Trent Staggs: Equal, affordable access to the digital highway is essential for Utah

Perhaps more than at any other time, COVID-19 demonstrated just how critical high speed broadband services are to our economy and quality of life.

To be sure, there are clear advantages for the roughly 50% of the workforce that can work remotely on a full or part-time basis, but there are additional benefits beyond off site working arrangements. These include greater convenience or quality of life, increased economic growth, reduction in pollution and stress, improved access to education and health care and enhanced civic participation.

But, despite these benefits, not everyone is connected, or connected at speeds that allow them to even stream a video.

What are the greatest barriers to having more connected at a level where everyone can fully participate in the services running over the digital highway? For most, it is the high cost associated with limited competition.

Now, following the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, we are presented with an opportunity to significantly improve broadband access, affordability and availability.

Some contend that we should rely exclusively on the private sector. This has resulted in a limited choice of service providers, with nearly one in four Americans having only one choice. Some contend that governments, particularly city governments, should be involved in providing municipal-run networks, which solutions often gloss over their risks to taxpayers – and ignore alternatives that can perhaps better leverage both private sector and public sector strengths.

Here in Utah, our digital divide is really two distinct problems. In rural areas, 23% of our residents still lack access to broadband because it costs so much more per home to build networks in less dense, rural areas. Meanwhile, in urban counties, broadband service is available to 90% or more of homes, yet many don’t connect to the wires passing by their front door. In fact, almost 8% of all households, and more than 30% of low-income households across the Salt Lake City metro area, do not have home internet service.

Closing the rural deployment gap requires building out new network infrastructure. But in already-wired suburbs like Riverton, although broadband may be available, the issue is principally cost, which is a result of limited choice and speeds. Roughly half of Riverton residents have only one option of service providers that can offer more than 100 Mbps speeds.

I believe both rural and urban areas of our state could benefit from public investment in core backbone fiber infrastructure, while working with the private sector to make it easier to enter or expand service offerings in their respective communities.

Think of it like the Interstate Highway System launched in 1956. Cities can utilize America Rescue Plan funds to connect city assets, and effectively create a fiber backbone or ring through their communities, which could also be utilized by private providers to serve residential and business customers.

Municipalities can also streamline permitting and allow greater access to city right-of-way. These types of innovations will save taxpayers on city expenditures, while also encouraging more private sector competition that can enhance service delivery and affordability for more residents. Riverton City is in the early stages of developing such backbone.

Additionally, innovative cities and school districts are leveraging these types of public-private solutions by partnering directly with providers to offer no- or low-cost broadband to disconnected families. These kinds of partnerships offer another example of fast and cost-effective approaches for improving broadband affordability and availability.

Although broadband is essential, the complexity, cost and service required to maintain and operate these networks largely falls outside of the wheelhouse of local governments. Leaving broadband services to the private sector alone, however, has resulted in an oligopoly where large swaths of the population are served by only one or two providers.

Leveraging public infrastructure investments that provide for enhanced choice and competition can unleash the private sector to improve connectivity and affordability opportunities for all residents. We are presented now with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do just that.

Trent Staggs is the mayor of Riverton.