SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico legislators are advancing bills that modernize efforts to expand access to high-speed internet service, as remote work and schooling exposes infrastructure gaps during the coronavirus pandemic.
Outside of New Mexico’s metro areas, internet access can be slow, expensive, or simply not available. Efforts to expand the state’s network of fiberoptic cables over the past decade has relied on a variety of federal programs that often require state matching funds.
Proposals from House and Senate lawmakers would set up a centralized clearinghouse within state government for improving internet access - following the example of many other states that address broadband internet through one agency.
Currently, that crucial infrastructure work in New Mexico is assigned to corners of seven state agencies, ranging from a three-person team at the Department of Information Technology to staff at the Public Education Department. Responsibilities run the gamut from digging trenches to wiring school libraries in Native American communities.
Much of New Mexico’s high-speed internet is distributed by fiberoptic cable that has to be buried in the ground - in a labor- and permit-intensive process.
A 2017 state law allowed cities and counties to take advantage of underground utility work to inexpensively insert fiberoptic cable.
But Democratic state Rep. Susan Herrera of Embudo say it remains difficult in New Mexico to lay and maintain fiberoptic cable than it is in other states. In Arizona and Colorado, for example, state laws reserve rights of way and standard leasing rates in utility trenches, according to a report by New Mexico technology officials.
A bill in the House would formalize that three-person team inside the Department of Information Technology, elevating it to a full-blown division with almost $1 million in funding and the authority to coordinate digging with other state and local agencies, schools, and private companies to avoid overlapping costs. That bill was scheduled for a House floor vote as early as Wednesday.
Herrera, a co-sponsor, said the reorganization aims to help students but won’t deliver new internet access immediately - even in the fall if the pandemic continues to hobble schools.
“It’s not going to happen in five months. A good plan is going to take five years,” Herrera said.
The state Senate on Wednesday endorsed a similar bill for a centralized broadband division within the Information Technology Department that does not include a spending allocation.
Looming over the initiative is a rapidly changing technological landscape for high-speed internet that includes wireless access from networks of high-flying blimps and low-orbit satellites.
Herrera said the new agency division would also be able to coordinate adoption of emerging non-cable technologies like satellites and weather balloons.
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Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow Attanasio on Twitter.
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