Tennessee seeks ways to provide broadband to ‘deserts’
MANCHESTER, Tenn. — Mary Shoemake and her family were drawn to Coffee County by rural roads that curve along browning corn stalks and yellowing soybeans. The community holds weekly music jams to showcase their favorite bluegrass and rock songs.
Her children attend the newest elementary school in the county, where her neighbors are kind and yards are big.
But despite all the life around them, the Shoe makes also live in a dead zone.
The 33-year-old has to stand on her porch steps to find reception for phone calls and texts. Inside her home, she has no internet or cellphone connectivity.
Shoemake and her family moved to Coffee County in 2016 because it’s close to her husband’s employer and has a small-town feel. Before the move, Shoemake attended school for medical coding, and her children frequently used the internet for homework assignments.
“The schools here assign homework all the time where you need internet to do homework.
We have to make it to the library for them, and if we don’t, they get in trouble in school. I’ve even had to quit school,” she said.
In Coffee County, 19 percent of rural residents like Shoemake live without broadband providers, according to data from the Federal Communication Commission. Statewide, 800,000 residents, or 13 percent of Tennessee’s population, live in internet deserts.
Fortunately, her home will receive broadband internet in the coming year as part of an initiative spearheaded by Gov. Bill Haslam in 2017. The Broadband Accessibility Act funnels $45 million to communities across the state that don’t have broadband access.
“So much of everything is online, and I know a new connection is going to change our lives,” Shoemake said.
In addition to passing the accessibility act in 2017, the Tennessee legislature loosened regulations to allow internet providers to partner with public utilities.
But telecommunication companies and rural Tennesseans are wondering if these measures are enough to close the rural and urban internet divide.
‘LIKE HAVING ACCESS TO WATER’
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development received 66 applications in 2017 for the accessibility act’s first round of funding. Each year for three years, $10 million in grants and $5 million in tax credits are available to private businesses, as well as public providers.
“We are seeing a lot of forward movement,” said Amanda Martin, TDECD’s rural broadband project director. “One of the things that is sometimes confusing to people is they think that tomorrow we will be out there with a truck and be at their house. We are seeing lots of good things, but we are taking time to roll out the pieces.”
The department funded nine of the 66 requests in 2018 and is taking applications for next year.
Ben Lomand Connect CEO Lisa Cope has seen the first round of grant funding in action. In late summer, she rode around a rural patch of Coffee County, where small excavators and bulldozers tilled dirt in a ditch.
As she stepped out of her truck, she was greeted by a herd of spotted horses behind an electric fence. The home in front of her was set to have access to broadband by 2019.
“It takes a team of people to accomplish this,” she said. “But you wouldn’t believe the relief we’ve seen when we’ve told people they will now have access to internet.”
Cope’s company — a telecommunications cooperative operating in eight counties with 32,000 customers — will bring broadband to nearly 600 Coffee County households through grants from the accessibility act and Connect America.
“At our heart, we are cooperative,” Cope said, as she got back into the truck. “We help to serve the underserved. Having access to internet is now like having access to water or electricity. Over time, it’s become a needed utility. A lot of people work from home now, or schools assign homework online. People now even have appointments with their health care providers online. Having access to broadband is a quality of life issue.”
PARTNERSHIPS ON THE RISE
Peytonsville Fire and Rescue Chief Brian Jones is relieved.
His emergency response station in southeast Williamson County received broadband service in early September because of relaxed regulations that allow internet providers to partner with utilities.
“It put us behind to an extent, and it made it difficult without having it,” Jones said. “We are now using broadband in a couple of ways. There’s a whole lot of training resources on the web and through internet. A lot of what we do, we rely on the internet to provide resources to deliver it.”
The broadband at Jones’ station is provided by a partnership between Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation and United Communications.
The partnership came about after the Tennessee legislature gave electric companies the ability to let internet companies use their infrastructure to provide broadband. Utilities can also start their own internet service providers, but they can’t finance those efforts with money from electric bills.
Duck River Electric Membership Cooperation is also trying to take advantage of the relaxed restrictions.
Standing in front of a map that covers an entire wall in the company’s Shelbyville office, DREMC member services manager Carol Garrette traced her fingers over the areas in the coverage grid that need access to broadband.
The electric cooperative — with 6,131 miles of line across 16 counties — is trying to team up with a broadband provider such as Ben Lomand, who would lease the utility’s fiber lines to provide internet. A partnership would cut down on costs for both companies, Garrette said.
If DREMC were to try to become an internet service provider on its own, it would cost the cooperative $350 to $450 million, according to the co-op. Since its founding in 1936, DREMC has invested just $275 million into its electric services.
“Our fiber system must support our electric operations, or it must stand alone,” Garrette said. “We believe — and we agree — that areas without fiber broadband access will struggle to keep up with the rest of the country. We are committedto making sure our footprint doesn’t look like that. It’s an economic puzzle we must figure how to solve.”
‘CAN’T JUST GO HALFWAY’
Tennessee Telecommunications Association Executive Director Levoy Knowles said he has argued for years that a connection to the internet is more than just an added bonus for Tennessee households.
The TTA is a trade organization with 21 telecommunication members statewide. In 2017, the group lobbied for the legislature to pass the accessibility act.
“The state did a study that to solve the problem would cost a billion to a billion and a half to fix access for broadband,” Knowles said. “So $45 million doesn’t solve the problem, but it gives the incentive to apply for grants to expand access.”
As Gov. Bill Haslam examines his eight-year tenure, he said he considered the Broadband Accessibility Act a success. In fiscal year 2018, 5,200 rural locations have been served with internet.
“We are still early in the game in its implementation,” he said. “We are slowly starting to reach those places that haven’t had internet. We are about six months away from looking at the places where we’ve impacted and what are the places we won’t be able to get to under the current act.”
Haslam said the next governor will need to figure out how to reach the areas that still need access.
“This is something we can’t just go halfway on,” Haslam said.
Broadband internet expansion has become a politically charged topic between Republican Bill Lee and Democrat Karl Dean as the two vie for the governor’s seat this November.
Lee knows what it’s like to live without access. The Lee Company CEO has no broadband at his home in Fernvale, a small community between Fairview and Leiper’s Fork.
“We don’t have reliable cell service or broadband at my home. Like 34 percent of rural Tennesseans, our only option has been satellite, which has its limitations,” Lee said. “It’s a critical part of our infrastructure, and as governor, I’ll commit to expanding this service by working closely with our partners in the private and the public sector alike to make accessibility a reality for every Tennessean, no matter their zip code.”