OPINION: Better rural Alaska broadband is within reach

At last, rural Alaskans have a chance to get good broadband service. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden last November, may soon make it possible. The new law appropriates more than $64 billion to build new nationwide broadband infrastructure. But to make it work for our state, we will have to do a few things right.

Decades ago, a few folks successfully brought telecommunication service — radio, television and telephone — to Alaska’s villages. But that was the telecommunication service of the 20th century. Now many years later, high-speed internet service, also known as “broadband,” is here, and for most Alaskans it has become a necessity. It is something we all need, but many residents of Alaska’s villages still do not have adequate service.

The broadband portion of the new infrastructure law will be implemented primarily by two federal agencies. The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, is creating a map of all U.S. states and territories, showing the locations that have inadequate broadband service. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will be responsible for distributing most of the broadband money to the states, and each state’s allocation will be based on the FCC maps. Both federal agencies are working on their tasks, and they still have a lot to do.

But our own state government has a vital role to play. The new law requires each state to have a broadband office that can use its share of the federal money to make grants to the companies and other organizations that will build the new broadband infrastructure. Alaska has not had such an office for many years, but one will be newly created within the Alaska Department of Commerce Community and Economic Development, aka DCCED, by HB 363, recently passed by the Alaska Legislature and expected to soon be signed into law by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. DCCED is already actively working to set up the new office, but a big task lies ahead. The new broadband office will need to work closely with NTIA to make grants to entities submitting proposals.

Using the infrastructure money effectively and wisely will require a well-informed, careful, and thoughtful approach. The staff of the new broadband office will need to choose wisely from among the many grant proposals they will inevitably receive. They will need to be sure that applicants have the technical expertise, financial ability and management ability to build the systems they propose. They will also need to be sure that their proposed technologies are appropriate for their intended service areas. In other words, to be successful, the broadband office will need to make grant decisions based strictly on the technical, financial and management merits of the proposed projects.

Internet users can benefit from the new broadband infrastructure money only if all agencies involved — federal and state — do their jobs well. Most important in Alaska will be the performance of our state broadband office.

Alex Hills, in his book “Finding Alaska’s Villages: And Connecting Them,” described the work that he and others did decades ago to build the rural Alaska telecommunication system. He served under Gov. Jay Hammond as Deputy Commissioner of Administration and Alaska’s chief telecommunications official and later led the team that built the world’s first big Wi-Fi network. A 52-year Alaskan with 17 patents, Alex is Distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and he continues to work on developing innovative new technologies.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.