Mayor Calls Incumbents 'Bullies,' Supports Industry-Backed Broadband Bill
A Wyoming broadband bill headed to the governor’s desk “strike[s] a good balance” between industry and local interests, Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr (I) said in a Friday interview, despite last month calling CenturyLink and Charter “bullies” for allegedly changing the bill's substance. The Wyoming Legislature last week passed SF-100, which would create a broadband grant program to spur deployment in unserved areas. Gov. Matt Mead (R) supports the bill, emailed his director of Economic Diversification Strategy and Initiatives, Jerimiah Rieman. Charter and CenturyLink supported the bill, while Stop the Cap condemned it.
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The Wyoming Senate voted 27-2 Thursday to concur with House amendments after that chamber voted 46-13 for the bill Wednesday. The final bill would target funds to the unserved, defined as an area with “no fixed terrestrial broadband service,” or where speeds max out at 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload to residents; 25/3 Mbps to businesses in small municipalities or unincorporated areas; or 50/5 Mbps to businesses in large municipalities. The bill would target grants to public-private partnerships, but local governments could apply on their own if they first issue a request for proposals and receive no adequate proposals from the private sector. Grants would support speeds of at least 25/3 Mbps in residential areas and 1 Gbps/100 Mbps in business corridors.
The bill's original version would have included underserved areas in addition to unserved, and the Cheyenne mayor protested when she first learned of a substitute. The “substantially different” bill “wasn’t posted on-line or anywhere for anyone except insiders to have access to,” Orr wrote Feb. 19 on Facebook. “CenturyLink and Spectrum [Charter] are bullies. It’s wrong, and they are hurting Cheyenne and other WY communities from gaining affordable access.”
But Orr later came around on the changes. It’s “a good piece of legislation,” she said Friday. “It really prioritizes getting connectivity to unserved areas.” The mayor said she had been discouraged by the lack of communication in developing the substitute, but “we were able to get everybody together in a room and really talk things through.” Orr said she favored the original bill, but she agreed it needed work. Orr “would certainly like more assistance for downtown Cheyenne” but realized the “greater good” for the state of focusing on more rural areas.” The bill will help “the more sprawling corners of our community,” she said.
“I don’t back down on my statement” that the incumbents are “bullies, and they really have a strong hold on the market,” Orr said. For example, after the Wyoming Business Council commissioned Orr’s husband, Jimmy Orr, to produce a white paper on state broadband connectivity, “it ended up really being buried by the usual suspects,” she said. But Orr also said she’s “a firm believer in private enterprise” and skeptical of municipal broadband: “We have enough issues to take care of with police and fire.” Cheyenne is looking at private-public partnerships where the city would install and lease conduit, the mayor said. Cheyenne today has good internet speeds, but the city’s small businesses struggle with costs, she said. The city government pays about $2,000 monthly for 100 Mbps, she said.
The Wyoming bill “rightly directs funding to unserved areas and we look forward to working with policymakers in Wyoming to do our part to help close the digital divide,” a Charter spokeswoman emailed. “Charter is committed to bringing more and better broadband to communities across its national footprint including in rural areas.” Charter and CenturyLink didn’t comment on Orr describing them as bullies.
The bill as amended sets up "a fund for the state’s dominant telecom companies -- CenturyLink and Charter Communications,” Stop the Cap said last week. It “gives high priority to eliminating potential competition by blocking funding for communities to establish their own public broadband alternatives to the phone and cable company if those companies already offer service anywhere inside the community.”