Rural broadband access takes center stage in Philomath

The administrator of the Rural Utilities Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture sat down with local and regional broadband providers, county commissioners and economic development organizations in Philomath Thursday afternoon to discuss challenges and opportunities of high-speed internet expansion in rural Oregon.

Andrew Berke, who was appointed to the position by President Biden in October 2022, said his travels in Oregon have taken him to many beautiful places, including stretches with few houses. Berke started the day in Portland and said Philomath was maybe his third or fourth stop.

“Each of those places have different issues that prevent them from getting high-speed internet,” he said. “As part of this listening that we did today, I can take back to Washington some of the peculiar challenges that this area is facing and make sure that we can solve them going forward.”

The USDA is providing $9.7 million to help 24 organizations deliver or receive technical assistance to expand high-speed internet access for people in rural and tribal communities across 17 states, including Oregon. The funding was also designed to develop and expand broadband cooperatives in rural areas.

Berke said a $500,000 grant was awarded to Oregon-based Rural Prosperity Partners to provide technical assistance.

“In the bipartisan infrastructure law, there was $65 billion set aside to ensure that every American has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet,” Berke said. “When we say every American, we actually mean every American and so there is an effort across the federal government under the president’s leadership to ensure that we don’t miss anything. As part of that, we use some of those bipartisan infrastructure law funds to go to an Oregon entity that will help small rural communities apply for this funding.”

Rachael Maddock-Hughes, Rural Prosperity Partners chief executive officer, said her company focuses on helping small communities secure state and federal funding to launch new projects. Broadband encompasses a major portion of that work.

“With COVID, we all realized how essential broadband was and especially, it’s essential for the future of rural communities to be thriving,” Maddock-Hughes said. “Like here in Philomath, we’re losing all the jobs (at Interfor) — what is it being replaced with? Well, if we have high connectivity, you have opportunities to have folks who are telecommuting, you have opportunities for new businesses, etc.”

Maddock-Hughes said the broadband technical assistance grant’s first project participants will include Philomath-based Alyrica Networks, which is where the roundtable discussion took place, along with Beacon Broadband in Coos County and Warm Springs Telecom, a tribal entity north of Bend.

“We get to roll it out here in Oregon and we’re super excited to do this,” she said. “Our goal is to really connect rural Oregon so that they can benefit from the economic, social health and educational benefits that broadband provides.

Berke said the federal grant application process can be very complex.

“You’re talking about building fiber optics networks throughout some of the most challenging topographies and least dense areas in the United States and these entities may be very small and have never sought federal funding before,” Berke said. “We want them to be successful; we want to ensure that they have the best chance of serving their customers. And so technical assistance allows them to put together an application that is most likely to result in fiber in the ground sometime in the future.”

Berke, who was a Tennessee state senator from 2007-12 and mayor of Chattanooga from 2013-21, served as a special representative for broadband at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce prior to his USDA appointment.

Lisa Norton, of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and Rod Cross, Toledo’s mayor, were both vocal about challenges in their respective situations during the roundtable discussion.

A few others at the table were Margi Hoffman and Jill Rees, of USDA Rural Development in Oregon, and county commissioners Pat Malone (Benton County), Will Tucker (Linn County) and Doug Olson (Tillamook County). Scott Muller of Peak Internet and Consumers Power, and James Rennard of Pioneer Connect were among those who participated as well.

Malone said the discussion was good to learn more about the people involved and that there are those who care about getting things done.

“I think this is a little bit of a unique opportunity,” Malone said. “There’s money and you can’t say, well, we missed this boat, we’ll catch the next one. There may not be a next one and so get your project defined and in the queue and push on.”

High-speed internet access to rural areas of Benton County have been a major topic of discussion for commissioners.

“We went on a tour with Congresswoman Val Hoyle this morning to highlight a couple of projects she got funding for and one was the Monroe Health Clinic for a new building and almost a million dollars for better communications for law enforcement,” Malone said. “It’s the same thing (with rural broadband) — eliminate dead spots, eliminate areas where you don’t have communication. Different system but the same idea.”