08/06/2020
Broadband Master Planning for a Municipality/Community
The broadband master planning process revolves around what a community wants to accomplish regarding broadband. The first step is to identify local leadership (often referred to as the “champion”) that has broad enough support to make meaningful gains toward fiber goals. If there isn’t powerful local leadership and support, an outside entity can’t make a broadband master plan come to fruition. Local leadership can come from several sources, including cities, counties, volunteer committees, municipal utilities, or some combination. Which group emerges as a leader is based on local relationships and the group’s knowledge and function within the community. It’s important that local leaders belong to entities that will be involved in implementation of a broadband master plan or have strong support from those who will. I have seen champions unable to accomplish action steps because the people tasked with implementation either don’t know how to do what needs to be done or don’t have the capacity to do it.
Next, champions must ask questions to develop community broadband goals. Questions may include the following:
∙Does the community have inadequate broadband because of a lack of providers?
∙Does the community need more providers to have better competition?
∙Does the community have a connectivity imbalance (some well-served areas and others that are underserved)?
∙Is telecommunications infrastructure construction (or moving) causing problems in other infrastructure projects?
∙Is getting broadband to new developments, residents or businesses difficult?
∙Is the community running out of rights of way in any road segments?
∙Does the community have a good relationship with telecommunications providers, or are there difficult relationships with some or all in that industry?
∙If a new network is needed, what role does the community want to have in building it (P3, build as dark, build as open access, build and operate, etc.)?
If champions don’t know answers to these questions or are not clear on the depth of community concerns, there are ways to gather data. Commonly used options include hosting stakeholder meetings, issuing surveys, and soliciting input from city departments. To formulate goals and to reach a consensus on those goals and the steps to address them, it is important to have good data and a collaborative process.
A new horizon of smart buildings and cities is ahead of us.
