After Gov. David Ige on Monday announced his intention to invest $400 million to expand broadband access throughout the state, a host of broadband-related bills were introduced in the state Legislature.
The measures broadly aim to increase broadband networks’ accessibility, either by allowing infrastructure to be built more quickly or by requiring providers to make networks more easily available.
Burt Lum, broadband strategy officer for the Hawaii Broadband and Digital Equity Office, said he is monitoring the bills. He said many of them would help fill holes in the state’s “middle-mile” infrastructure — the pieces of the network connecting local and global networks.
One of those bills, Senate Bill 2173, would allow an electric utility — in this case, Hawaiian Electric — to own, operate, build and maintain broadband facilities itself, which Lum said would greatly speed up the expansion of network accessibility.
Under the bill, he said, Hawaiian Electric would be able to build out broadband infrastructure using the same land easements it already uses to install its electric network.
Under SB 2173, Hawaiian Electric would be able to build middle-mile infrastructure, which could be funded through a separate bill, SB 2981, which allocates an unspecified amount of money to expand “dark fiber telecommunications.”
Dark fiber, Lum explained, is part of a fiber network that has not yet been put into use by a service provider, and would allow it to expand to underserved areas more cheaply than if it had to build all the infrastructure itself.
Another pair of bills, SB 2213 and SB 2886, would require broadband providers to disclose to the Broadband and Digital Equity Office data and analytics about where and how much their services are utilized.
Lum said this data is essential for the state to determine which areas are underserved, although he added that, as currently written, SB 2886 does not allocate funds to the office to collect that data.
“We can’t do that for free!” Lum said.
Yet another bill, SB 2479, would require all public housing projects built after the start of next year to include all necessary infrastructure for broadband access.
“In the past, when buildings got built, the developers would contract with providers to run the cables and infrastructure after the building was done, but the providers always got exclusivity, which was not great,” Lum said. “If the provider asked for more than the general budget of what the tenants could afford, then (the tenants) didn’t have any other option.”
Lum said SB 2479 would have that infrastructure built as part of the building development, with providers merely taking over the network, which should allow more competition and greater price flexibility.
Other bills include House Bill 1418, which provides further definitions for the duties of the Broadband and Digital Equity Office, and House Bill 1892, which would “require the Department of Health to provide to elderly residents free wireless broadband internet access in parking lots adjoining Department of Health buildings in each county.”
Lum was skeptical of the value of the latter bill.
During a livestreamed interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Wednesday, Ige said broadband providers currently are limited by simple supply-and-demand economics: “The providers are providing services to the communities where they have a lot of customers,” which precludes more rural areas such as Hawaiian Ocean View Estates.
By offering $400 million in financial incentives, Ige said he hopes to bring fiber internet to every island in the state and broadband to “every corner of every island.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.