Back in the 1940s, southwestern Colorado was trying to figure out how to get electricity to its ranches and farms, and the big electric companies like Public Service Company of Colorado had their hands full trying to service rapidly growing Front Range cities. Also, it wasn’t very profitable to serve widely-dispersed rural communities.
To finance electricity in Durango and Pagosa Springs using federal ‘rural electric’ grants, a group of ambitious businessmen formed the La Plata Electric Association — a co-op organization focused not on ‘profit’ but rather on serving the farmers and ranchers and business owners who were the co-op’s potential members.
80 years later, LPEA is still a member co-operative, operating on a ‘service’ model rather than a ‘for profit’ model.
I’m thinking about this ancient history because Archuleta County and southwestern Colorado have been struggling to upgrade two much newer industries: internet, and cell phones.
The chosen route has not been to form co-operatives, however… but rather, to provide millions of dollars in government subsidies to private, for-profit companies.
We heard about some of those taxpayer subsidies at the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners’ work session, yesterday morning.
I’m writing this editorial based on my recording of that morning discussion, but I cannot claim to have a full understanding of where all the money is coming from and where it’s all going. Hopefully, writing things down in black and white will help me better understand what I don’t know, and what might be worth clarifying in a future editorial.
The expert at the BOCC work table, at yesterday’s meeting, was Eric Hittle, the owner of Echo IT Consulting — a for-profit company —and also the Technical Manager for Archuleta County Broadband Services, which operates under the umbrella of the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation — a non-profit, limited membership corporation.
You can visit the Archuleta County Broadband Services website, here, but it appears to have been last updated in November 2019.
As I understand Mr. Hittle’s job, he mainly works with for-profit Internet Service Providers to help them obtain government funding to help the providers expand service to Archuleta County residents and businesses.
We’re talking here about both cell phone providers and internet providers, and the basic apparatus needed is fiber optic cable.
Here’s Mr. Hittle, addressing the BOCC:
“I don’t know if all of you did get the news — probably you did — but the Colorado Broadband Office (CBO) did accounce the results of the CPF (Capital Projects Fund) grant applications, and the two applications that you gave your support letters for, were both successful.”
He pointed at the image projected on the large video screens in the BOCC meeting room.
“If you look at all of the different counties that were given awards, you’ll see a great deal of… focus, really… and not just on Archuleta County. There are two dots there…”
“But Montezuma County and La Plata County also won two each… so I think there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million that went to Region 9. So very good for our region; not just for Archuleta County.”
Region 9 is an ‘economic development’ region that includes the southwest corner of Colorado.
“I was hoping for at least one award. To get two is even better.”
We might note that most of the awarded counties received only one CPF grant. Larimer County, however, apparently received eight.
“We’re already in talks with the two awardees, which are Visionary Broadband and Clearworx LLC.”
Visionary Broadband, based in Gillette, Wyoming, acquired SkyWerx Internet — our home-grown, family-owned ISPs — back in 2017, and has since been expanding its service area, as funding subsidies have come available.
Clearworx is based out of Montrose and appears to provide service in about 18 Western Slope communities, including Bayfield and Durango. Pagosa Springs is not listed as one of those communities on their website.
The Colorado CPF grants were awarded directly to the private companies, not to local government.
Visionary is aiming to improve internet service in the Lake Hatcher area, reaching as far south as Martinez Canyon, plus a few addresses southeast of Village Lake, and a few addresses in Trails and Chris Mountain.
“They are going to hit a lot of addresses… about 1,000 addresses…”
Visionary Networks – Northern PLPOA region (Hatcher area, Chris Mtn II, Village Lake), $3.9 million award, $1.3 million match; 1,034 eligible addresses. Included fiber to Hatcher Water Tower for full Cellular site.
The fiber to the Hatcher Water Tower will likely bring improved cell service in the Hatcher area. Eventually.
The blue dots indicate the addresses Visionary is proposing to serve with their $3.9 million grant award.
Visionary will match the grant with a $1.3 million contribution — which comes to about $1,300 per address. None of those addresses appear to be business addresses.
So then, a total of about $5.2 million to eventually reach these homes.
The other CPF grant received from the state agency Advance Colorado Broadband will help Montrose-based Clearworx run fiber to areas south of Highway 160: Timber Ridge, Meadows, Alpha Rockridge, eventually serving perhaps 561 addresses.
Clearworx was awarded about $6.1 million, which they will match with $2 million, for a total $8.1 million.
“Part of the entirely of the project is to build to these homes and provide them with internet at speeds indicated within the application process, as far as the speeds and costs that are associated with those…”
Mr. Hittle did not mention what, exactly those speeds might be? It’s one thing to lay fiber optic cable, It’s another thing to actually provide high speeds to entire neighborhoods at 7pm when everyone is trying to watch Fox News.
Because, let’s face it. That is the end result of high speed internet in America: to make sure everyone is able to get their dose of MSNBC or Fox News, and be happily distracted from the fact that their community’s economy is slowly falling apart.
Here at the Daily Post office (at my house) we occasionally have four people all using the internet at the same time, although it’s very rare that more than two computers are streaming video at any given moment. As of this morning, we’re getting a speed of 10Mbps download and 4.5Mbps upload.
If we had fiber, we would have access to perhaps 1,000Mbps download. Then we could theoretically watch 200 TikTok movies all at the same time.
But I understand that not everyone in the community has access to the speeds we enjoy in downtown Pagosa. And that, unhappily, includes our cellphone providers…