State’s new broadband boss says satellite is ‘significant’ in getting New Mexico 100% connected

By PATRICK LOHMANN
Courtesy of Source NM

A plow lays fiber directly behind it in the Ramah Chapter of the Navajo Nation in an undated photo. While the state has invested heavily in fiber for internet connectivity, the state’s broadband office director said told a legislative committee Monday that satellite internet could be a “significant” part of the puzzle as it seeks 100% connectivity. (Photo courtesy Jeff Lopez’s legislative presentation)

Even with federal changes to a huge funding stream for New Mexico, 90% of the state has access to high-speed internet, and contracts will be in place for the last 10% by the end of next year, the new leader of a state broadband office said Monday. 

And to get over the finish line, satellite internet is a “significant part of the picture,” said Jeff Lopez, who is beginning his eighth week in charge of the New Mexico Broadband Access and Expansion Office. Lopez was speaking to state lawmakers on the interim Economic and Rural Development committee. 

“We are still ‘fiber first,” Lopez said. “We’re focusing on areas that are financially prudent for that fiber connectivity, but low-Earth orbit satellites are going to be part of the picture, again, of meeting that commitment by the end of 2026.”

​Roughly 90,000 New Mexico locations are “unserved” or “underserved” in terms of broadband access, according to Lopez’s presentation. “Unserved” households have download speeds of less than 25 megabits a second, while “underserved” have download speeds between 25 megabits a second and 100 megabits a second. A household of four with a 100-megabit download speed could stream videos, work remotely and have video calls like for telemedicine, “but not necessarily all at once,” Lopez said. 

The extent to which New Mexico’s internet connectivity plans include satellite, has been an open question amid federal changes to an infrastructure spending bill passed during President Joe Biden’s term.Also, during the legislative session earlier this year, as Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency was firing federal workers and dismantling  federal programs, state lawmakers removed $70 million for satellite internet in the state budget that the previous broadband director said would likely have gone directly to Musk’s company satellite internet company Starlink. That funding cut does not affect the office’s timeline. 

Satellite internet companies can provide access in rural areas and those where overlapping jurisdictions or topographical features make it difficult and expensive to bury fiber lines Lopez said. But he also said fiber is “future proof” because it’s a largely permanent installation safely underground

“We still believe that [fiber] is the best connectivity that money can buy, but it’s often much more expensive than alternatives,” he said.

Satellite, on the other hand, is not as resilient to natural disasters, he said, and the technology isn’t “fully fleshed out yet.”

​“It makes sense in areas with open skies, but we also have a lot of communities along waterways and valleys, along bosques, whether it’s tree coverage or just a mesa or a mountain in the way, that can also impede some of the access,” he said. 

Biden’s infrastructure bill created the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program to oversee billions of dollars in internet connectivity spending. The state broadband office successfully qualified for $675 million of it and, Lopez said, was in the final steps last month of awarding sub-grantees the funding. 

But in early June, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced rule changes to the program that leaders said were aimed at reducing regulatory burdens and ensuring that all broadband technologies had equal footing when competing for the funds. 

The change toward “technology neutrality” meant the removal of “previous restrictions that favored fiber deployments,” according to a news release from the broadband office in early July. In addition to giving satellite a better shot at the funding, the rule change required all potential recipients of the funding to submit a new round of applications “regardless of where the state was in its sub-grantee selection process,” according to the news release. 

Two satellite companies have put in bids for the federal broadband  funding, Lopez said Monday. He declined to name which companies are seeking the funding.

“But you might be able to guess,” Lopez told lawmakers.

According to the state Broadband Office’s application page for the federal money, SpaceX, which provides Starlink, is one of a handful of “prequalified applicants” awarded that status after the recent rule change.* Another satellite provider previously “prequalified” is Amazon Kuiper, according to the office’s website.

*Correction Aug. 12 at 10:03 a.m.: This story has been updated to correctly reflect that Amazon Kuiper, another satellite internet provider, is also on the list of “prequalified” applicants, along with SpaceX’s Starlink.