A few days ago I decided to see whether there was anything new being reported by the Oregon Broadband Office, a state agency charged with overseeing projects to bring decently fast broadband to people in this state who lack it.
That includes my neighborhood in rural south Salem. Though we're only six miles or so from the Salem city limits, Oregon's capital, the only wired/fixed broadband (as contrasted with cellular broadband) available out here is crappy CenturyLink DSL that comes over ancient copper phone lines at the sluggish speed of 6-7 Mbps down and 1-2 Mbps up.
This is a far cry from the minimal broadband standard of 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. And until I was able to bring DSL to our area in 2008 by writing a plaintive letter to the CEO of Qwest, the predecessor to CenturyLink, we had to use a glitchy satellite service, WildBlue, while neighbors of ours had to make do with dial-up.
Currently my wife and I enjoy Space X's Starlink broadband, which we've had since January 2021, when I became a Starlink beta tester. Since, Starlink has become much faster and more reliable as many more satellites are launched into low orbit. That's great, but I'd much rather have fiber optic broadband -- which is considerably better than Starlink's $120/month service. (Starlink speeds vary quite a bit; at the moment I'm getting 123 Mbps down and 17 Mbps up.)
I noticed a November 12, 2024 press release on the Oregon Broadband Office web site about $133 million being awarded to broadband projects in Oregon. Marion County, where I live, was to get $8,356,701 for 1,007 locations. That got me excited, until I checked out a map of the projects and saw that Ziply Fiber would be installing fiber optic on the east side of I-5 near us, while our neighborhood is a few miles west of I-5.
So close, yet so far. That spurred me to send a message to the Oregon Broadband Office:
I contacted your office before, wondering when our woefully broadband underserved area of several hundred homes out here in rural south Salem would benefit from the federal programs to expand broadband access.
From what I can tell after just looking at your site, Ziply Fiber has a contract nearby, on the east side of I-5, while we’re several miles from that area on the west side of I-5. So it looks like even though most of our neighbors suffer with 6-7 Mbps DSL from CenturyLink, the only option widely available other than Starlink, which we have and pay $120 a month for, there’s no plan for our neighborhood to get faster and cheaper broadband.
Please let me know if my gloomy assessment of the situation is correct. As I told one of your staff before, I’ve looked into every conceivable broadband option, including cellular broadband, and have come up with exactly zero options to DSL other than satellite internet, which I have.
I’ve noted that Starlink wasn’t eligible for federal grants to improve broadband access because the service was too expensive and too slow. So it’s frustrating that aside from crappy DSL, the only option I and many other neighbors have is Starlink and HughesNet, two satellite services that don’t qualify under federal rules as viable broadband.
How long are we supposed to wait for “real” broadband? I’m 76, so I'm suspecting I’ll be dead before that happens in our neighborhood, though I’d enjoy getting some positive news from your office.
I got a quick reply from a staffer who I'd talked with before, Brian McGuirk. We set up a time to talk by phone last Tuesday. Once again, McGuirk was helpful, friendly, and informative. He told me that the $133 million was from the 2021 ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act).
So it's taken more than three years for that money to be allocated to broadband projects in Oregon. Given how the federal bureaucracy works, I suppose this is reasonable. McGuirk said that a much larger pot of broadband money is coming from the 2021 Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which contains $65 billion nationally for broadband.
I found a June 14, 2024 story from our local newspaper, the Statesman Journal, "Oregon's 'Internet for All' application approved."
Nearly a year after announcing Oregon would receive $688 million for the improvement and expansion of affordable, high-speed internet, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said Thursday that the state can now request access to funding to begin administering the program.
A pre-pandemic study estimated 1.7 million Oregonians live in rural areas without access to high-speed broadband.
Nick Batz, director of the Oregon Broadband Office, said while the state generally has good connectivity, establishing access in those under or unserved areas is challenging.
The story said that the program is expected to be implemented over the next four years and completed by 2028. Well, I'll be 80 then. So maybe I'll live to see fiber optic at our house. Until then, I'm thankful for Starlink, which has made our broadband life much happier after we were able to ditch archaic DSL.
McGuirk told me about an area in rural Washingon County that is in the same DSL situation as our neighborhood is. After a bit of Googling, I came up with a 2020 story, "Is fiber coming to rural western Washington County? Perhaps, says Ziply." But that area still doesn't have fiber.
The rural portions of Washington County have always struggled to gain access to high speed internet, with some regions solely relying on satellite or microwave options, while others are on copper lines now owned by Ziply Fiber, which acquired the former network of the struggling Frontier Communications operation in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana on May 1 of this year.
...The Frontier network for rural residents in far western Washington County has been a constant source of frustration for years, with technical issues plaguing the aging network and often poor customer service being a hallmark of their legacy. With the acquisition of the network by Ziply, a new company, is there a future in western Washington County where internet connectivity comes in the way of fiber instead of copper? Perhaps, says the company.
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