This article was originally published on GovTech.com. Read the original here. This version contains additional details.

The southwest corner of New Hampshire will be blanketed with Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks over the next two years, as over 20 communities are drawing up plans to enter into public-private partnerships to boost high-speed Internet access in the Granite State.

Fitzwilliam, Marlborough, Gilsum, and Troy voted in March to issue bonds through the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank to construct fiber networks; while Greenfield, Jaffrey, Marlow, Roxbury, Keene, Peterborough, and Temple, delayed by the pandemic, have been voting in support of FTTH agreements throughout April, May and June.

According to New Hampshire’s Southwest Region Planning Commission (SWRPC), six more cities, Charlestown, Goshen, Langdon, Salisbury, Sullivan, and Unity, have also issued warrant articles indicating their interest in partnering with a private Internet Service Provider (ISP) to expand Internet access. Most of the cities are considering partnerships with Consolidated Communications to improve insufficient connectivity.

Granite Staters with poor Internet access in rural areas should soon realize the benefit of HB 1111, which just passed the state legislature and was signed into law by the governor. The measure provides for the establishment of communications districts to pursue Internet infrastructure projects in New Hampshire. In addition, the law makes it easier for municipalities to determine which areas under their purview are unserved in order to target broadband expansion efforts and expand access to all. 

Removing Barriers, Providing New Tools 

Two years ago SB 170 passed the legislature, allowing communities in the state to bond to develop publicly owned Internet infrastructure for the first time. The bill, however, made such moves contingent upon proving that the proposed areas were “unserved” by a connection of 25/3 megabits per second (Mbps). To do so local governments were required to issue an RFI to the existing Internet Service Provider (ISP). At the time we anticipated trouble with existing providers who had a history of claiming service to large areas when the reality was that many were unserved, and it turns out that worry was well-founded: communities reported that ISPs were ignoring requests for information, making it difficult for them to make progress. 

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HB 1111 changes that. If an RFI to a provider goes unanswered for 60 days, it is assumed the latter is unable to deliver broadband. Municipalities can then come together and form communications districts which have the authority to use general obligation bonds to fund an overbuild of the area and seek out public-private partnerships to provide new service.

Update (6/25/20):

The board of the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative voted unanimously at yesterday's meeting to create a separate entity to pursue broadband funding and development in the state for its 84,000 member-owners, committing $1 million in funding to the effort.  

In the press release, President and CEO Steve Camareno remarked: “meeting our members’ needs is NHEC’s only focus, and the ability to access fast, reliable internet service is a critical need, now more than ever. In pursuing this initiative, we remain mindful that we must balance that need with our members’ reliance on NHEC as their electric service provider.”

The response by the board shows the success of local organizing efforts around the issue; voting was up 33% at the annual board meeting last week, where adding broadband to cooperative's charter was a primary concern. The move positions NEHC well to pursue money from the state's available CARES funds as well as bid in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction this fall. 

Original story:

Efforts to add broadband to the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative’s (NEHC) charter fell just 2% short of the 2/3 supermajority it needed to pass last week, but supporters remain hopeful. Over seven thousand voters turned out for the annual Board of Directors election, which included the broadband line item on the ballot. The measure fell short by 183 votes. A successful vote would have allowed the co-op to build a broadband network and offer Internet access to its members.

In the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire, at least six towns have voted to issue bonds to construct fiber networks in partnership with regional incumbent telephone company Consolidated Communications. Chesterfield approved the measure in April 2019 and recently executed a public-private partnership contract with Consolidated.

Chesterfield was the first municipality in New Hampshire to take advantage of Senate Bill 170, signed into law in 2018, which allows municipal governments to bond in order to build broadband infrastructure in places not served by commercial broadband providers. Over the last year, the towns of Dublin, Harrisville, Rindge, Walpole, and Westmoreland have also voted to bond are also in the process of bonding, or have already bonded (Rindge), and are finalizing public-private partnership contracts with Consolidated to develop Fiber-to-the-Home networks. The towns plan to issue bonds in July and should have finalized contracts by that point.

New Hampshire’s rural areas have struggled to connect rural residents to adequate broadband, and these towns are undertaking these partnerships to improve currently insufficient connectivity. Part of the challenge has been the rotating series of incumbent telephone companies, from Verizon to FairPoint and now Consolidated. Large publicly-traded telephone firms have difficulty justifying investments in rural areas when the same amount of capital could offer a much greater return in higher-density cities. But Consolidated is developing a new model with these towns that may work to everyone’s benefit.

As state lawmakers debate in committee rooms and Capitol chambers around the country, various broadband and Internet network infrastructure bills are appearing on agendas. Some are good news for local communities interested in developing publicly owned networks while other preemption bills make projects more difficult to plan, fund, and execute. We've gathered together some notable bills from several states that merit watching - good, bad, and possibly both.

New Hampshire

For years, local communities were not allowed to bond to develop publicly owned broadband infrastructure in New Hampshire. Last year, the state adopted SB 170, which opened the door a crack so that municipalities can bond to develop infrastructure for public-private partnerships (PPPs) in "unserved" areas. This year, the New Hampshire General Court has the opportunity to push open the door a bit wider with SB 459.

SB 459 allows local communities to potentially define "unserved" areas themselves by putting more responsibility on Internet access providers. Municipalities must currently engage in a request for information process in which they must reach out to all Internet service providers operating in the community. SB 459, if adopted, would allow a community to consider areas "unserved" if a provider does not respond to such a request to clarify which premises are unserved. With the "unserved" designation, municipalities can bond to develop infrastructure to serve those premises.

The bill has bipartisan support and is scheduled for a March 11th hearing in the Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee. Read the text of SB 459 here [PDF] and follow its progress here.

Pennsylvania

When Vermont passed legislation to establish "communications union districts" in 2015, funding options expanded for regional community network ECFiber. Since then, other states trying to expand access to broadband in rural areas have looked at the success of ECFiber as a possible model. Now, New Hampshire is considering establishing a similar option as a way for local communities to improve local connectivity.

Waiting for Session

Democratic State Senator Jeanne Dietsch from Peterborough has drafted legislation she intends to introduce in the 2020 session. The bill will allow communities to establish "communications districts" to develop broadband infrastructure, similar to the way they band together in order to create sewer districts for necessary infrastructure. The entities are able to finance projects by applying for grants, loans, issuing bonds, and charging user fees, but are not able to tax.

In a recent GovTech article, Dietsch said:

“We modeled it on New Hampshire sewer districts just because that is language that’s already familiar to our legislators, and it’ll be much easier for them to pass it that way than to try to make it look like Vermont.”

The lawmaker was reflecting on difficulties the legislature had passing Senate Bill 103, which allows municipalities to work together for "multi-town bonding projects." Special interest lobbyists, whose job it is to maintain ISP monopolies, leveled their efforts at the bill when it appeared fearing the competition it might bring. Dietsch wants to avoid a similar fight with the communications district proposal, so has carefully crafted the language of the bill.

If passed, the new authority will allow cities to develop the infrastructure in order to work with private sector partners. ECFiber offers fast, affordable, reliable Internet access directly to the public, rather than providing fiber optic infrastructure for Internet access companies to use.

ECFiber

Officials in Keene, New Hampshire, have been discussing ways to improve local connectivity for several years. In early July, they received more food for thought when the consultant they hired presented the results of a broadband study.

Check out the full study.

Assistant city manager and technical director for the city Rebecca Landry noted at a June meeting of the City Council’s planning, licenses, and development committee that companies and residents in surrounding states typically pay less for high-quality connectivity. She stressed that their ability to boost economic development relies in part on fast, affordable, reliable broadband access. She also reminded members that the study was not a proposal or a plan, but a review of options for consideration.

Survey Confirms Better Options Needed

Both business and residential surveys revealed that the community of Keene needs and wants better Internet access. A whopping 90 percent of residential respondents and 77 percent of business respondents chose the “I need better Internet/data service” option as part of the general questions on the survey. Additionally, 98 percent of residents and 100 percent of business owners who responded to the survey stated that they believe Internet access and technology are important to their household and/or the future success of their business.

Comments included a desire for more competition. Within Keene, property owners have access to Spectrum cable Internet access while just beyond town limits, Consolidated Communications (formerly Fairpoint) offers slow DSL or people can subscribe to expensive and unreliable satellite Internet access. Respondents replied with stories about visitors who express shock at the poor state of Internet access in Keene. Folks who work from home complain that, if they want better speeds, their only option is expensive business class connections from Spectrum. 

On May 30th, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed SB 170, a bill local community leaders had watched for more than a year. The measure will allow municipalities to bond for publicly owned Internet network infrastructure. Advocates, local elected officials, and citizens have been seeking the authority for years. SB 170 may raise some questions as it's implemented, but the bill is significant because it symbolizes this state's decision to expand local authority for broadband investment, rather than limit the power of local communities.

Read the final version of SB 170 here.

A Better Measurement

As we reported more than a year ago, SB 170 sought to make changes in existing law by allowing local communities to bond for Internet infrastructure. The bill sat in committee until last November, when it was amended and picked up again. The final version of SB 170 allows communities to bond for projects that will connect premises that don’t have access to broadband as defined by the FCC — 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.