The Mississippi House of Representatives passed two bills that would improve access in rural areas to broadband services on Tuesday, including one that would create a broadband grant program and another that would allow the state’s investor-owned utilities to lease their unused fiber capacity to third-party providers.
House Bill 942, which was authored by state Rep. Scott Bounds, R-Philadelphia, would allow Entergy and Mississippi Power to use their power delivery infrastructure to get broadband service to unserved or underserved areas by leasing it to broadband providers. The bill passed 120-1 and is now in the hands of the state Senate.
“I think this is good broadband policy,” Bounds said. “This fiber is used for communication from substation to headquarters, things like that. In this capacity, they have unused fiber capacity which we all know is the standard for speed and reliability in broadband transmission. I know they have lessors that are chomping at the bit to do it (lease their unused fiber capacity).”
HB 505, also authored by state Rep. Bounds, would create a broadband accessibility grant program that would be administered by the Public Utilities Staff, a separate but advisory agency to the elected Public Service Commission. Grants would be for unserved areas and would either cover 35 percent of a project’s cost or $1.5 million, whichever is lesser. That bill passed the House immediately after debate on HB 942 and passed by a 113-5 margin.
Bounds told the House the end goal for the investor-owned utilities is not to get into the broadband market, but to lease their unused fiber capacity to a third party such as a telephone or cable company.
Under HB 505, grant recipients would have two years to build out the infrastructure, which could be used for unserved areas, middle-mile projects that connect other service providers eligible for grants from the program and connections to specific hospitals, public schools, public safety office or economic development site in a ural area.
HB 942 says that if a utility leases its fiber-optic infrastructure or enhanced grid to one broadband provider, it must allow other providers to use the infrastructure as well on a non-discriminatory basis.
The two utilities would be prohibited from allowing any use of its grid to diminish the reliability of its electricity delivery and ratepayers would not be forced to buy broadband services from the provider using the utility’s infrastructure. Also, a ratepayer whose broadband bill goes overdue will not have their electricity shut down for non-payment.
Similar protections were incorporated into legislation passed last year that allows non-profit electric power associations to partner with a broadband provider to extend broadband service to their customers.
In addition, utilities and the electric power associations around the state would be allowed to grant permission to a customer who uses more than 20 megawatts of electricity to construct, install and maintain fiber optic cable on the utility’s existing right of way.
Utilities could charge ratepayers for right-of-way acquisition through rate hikes, but all revenue generated by an arrangement with a broadband provider would have to be credited back to customers.
Such arrangements would not be unprecedented but have already been done in some test projects statewide.
Entergy and C Spire have already completed an $11 million fiber project that spans 300 miles and connects 15 counties. C Spire is already working on a similar arrangement in Alabama with Alabama Power, Mississippi Power’s sister subsidiary in the Southern Company.
