 |
Amid the mad dash to
develop fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies, Shirley Bloomfield likes
to remind people that vast swaths of America have other hurdles to clear
first. “As everybody ...
thehill.com
|
Helping rural areas get
connected
© Greg Nash
Amid the mad dash to
develop fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies, Shirley Bloomfield likes
to remind people that vast swaths of America have other hurdles to clear first.
“As everybody gets super
excited about 5G ... we just tell them in rural America we’re still waiting for
1G in some areas,” the CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association told The
Hill in a recent interview.
Throughout her time at
the trade association, where she represents more than 850 community-based
telecommunications companies across the country, Bloomfield has only seen the
interest in getting rural areas connected grow.
“It’s so funny to me
because I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s like when you’re the ugly
stepchild and then suddenly you’re the belle of the ball and people actually
want to talk about this stuff, which is really cool and gratifying,” she said.
Bloomfield was driven to
move to Washington, D.C., after working in the private sector briefly
post-college by a passion for policy.
That passion landed her
a staff job on the House Budget Committee, where she got exposure to a broad
slate of issues.
She was eventually hired
by NTCA to be a part of its policy shop.
After roughly 20 years
of representing carriers, she took another stint in the private sector but
found herself raring to come back to NTCA.
When the top job at the
association opened in 2010, she called the headhunter charged with finding a
successor immediately.
“I said, ‘That is my
job, I’m coming back.’ She of course thought I was probably a lunatic,”
Bloomfield told The Hill.
“I missed these guys,”
she said. “The carriers I represent are so committed to what they do. Because
they’re small, they’re really innovative, they try stuff ... their spirit of
service really resonated with me.”
Larger
telecommunications companies service approximately 130 customers per square
mile, while NTCA member companies’ customer density is only around seven per
square mile.
In her nearly 10 years
as CEO of NTCA, Bloomfield has worked tirelessly to help position member
companies to improve and grow their coverage.
Much of that work
involves facilitating a given company’s access to the handful of government
grants and repayment programs set up for rural broadband.
“It’s kind of my job —
connector,” Bloomfield said.
One of those programs is
the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
The program, approved
earlier this year, creates a fund of more than $20 billion for cooperatives,
satellite operators and other telecom companies to compete for in order to
connect unserved areas across the country. Many of the companies that NTCA
represents could get significant windfall from the fund, which is set to have
its first auction in October.
“I think this program
really has the capability to come in and start filling in those gaps,”
Bloomfield said.
Another key program for
expanding rural connectivity is the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ReConnect
Program, which was authorized by Congress in 2018.
The program allocates
funds for internet providers in low population density programs but has come
under criticism for not doling out enough.
“My biggest frustration
with these programs is I think we’re aiming really low,” Bloomfield said.
Some of her concerns are
shared by lawmakers. Last month, nine senators led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
wrote a letter to the USDA demanding it extend more funding to rural
communities. The lawmakers criticized a restriction where companies that have
received funding from the FCC are not eligible for ReConnect.
“This USDA-imposed
restriction — which is not required by law — prevents rural communities across
the country from receiving their share of over $500 million in federal funding
for high-speed broadband, which is vital to reducing the digital divide and
harnessing important opportunities in telemedicine and online education, and
the high-paying jobs that come with them,” they wrote.
On the other side of the
equation, Bloomfield also tries to increase awareness with key officials of the
nature of the problems holding back rural America from getting connected. She
connects FCC commissioners, lawmakers and other relevant parties with rural
providers to get a better sense of what they’re doing.
“It’s pretty sobering to
have people realize what distance really means in terms of providing
broadband,” Bloomfield said.
One of the myths that
Bloomfield tries to dispel by bringing officials out to her providers is that
there is a stark divide between service penetration and quality between rural
and urban areas, when the truth is that some rural regions lag far behind
others.
“One of the things that
people immediately default to is this whole sense of that there is a
rural-urban divide,” she explained. “But what we really find in our experience
is that it’s a rural-rural divide.”
Bloomfield’s argument is
that large providers focus their energy on urban areas because they’re more
competitive, a strategy she acknowledges is fair, but it means less densely
populated areas covered by the biggest suppliers suffer.
By contrast, the
companies that NTCA works with are “providing service to their neighbors.”
Telecom cooperatives in
particular, which are owned by the communities they operate in, “are not there
to make money.”
“They are there to
provide this service,” Bloomfield said. According to NTCA, telecom cooperatives
serve less than 5 percent of the country’s subscribers, but cover 40 percent of
the nation’s landmass.
Bloomfield said
lawmakers and agency officials are receptive to her arguments about the
rural-urban coverage divide “when they see it.”
“I think in this town
you’ve just got to have a passion for what you do,” she said, sharing a story
about a company that provided a Veteran Affairs clinic in Vermont with
telemedicine services.
“I have the luxury of
being able to see those things happen, which then comes back and makes me more
motivated.”
Tags Ron Wyden
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