Cablefax The Magazine May 2022 - 59

Do a lot of non-adopters rely on smartphones and
feel like that's enough to cover what they need?
Jonathan: At the beginning of the pandemic, we would work with
schools to find out what their broadband need was and we discovered
a lot of their questionnaires to parents weren't worded in a way
that was effective. They would ask things like, " do you get internet
access at home? " and parents would answer yes if they had a cell
phone. There's a big problem in communicating that a cell phone's
internet isn't sufficient to meet your students' needs in some cases.
Broderick: You have to break it down to real-life examples. A parent
whose child is relying on a smartphone to write his or her essays
or to apply for college-is that going to allow your child to compete
with a child like ours, who has several laptops at home? These
disparities have existed for a long time. We can bridge them.
On partnerships, schools and community
organizations were mentioned. Are there any
surprises in terms of who has made a good
partner?
Catherine: One thing we've learned is that the determining factor
for how quickly an unserved area can get service is the pole owner.
The time it takes to get permission to attach our wire to the pole
can be anywhere from weeks to years. We have created some great
partnerships with pole owners, where they are excited to have
broadband come in, and we've gotten those permits quickly.
Jeff: In New York, which is a public-private partnership with the
state, we agreed to build 4,000 miles of plant in the Southern Tier
in very rural areas. The biggest issue, and it cost us probably close
to a couple years, was the pole owners. I don't necessarily want to
defend them too much, but they had aging infrastructure and were
probably investing where they got the biggest return. So they didn't
see the need to invest in these rural areas. That's the biggest thing
that will slow this down. Under the infrastructure law, the power
companies got a lot a lot of money. As an industry, we need to make
sure that they are investing in and caring for plant in these rural
areas to help expedite broadband.
Jonathan: Some of the ElectriCities and the co-ops, which in the
Southeast represents a pretty sizable portion of households, have
worked with us very well. They see in their communities that it's tied
to their neighbors getting broadband.
Catherine: Yes, we have had some really great partnerships. We've
already lit up areas for RDOF that we don't have to build for six
years or so because some pole owners are really great partners. I
don't want to paint them all with a broad brush.
Jeff: We, too, have worked directly with some cooperatives that
have actually brought us in and said, " How can we do this together? "
I think it's going back to what was said earlier, about the
community being involved.
On the infrastructure side, as we wait for the NTIA
rules around BEAD funding, what's your wish list?
Colleen: Our goal is to have everyone accountable for making sure
that those who want to have access get it. For Cox, it's really around
having broadband mapping to make sure that we're all focused on
the unserved and underserved.
Catherine: And the mapping needs to not just be about where
broadband is now, but to also include areas where there are state or
federal subsidies to provide or to build in an area-there's a binding
commitment to build that area. If you don't count that, you're not
going to have enough money to reach all the unserved areas.
Jonathan: I just hope the states don't lean into non-permanent
infrastructure solutions that won't solve the problem, or lean toward
programs where you get a low-cost wireless or WISP-type solution
that's taking up a lot of money that could have been solved with real
infrastructure.
Any note we should leave on?
Colleen: During COVID when I couldn't go out into the markets,
people were sending me a lot of pictures. One was of a little boy
from rural Kansas whose mother sent us a picture of him standing
on top of a hay bale. They had spray-painted on the hay: " Thank
you, Cox. " Any kid who grows up in a city doesn't know the importance
of broadband. But for that little boy, he was standing on top of
that hay bale with his arms in the air like he was Superman. I think
it's important for all of us on this call to realize the importance and
the impact we can make on an individual level. ■
Amy Maclean
Cablefax
Jonathan Bullock
Hotwire
Broderick Johnson
Comcast
Catherine Bohigian
Charter
Colleen Langner
Cox
Jeff Ross
Armstrong
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