GUEST COLUMN.

Many articles and columns about broadband have focused on the policies surrounding funding or lack of funding; the Infrastructure Bill; equity and inclusion issues and affordability barriers. But what about the nuts and bolts of broadband? What does it take to actually create a broadband infrastructure?

Here’s my story. I hope others can learn from it.

In 2015, the Mayor of Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, for whom I worked as CIO, challenged us to make our city a gig city. (one with a fiber-optic network that offers speedy internet service).

We started the project with representation from a cross section of departments. This was bc (small bc for “before Covid”) and outlined various options. There were many models to consider. Some cities chose to build it themselves, others partnered with current telecoms and in some cases internet providers chose larger market cities to fund construction.

As we continued to study and document the issues, it was clear that we needed more education than we had ourselves. We issued an RFI (Request for Information) to bring companies and various models to the table with potential proposals. We engaged a consultant to help us identify criteria and evaluate the responses.

This led us to some important decisions. The first was that the city would not build our own network; the second one was that we could not make any financial investment.

The logical next step would have been to issue an RFP (Request for Proposal). But before we took that step, a regional telecom who responded to the RFI stepped forward and indicated they would build the infrastructure with assistance from the city. We were delighted and grateful for the offer. We spent several weeks in discussions and negotiations about what the city would offer as “in kind” participation. The city provided a project manager to coordinate issues for the city, expedited permitting, identifying sites for hut construction and other building needs. We spent time in meetings with our Council Members and other elected and appointed officials. This is a most important step as construction got underway and I cannot overemphasis its importance.

Building broadband is hard. There is no way to sugarcoat that statement. We were going to tear up the streets where no infrastructure was built for over 40 years. We would need to get into people’s yards, use the right-of-way which was not easily accessible at times. We worked with all providers who delivered services. This included gas, water, sewer, electric and cable lines. You can imagine the lack of accuracy of the data and drawings.

With the planning phase essentially completed we moved forward to the final two: engineering and construction.

The engineering phase was entirely the work of the telecom company. One of the requirements that the city and the mayor had was that fiber would pass every house within the city limits. There would be no redlining. The city was divided into quarters and a plan was developed that would allow for an efficient build. The quickest and most efficient method was to attach the fiber to existing telephone poles. The city owned no poles and the telecom builder had to negotiate with the two existing pole owners.

One of the owners agreed quickly, the other required encouragement by the PSC (Public Services Commission). I am sure you have seen the telephone poles as they are now, loaded up with all sorts of attachments required to deliver service. We had to identify and negotiate the placement of equipment huts. We were able to select sites on land that the city owned for the hut placements and in return received benefits for the city with fiber allocations. The goal was to build quickly and turn on service as soon as possible. The estimate was that the entire build would take about 4 years.

Once the building phase began, issues surfaced very quickly.

The company had done a good job of communicating the start of the build by leaving yard flags, door hangers, newspaper notices but people ignored most of them. We learned that people did not use their front doors and entered through the garage most of the time. The actual construction work is done by contract crews. They are very much in demand and the plan needed to be efficient.

Communication is one of the most important parts of the building phase. Coordination of communication with the Council Members, service providers, citizens and contractors was critical.  The city project manager played that role.

As we had hoped, some citizens were delighted that fiber was coming and one resident even rewarded the crew with lunch money.

But even all the efforts in the world didn’t avoid an exceedingly bumpy road.

We had cases where yard gates were left open and pets got out. Another time, an owner would not allow access to the right of way and threatened the crew with a gun.  It required police intervention. One owner wanted broadband services. but did not want a neighbor behind to have it.

In some cases, the right of way had trees, bushes, sheds and gardens. There were times when sewage came into homes when there was bad digging or bad data provided. I reviewed all progress monthly with the telecom and a dozen departments. We kept a scorecard of progress, lines affect, remediation times, resolved and unresolved issues. Council Members were frequently called by citizens when they felt the building issues were not fixed in a timely manner.

At one point, we had 56 crews in the city installing fiber. There were lane closures, streets dug up, pavement to be fixed and remediation updates. All street remediation efforts required sign offs by city departments to ensure proper restoration. Then Covid happened and accelerated residents’ expectations to finish quickly.

People wanted to know about fiber in their neighborhood when they saw me in the grocery store. Everyone needed broadband fast.

The bottom line is that we were able to complete the build in about three years and that outcome was a big win for all.

Our city had fast internet, a new telecom and we found that all  service providers improved. We were one of the first cities to have fiber passing over 100,000 homes within the city limits. The county was another story and not part of the initial project definition. We had to find a creative approach for a multi-county way to participate in potential federal infrastructure funding. That is a story for another time.

The contents of this Guest Column are those of the author, and not necessarily Barrett and Greene, Inc.

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