been released. It’s anticipated that it will state if a company is deemed a utility, an exemption will be put in place to waive the fees.
The clock is ticking for action as almost a billion dollars in federal money is coming to Colorado to build broadband in underserved areas.
“The problem is for us to turn in grants if we don’t know what it’s going to cost us to build on the rights-of-way you don’t know what to put in, the whole industry is afraid, it’s like this is going to mess up all this grant money coming into the state, between all three of these, we’re at a billion dollars.”
In the meantime, there are ways that Saunders explained the Eastern end of Kiowa County could send a message to the state’s broadband office. Running a speed test from the state’s broadband office homepage will show where there’s a need for improvement.
Commissioners laughed a bit and mentioned it would probably fail at their house.
Saunders said it’s ok if that happens. “And that’s great if it fails doing that, that’s actually great, because the state has the web server that detects the speed on that. They’ll be able to see that this failed and
it’s extremely low, and that gives the broadband board the ammunition to say, yeah, we’ve got empirical evidence to show that this is underserved.”
Commissioner Michael Lening felt that in the eastern part of the county where the internet is weak, and the population is a little older it might not be the most effective way to communicate to the state there’s a weakness.
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