Seeking federal funds, county wants to hear residents' internet complaints

May 12—According to state and federal maps, people across nearly all of Santa Fe County can access adequate internet.

But the maps are wrong, County Commissioner Justin Greene said.

Millions of dollars and improved access are on the line as an updated statewide map will determine which areas of New Mexico — down to a house-by-house level — will be eligible for federally funded broadband expansion projects.

Santa Fe County has encouraged any residents with nonexistent, unreliable or slow internet access to fill out a county survey by Wednesday. County staff members will use the responses to submit challenges to a map compiled by the state Office of Broadband Access and Expansion.

The state office's 30-day "challenge period" ending May 18 is the last push in a nearly two-year effort to accurately map New Mexicans' internet access, office director Drew Lovelace said.

It all started with the federal government's passage of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program in November 2021, part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Biden administration officials billed as the nation's "single largest investment" in high-speed internet.

In June, federal officials allotted New Mexico $675 million from that package. Although nearly one in four households in the state cannot access reliable internet, the funding formula favored states with higher population density, Lovelace said. Texas, for instance, received $3.3 billion.

The funds are designed to bring internet first to areas "unserved" and then places "underserved" by internet service providers, Lovelace said. Underserved areas include those lacking reliable internet with download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 20 megabits per second.

The funds also have a "last-mile focus," meaning they are intended to bring connectivity directly to neighborhoods, houses, businesses and farms, Lovelace said. As a result, his office has been working since 2022 with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration — the agency administering broadband funds — to create more granular maps of internet access.

The maps largely are based on internet companies' own reports of which areas they serve, which are sometimes riddled with inaccuracies. State broadband officials recently opened a 30-day period during which local governments, nonprofits, tribes and other internet service providers can challenge the maps, Lovelace said.

Santa Fe County anticipates filing many such challenges. As of Friday afternoon, the county had received more than 120 responses to its broadband survey, which launched in late April. More than 70% of respondents reported internet speeds slower than what the state deems acceptable.

Many reported "frequent outages and unreliable service," according a compilation of results by New Mexico State University project manager Lauren Goldstein.

Most survey respondents added lengthy comments about their internet usage and accessibility in the survey, Greene added.

"It's amazing how much of a passionate issue this is for people," he said. Internet "is an essential need for all our constituents, and some of our rural areas have been left behind over the last few decades of broadband development."

Greene, who described himself as "hustling" on the issue, said Santa Fe County has ramped up attention to internet access since it formed a Broadband Working Group with leaders in various county departments last summer.

"I'm excited to see the results of this," he said. "There's a lot of work to do."

The state's existing broadband map already shows households without internet across Santa Fe County, including in and around Madrid, Galisteo, Cerrillos, Lamy, Cañada de los Alamos, Glorieta, Tesuque, Rio en Medio and Chimayó.

Those households could get access to high-speed internet by 2029 using federal funds, Lovelace said.

New Mexico's $675 million allocation from the federal government for broadband will fall far short of getting all New Mexicans access to high-speed internet, he said. But the funds should be enough to connect all unserved households to broadband and perhaps a small number of the underserved, as well, he said.

His office still needs to jump through several bureaucratic hoops before it will receive the federal funds, which Lovelace hopes to receive in early- to mid-2025, he said. He then expects a five-year build time for the actual broadband infrastructure, so 2029 "is when these things could theoretically be complete."

In the meantime, state officials will continue state-funded internet expansion projects that can be accomplished more quickly, Lovelace added.

"New Mexicans really deserve to be to be connected to the internet," he said. From education to telehealth, entertainment to access to government assistance programs, "it impacts every aspect of our lives now."