DENVER – A minor victory was scored Thursday for the continued deployment of broadband internet to rural Colorado.
House Bill 1174, which would create an exemption allowing local improvement districts to raise funds for installing broadband infrastructure in rural parts of the state, was passed unanimously by the Senate Local Government Committee and heads to the full Senate.
The exemption created by the bill would only be available for counties that were deemed rural, which was defined as having a population less than 50,000 but was amended to raise the number to 60,000 adding La Plata County to the list of 50 areas eligible for the exemption.
These communities would still have to have a contracted with a telecommunications company in place before they could ask voters to approve a property tax for the deployment of broadband or wireless infrastructure.
Eric Bergman, policy director for Colorado Counties Inc., called it a “small but important step in creating new financing mechanisms to help communities that are trying to bring better high speed internet service to their citizens.”
That is because HB 1174 moves statute in the right direction by adding broadband and wireless infrastructure to the list of projects for which a local improvement district can be formed, Bergman said. “Statute allows for them to be used for telecom, but as we learned from working with the telecom providers that just means voice – it’s basically just telephone service.”
Michael Nelson, a representative for Comcast, said the bill could be of use for areas where the return of investment is not there for the telecom industry unless the upfront costs can be subsidized by locals.
While everyone on the committee and those who testified favored the measure, there was no allusions to it being a silver bullet for broadband deployment.
“This is probably not the final answer to broadband in rural parts of the state, but it provides some additional flexibility that may help us to attract more broadband service to those areas,” said Diana Orf, representative for the Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado.
lperkins@durangoherald.com