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Fiber internet, coming soon to a neighborhood near us?
New Haven is trying again to bring high-speed Internet service to neighborhoods citywide, with a $1 million planned pilot and possible help on the way from D.C.
The city is looking to bond $1 million in next fiscal year’s capital budget to create a municipal broadband pilot program and master planning process as a first step towards making high-speed, reliable Internet access “as basic as having electricity and water.”
This is the latest attempt in an effort going back almost a decade to bridge the digital divide and bring economic opportunity to all parts of town.
“We feel this is an opportunity for us to have a significant long-term economic impact on the city,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent, particularly by providing high-speed Internet to under-resourced communities and to students currently lacking in reliable connections. New Haven’s making this move at a moment when the Biden administration seeks to help communities expand high-speed internet nationwide.
The Harp administration initially tried to work with the state in 2014 to craft a statewide pilot broadband project relying on fiber-optic service, which is far faster and less expensive than the internet service provided by cable and phone companies. In its final weeks in office in 2019, her administration released a 16-page blueprint for pursuing a “digital inclusion strategy.” Meanwhile, a private company called GoNetSpeed has brought fiber-optic service to selected middle-class neighborhoods but has no plans to go citywide, broadening the digital divide during the pandemic.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn detailed the latest plans — and offered that vision for an Internet-as-basic-utility future — during Tuesday night’s five-hour budget hearing and departmental workshop hosted by the aldermanic Finance Committee via Zoom and YouTube Live.
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
City Engineer Zinn: Let’s build a credible proof of concept.
The public meeting marked the first opportunity for the Finance Committee alders to take a department-by-department look at Elicker’s two proposed Fiscal Year 2021 – 2022 (FY22) general fund budgets—a $589.1 million “crisis” version and a $606.2 million “forward together” budget.
They also got a peek into one of the projects included in the city’s two-year, $60 million proposed capital fund budget.
Zoom
Tuesday night’s virtual Finance Committee meeting.
During a presentation on the Mayor’s Office’s proposed expenditures for the fiscal year starting July 1, Zinn and Chief of Staff Sean Matteson broached the municipal broadband plan.
“Here in the pandemic, we’ve all seen the importance of high-quality broadband connections,” Zinn said.
An estimated 18,500 New Haven households, or roughly 37 percent of the city, do not have a high-quality wired connection to the Internet, he said. That’s defined by the federal government as 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.
From remote learning to remote work, the pandemic has underscored just how important a “much higher remote connection and throughput” are for a functioning society and economy, Zinn noted.
A municipal fiber network would be one such route towards providing affordable, quality, fast and reliable Internet for all New Haven residents, especially those currently with lagging connections. Since the city’s one private provider of fiber does not appear to be expanding to more neighborhoods anytime soon, he said, the city has an opportunity to step in and fill the gap.
“The $1 million request provides seed money to show how serious New Haven is for municipal broadband,” he continued.
It would allow the city to start doing design engineering around such a system, set up a pilot installation in select areas of the city, and develop a plan around whether city wanted to pursue a “straight municipal model, public-private partnerships, partnerships with outside philanthropic agencies, and other levels of government.”
City of New Haven slide
A one-page write-up on the municipal broadband proposal that is included in the city budget book details the $1 million-funded pilot’s goals as, to quote directly, to:
• Establish a municipal fiber network in underserved neighborhood(s)
• Focus on connectivity for school-aged children
• Refine the network plan for full implementation
• Develop maintenance operations plans with ability to scale for a city-wide network
“The funding allocated is to begin the process of ideas and implementation for potential strategies and partnerships leveraging the best of public and private sources to expand affordable, high-speed broadband services to New Haven residents,” the budget book reads. “These options may range from new products and pricing, new service options with discounted rates, or other innovative approaches employing established or emerging
technologies for fiber implementation.
“Capital funds will be used for Hardware, software, planning/design, training, 1st year licensing, data conversion, project management, legal/consulting and any and other associated cost necessary for this project.”
What Can $1M Buy?
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
Finance Committee Vice-Chair Marchand and Chair Evette Hamilton.
How far can only $1 million really take the city on realizing a municipal broadband network? asked Finance Committee Vice-Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand. “It seems to me to be a large, multi-year effort that would require significantly more money invested into it than just $1 million.”
That’s right, Zinn replied. This city money could nevertheless lay the groundwork, so to speak, to tap into other, larger pots of money in the near future.
“It helps fund some of the planning engineering, getting down to brass tacks as to exactly what the network looks like, and positioning us for federal funds.”
He said “having a plan that is credible and drawn out has been very successful” in attracting federal funding for other infrastructure projects.
“This is a way to position New Haven to be able to take advantage of the large pools of money coming down the pike.”
Ready For Biden Bucks
“Large pools of money coming down the pike” seems an apt description of exactly what President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday night that he plans to push for in a coming $2.5 trillion proposed infrastructure bill.
A high-level review of that proposal includes $100 billion for bringing “affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American.” Biden’s plan also “prioritizes support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives — providers with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire communities,” according to the president’s talking points on the proposed infrastructure bill.
The city also might be able to use some of the roughly $94 million it expects to receive thanks to the American Rescue Plan towards building out municipal broadband service.
Elicker told the Independent that, while the city has not yet received those funds from the federal or state governments, the funding package passed by Congress and signed by the president does state that some of the municipal aid can be used for infrastructure projects like broadband.
As of this moment, the mayor added, the city does not have any other money in place and in hand — beyond the pending-aldermanc-approved $1 million in capital funds — to establish such a fiber pilot and plan. But that doesn’t mean more money won’t come from the state or the feds.
Zinn said Tuesday night that “laying fiber” costs around $50,000 a mile. The city has 232 miles of road, he said.
“Yes, it’s a lot more than $1 million” to build out a real municipal broadband network. “But it’s enough to position us and show New Haven’s committed to the concept and to do a fairly substantial proof of concept on it.”