WASHINGTON — A pair of Arkansas telecommunications executives told the Senate Commerce Committee this week that expanding broadband access to rural areas without Internet service is not economically feasible without billions of dollars in additional government funding.
Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer of Little Rock based Windstream Communications, and Paul Waits, president of Ritter Communications, testified during a hearing Thursday on revamping the federal Universal Service Fund from its role supporting telephone service to one that would expand Internet access.
For Windstream, which provides broadband service in 23 states, the cost of expanding into currently unserved areas “dwarfs the potential revenues,” Gardner said.
“It does not take a spreadsheet to do the math” on how expensive it will be to expand into the final 10 percent of areas that remain without service, he said. “It is not even close to being economically feasible without additional government support.”
That’s where the Universal Service Fund, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, comes in. It’s designed to help ensure telecommunications services in high-cost and rural areas as well as for schools, libraries and health-care facilities. Rapidly changing technology has forced the FCC to pivot from ensuring telephone service to expanding Internet service.
Last year, the fund provided $4.3 billion to help deliver broadband service to rural and other high-cost areas. In 2009, Arkansas - whic hranks 49th in broadband deployment - received $148 million from the fund.
Thursday’s hearing focused on how to expand broadband service to the roughly 10 percent of the nation that doesn’t have access to high-speed Internet service. Currently, the FCC estimates there are 14 million Americans living in 7 million households without access to broadband service. The cost of closing this “broadband gap” would be $24 billion.
Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, a member of the committee, asked how to boost Internet use. Gardner summarized the views of all the telecommunications representatives: “It’s about affordability and availability.”
While much of the hearing focused on partisan disagreements over whether the FCC or Congress should have the authority to revamp the current system, Waits said that dispute is beside the point for a nation that lags behind other countries in providing Internet service. His company provides telephone service in two different rural areas - the Mississippi Delta and the Ozark Mountains.
“As a manger of a rural broadband company,” he said, “I just hope they sort it out soon.”
Business, Pages 29 on 06/26/2010