[1st-mile-nm] NM Jobs Council wants to give business a slice of the broadband pie

[Richard Lowenberg]

NM Jobs Council wants to give business a slice of the broadband pie

Dec 23, 2015

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/blog/morning-edition/2015/12/nm-jobs-council-wants-to-give-business-a-slice-of.html

  New Mexico needs to create 140,000 economic base jobs in the next 10 
years to get back to pre-recession employment levels, and potentially 
half of those are at risk if the state doesn’t do something about its 
lack of adequate broadband.

That's according to New Mexico Jobs Council estimates, and in response 
the organization is gearing up for a legislative push for better 
broadband for New Mexico business.

New Mexico Jobs Council consultant Mark Laotian is part of an effort to 
seek upwards of $300,000 in legislative funding for a statewide 
broadband infrastructure study.

“There’s federal money pouring in to wire up schools, which the state’s 
done a really good job on,” said Mark Lautman, a consultant for the 
council. “What they’re missing is the discussion about businesses.”

The Jobs Council has drafted a broadband infrastructure bill asking the 
Legislature for upwards of $300,000 for a detailed study of what it will 
cost to get the state up to adequate download speeds.

“We know it’s going to cost tens of millions of dollars to get this 
done,” said Charles Lehman, another consultant with the council, who 
added that part of the study will focus on how to secure outside money 
in addition to state appropriations for the infrastructure work that 
needs to be done.

Lautman said that, as a result of discussions with regional stakeholders 
over the past three years, lack of adequate broadband has surfaced as 
one of three primary issues affecting job creation in the state. The 
issue is largely a rural one, though metropolitan areas are also 
affected, and Lautman said there are pockets in Albuquerque that are 
“not built out.”

“As soon as we saw the rankings, there was motivation to start trying to 
find out if there’s a legislative fix to this,” he said. “Everybody 
knows that work is getting more dependent on the internet.”

Lehman cited study estimates indicating that about one-third of 
businesses in the state don’t have adequate broadband, with that number 
nearing half in rural areas. Business leaders and economic developers 
also said they don’t expect the situation to improve unless something is 
done. About a quarter of them reported losing potential business as a 
result.

“Businesses just won’t come here because we don’t have sufficient 
broadband,” he said.

Lautman said the study will hopefully help determine some key issues 
around broadband service in the region, such as minimum speed 
requirements, carrier diversity, pricing and redundancy.
“All of these are questions about the minimum level of service needed in 
10 years for this economy to build out the way we’re saying,” he said.

The bill, which the council hopes to get introduced in the upcoming 
legislative session, will also ask for about $600,000 to complete some 
critical high-priority rural infrastructure development the council says 
is ready to go.



---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
---------------------------------------------------------------