[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe broadband franchising

[Richard Lowenberg]

Story from earlier in April.

Local companies vie for franchise agreements

By T.S. Last / Journal North
Published: Friday, April 6th, 2018

https://www.abqjournal.com/1155332/local-companies-vie-for-franchise-agreements-ex-use-of-city-rights-of-way-central-to-the-proposal.html

SANTA FE, N.M. — Most of the five telecommunications companies set to 
enter into franchise agreements with Santa Fe city government for use of 
rights of way already have local connections.

One is Cyber Mesa, which provides telephone, internet and ethernet 
services, and has a foothold in the city-owned Railyard, under a project 
undertaken by city government that has also helped provide services for 
people who don’t live within the city limits.

Proposals aim to boost SF's cell and wireless services

A few years ago, the city awarded Cyber Mesa a $1 million broadband 
infrastructure project that connected a 2-mile gap between CenturyLink’s 
exchange building downtown and a fiber hub station at the south end of 
the Railyard. The money came from city capital improvement project (CIP) 
bonds.

“We expect soon to wire up everybody in the Railyard, and, in that 
event, the Railyard will be able to become a tech center,” said Cyber 
Mesa owner Jane Hill.

That project has already benefited state government, she said, by 
connecting state government buildings downtown with those on St. Francis 
Drive with fiber cable.

As part of that project, the locally owned company has also partnered 
with the city on Santa Fe Fiber, organized as a wholly owned subsidiary 
of Cyber Mesa.

Hill says Santa Fe Fiber has provided wireless services to 
neighborhoods, including Hyde Park Estates and Los Caminitos north of 
Santa Fe.

“Even though they’re outside the city limits, they’re still part of the 
Santa Fe community,” she said, adding that people living there spend 
money in the city. “So I think it’s a win-win for the city and these 
communities.”

In response to Journal questions, Sean Moody, a former city of Santa Fe 
employee who worked on the project and is now under city contract as a 
consultant, said in an email that the city’s “sole agreement with Cyber 
Mesa is the $1 million CIP Broadband Project, under which Cyber Mesa 
built and administers Santa Fe Fiber, a fiber optic network providing 
wholesale-only Internet, Ethernet, and dark fiber services to any 
qualified provider.”

He also said, “There is no condition in the City-Cyber Mesa contract 
which would exclude Santa Fe Fiber’s wholesale customers from providing 
service to those who live or work outside the city. To reiterate, Santa 
Fe Fiber is designed to be an alternate source of wholesale Internet 
available to any competitive provider.”

The goal “is to improve broadband conditions throughout the city by 
creating a competitive wholesale option to what was effectively an 
unregulated backhaul monopoly operated by CenturyLink,” said Moody.

Other players

Another local company proposed for a city franchise agreement, NMSURF, 
provides telephone and internet services, and plans to utilize the 
city’s rights of way for “fiber-to-the-premise” network to reach homes 
and businesses throughout the city at speeds ranging from 100 megabits 
per second to 1 gigabit per second, according to city documents.

Similarly, Plateau Telecommunications, Inc., a rural cooperative based 
in Clovis, provides telephone, internet and ethernet using fiber optic 
cable. It installed underground cable in Santa Fe with federal grant 
funding through the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program in 2011 
and 2012.

Conterra Ultra Broadband, LLC, already has a contract with Santa Fe 
Public Schools to construct and operate a fiber optic network that 
connects 28 school sites with the district’s central office on Alta 
Vista Street. It will provide high-speed network connectivity at speeds 
up to 10 gigabits.

Ninety percent of the funding for that $4.68 million project comes from 
the federal E-rate program for schools and libraries, while the 
remaining 10 percent will be paid from a 2-mill levy approved by school 
district voters.

City documents show that Conterra plans to operate commercially to 
provide internet, ethernet and dark fiber to telecommunication 
providers, as well as schools, businesses, and governmental and 
non-governmental institutions.

The fifth applicant for use of the city’s rights of way is Broadband 
Network of New Mexico, which is looking to install poles in rights of 
way, then lease vertical space on the poles to other companies for 
access to antenna and fiber optic cable.

It must first obtain a franchise before applying for city approval for 
any above-ground facility, as there will be a visual impact.

According to a city staff report, the company would pay a one-time fee 
for the franchise and then annual fees based on the number of poles and 
antennas that are installed. The other four companies would pay the city 
a 2 percent franchise fee applied to gross charges.



---------------------------------------------------------------
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
---------------------------------------------------------------