As the nation’s eyes are riveted on the political divide in Georgia and the implications it has for the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, many state residents are also keeping an eye on the digital divide in the Peach State with an aim to expand broadband service to rural residents.
Georgia’s not-for-profit, member-owned electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) are promoting a new “Georgia Solution” to bring more broadband connectivity to the state’s rural regions.
That’s what the statewide trade association representing Georgia’s 41 electric cooperatives is calling its unique “roll out the red carpet” initiative as they hope to lure private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to expand broadband service now that state lawmakers passed the Georgia Broadband Opportunity Act during the 2020 Georgia General Assembly.
The law, signed by Governor Brian Kemp in August, authorizes the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to set “rates, terms, and conditions for pole attachments between communications service providers and electric membership corporations and their broadband affiliates.”
Filed on October 23 with the state’s PSC to consider for approval, the “Georgia Solution,” aims to entice private ISPs with two “generous and unprecedented offers” -- the “One Buck Deal” and the “Georgia One-Touch-Make-Ready Program.”
Two-Part “Georgia Solution”
The “One Buck Deal” is a financial incentive in which the EMCs will “forego recovering a fair share of their costs to own and maintain … EMC utility poles, and instead charge these broadband providers just one dollar, per pole, per year to attach their wires and cables to the pole.” The offer would be available to any qualified broadband providers that will deliver new high-speed Internet service in unserved EMC regions, which covers 73% of the state’s land area, providing electricity to 4.4 million residents, or nearly half of Georgia’s population.
That one dollar, per pole, per year “introductory rate” would last for five...
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