In the fourth installment of ITIF’s Access America series, Jess talks to Brian Allenby, program operations and communications director for the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), about the state’s progress on BEAD and the challenge of serving rugged and remote communities.

Mentioned in This Episode

▪ National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, May 2022).

▪ Maine Connectivity Authority, “Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program” (Augusta, ME: Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, September 2023).

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Jessica Dine:

Hi, thanks for joining. I’m Jessica Dine, a policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which is a think tank focused on the intersection of technology and public policy. This is Access America. It’s a webinar series where we break down some aspects of one of the most relevant pieces of broadband policy today, the BEAD Program. Now, some brief background. The BEAD, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program is a $42.45 billion program led by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration or NTIA, whose goal it is to expand digital access to everybody in all US states and territories.

Right now, BEAD is in the very early stages of implementation. States and territories are currently submitting written plans that are detailing exactly how they intend to spend the funds. And then once those plans, the initial proposals, are approved by NTIA, they can start selecting internet service providers or ISPs, the ones who are actually going to be doing the deployment, as subgrantees. These plans that states are submitting must address all of the programmatic requirements laid out by NTIA as requirements for receiving those BEAD funds. So they’re very complex, they include a lot. They’ve got to include a lot of details and advanced planning to make the most of the funding that each state’s been allocated. Today we’re going to be talking to Brian Allenby, who is the Program Operations and Communications Director of the Maine Connectivity Authority. Brian, thank you for being here.

Brian Allenby:

Thanks so much for having me, Jessica. Happy to be here.

Jessica Dine:

Yeah, absolutely. In Brian’s role, he’s very involved with the nitty-gritty of implementing and preparing for the BEAD Program and from the perspective of Maine’s State Broadband Office. So I’m really excited for us to be able to hear from him, and I think we’re going to get some great insights. So Brian, if you’re ready, I’d love to get started.

Brian Allenby:

Let’s do it.

Jessica Dine:

I’ve read Maine’s initial proposal, and I think one thing that you did was you did a really good job combining BEAD and a digital equity intensive approach. And BEAD is obviously mostly a deployment program, there’s room for equity, but it is in name and it is fundamentally about expanding deployment. So I’m always very excited to see elements of digital equity interwoven through it. Can you just tell me what that combined approach has looked like for you and why you have decided to approach it from that angle?

Brian Allenby:

Yeah, that’s a great question, Jessica, and we say you really can’t have one without the other. All the way back to when we first saw the Notice of Funding Opportunity’s, the NOFOs, come out for BEAD and for the Digital Equity Act, realized that the planning processes were really taking place concurrently. And it was a great opportunity for the State of Maine, especially in a state where the ecosystem just isn’t that big, and a lot of the folks who we’d be talking to through the lens of BEAD, planning activities, would be the same folks who’d be talking through for digital equity. And we said, this is just such an amazing opportunity to have all of these conversations at once and to not bifurcate it and to really integrate.

So from the beginning the plan was to develop both the Digital Equity and our Broadband Action Plan together. And so all of the outreach, all of the surveying, all of the public engagement, all of the comment sessions, all of those were done collectively in an integrated fashion. And it really, I think at the end of the day, what it resulted with was a Digital Equity Plan that was informed by, that certainly could point to really specifics around the needs around access and the access to digital infrastructure that will be enabled through BEAD, and a BEAD plan that spoke to not just providing that access to that infrastructure, but all of the accompanying digital equity elements, digital skills, devices, affordability that are really necessary to make the most of the investment through BEAD.

Jessica Dine:

No, that makes a lot of sense. I think we’re exactly on the same page there. It’s about connectivity and that’s got to involve deployment with an equity-based approach, with focus on getting people to actually adopt the broadband network once it’s there, all of that. Also, that is a good point that the people who are going to be asked to provide input, it’s nice to be able to only ask them once and then have that input taken into account in multiple plans. So thanks, that’s helpful. I have also seen that Maine’s been great about building collaborative structures that take into account the fact that broadband’s multifaceted. It’s more than just infrastructure; it pervades every aspect of our lives. So I know you’ve got a broadband working group, and then on digital equity you’ve got a Digital Equity Task Force, I think. Could you talk a little bit about those and what they look like and what their role is?

Brian Allenby:

Yes.

Jessica Dine:

Thank you.

Brian Allenby:

Yeah, so both of those groups, we convened those groups leading into the planning process. And so it was with a bit of foresight, looked ahead of the planning processes and knew that we were going to have to pull a lot of different stakeholders together through a lot of different channels. Specifically on the broadband working group, there’s so many other good state agencies working in Maine already, whether it’s MaineDOT or Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Maine Department of Economic Community Development, these are partners of ours. And so convening the broadband working group to hear and understand and be able to integrate their need for broadband and digital equity across the state and make sure that that’s reflected in our planning was crucial for us, and we’ll continue to partner with them as we look at the deployment of the funds.

And you’ll see it, if you look at our BEAD initial proposal volume two, where we outlined some of the non-deployment activities that we proposed getting to after those un and underserved locations are funded and after we address community anchor institutions, we actually go right back to some of those organizations that are in the broadband working group with additional funding to continue those partnerships. So the BEAD Program gives us, we hope we can get there, we don’t know exactly how the funding will net out, but we’re very hopeful that we can continue that really positive relationship on the broadband working group.

On the Digital Equity Task Force side, that was one of the first groups we convened and I want to give full credit to Maggie Drummond-Bahl and Jessica Perez, and the folks who really drive that on our team. It was one of the first groups we convened, and it’s actually in the process of transitioning to a Digital Equity Coalition. So it’s been primarily driven by MCA with certainly a ton of collaboration from amazing partners around the state, but really trying to look at the longevity of that and ensure that it isn’t just an MCA initiative, but that it’s really a statewide initiative. And there’s so many folks working directly with covered populations or working on digital equity as a whole who have played a role and I think can continue to play an increasing leadership role in driving that forward.

Jessica Dine:

Got it. So out of curiosity, the Digital Equity Task Force or now transitioning to Coalition, what has traditionally been the role? Are they directly providing feedback and input? Are they a go-between between the state office and local communities? How are they working?

Brian Allenby:

I would say all of the above. In some cases, there are folks in the state, Susan Corbett and the National Digital Equity Center has been here long before MCA has, and Susan and her team at NDEC are doing amazing work training digital navigators that are working throughout communities and regions around the state. Some of the members of the task force have really helped us, especially in the planning process, connect with those specific covered populations who we’re working to address through the Digital Equity Act and Digital Equity Plan. And so they do specific work, whether it’s through veterans organization or other types of covered populations. So everybody plays a slightly different role. Some of those other partners were also critical in developing regional digital equity plans around the state that we then roll up to the state’s first statewide Digital Equity Plan.

Jessica Dine:

Okay. You just transitioned perfectly to my next question. Maine has also been really good about promoting regional broadband plans, activity, just all of that. I’d love to hear how you go about that and just how that whole process works for you. I know you have regional broadband organizations that help convene those partnerships at the local level.

Brian Allenby:

We do. We have Regional & Tribal Broadband Partners. So this was another program that we set up and it’s funded through some of our initial ARPA funding, American Rescue Plan funding, so the state and local fiscal recovery funds. It was one of our first awards starting a few years ago. So identifying those organizations in a region, and the regions are loosely county based or a couple of counties, but trying to make it both large enough so that there’s scale and impact, but also small enough so that they can really focus on the folks who they’re serving in their region, and then also tribal representatives as well so that we can have their voice at the table.

And so the Regional Tribal Broadband Partners were convened as a working group to share information at what was happening at that local level. There’s a history of municipally and community-driven broadband in Maine, and so to help try to start rolling those up beyond just an individual community, but to start helping those communities communicate with each other, maybe build a project out across a few communities or a region. Regional Tribal Broadband Partners were also critical in our broadband planning efforts, both for the DE plan and for the B planning, because they helped convene a lot of the focus groups and do a lot of that outreach at that in-between level.

Jessica Dine:

Got it. And are these the groups that would also be trying to foster relationships between private ISPs who might be applying for BEAD and communities? Because I’ve heard from a lot of people that’s so important, beginning the relationship ahead of time and trying to just start that up.

Brian Allenby:

In some cases, yes. Every regional and tribal partner’s a little bit different in their approach and their relationship with the communities in their region. Certainly some have very active relationships with providers and helping those providers connect with communities. Some of the original tribal partners are looking at connectivity at a county-wide level, and so it becomes almost a county initiative as opposed to a state or local initiative. So the roles really vary, and what we’ve tried to do is create a framework where they can plug in and we can help provide them with the baseline resources and help connect them with each other, but at the same time help them identify what it is they need to do in their region to be most impactful.

Jessica Dine:

So on supplying them with resources, I know you’ve created a knowledge repository that’s meant to help empower communities with the different knowledge that they’re going to need. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Brian Allenby:

Sure. So we’ve started our Resource Exchange, and I will note the first module that’s been created is really to help support the BEAD state-led challenge process. So that’s what exists right now. We do have plans to use that existing framework and that structure to support things like provide back-end support for municipally owned networks. Once a community and an ISP partner together, what does it look like two years down the road, five years down the road as municipalities continue to operate those networks?

And also even around areas like affordability and other key areas where we know there’s a ton of resources out there, and it’s really a matter of organizing them and really helping, whether it’s an individual or an organization or a provider, walk through a process and really gain an understanding of how they can plug in. So the Resource Exchange, a living resource on our website right now, and it’s been a really fun process to start going through with the statewide challenge process for BEAD, which there’s so much content there. It was a great place to get started on it, and it helped us wrap our heads around what organizing content and resources in a useful, helpful way would look like.

Jessica Dine:

Great. Now, we have got a few minutes left. I’d actually like to shift gears a little bit and turn to tech neutrality. And now tech neutrality is this idea that we’ve got to use all of the technologies on the table if we really want to connect everyone. And I know that Maine has taken an approach that is pretty creative, that’s called the Jumpstart Initiative. So could you talk a little bit about that and I guess how that’s playing into what you’re doing with BEAD?

Brian Allenby:

Sure. From the beginning, Maine is a rural state, and as our president, the MCA’s president, Andrew [inaudible 00:12:47] says, we are a big state with not a lot of people. And this is all relative because this is East Coast big with not a lot of people. And I was just at a conference with a bunch of West Coast people, and it’s a whole other scale out there, but the terrain, the topography, what Maine is made of does not necessarily lend itself to running fiber all over the entire state, especially given the remote nature of some of these locations and just the lack of density. And so as we look at investments like BEAD or our American Rescue Plan funding, really have to be thoughtful about how do we make the most of that to ensure that everybody has an option for connectivity? We work hard to maximize where that option is fiber, while also recognizing that at some point that’s not practical to all the locations in Maine, just given the extremely remote nature of them and the extremely high cost of doing so.

What we’ve heard from some providers is even if MCA were to fully subsidize the cost of deploying the infrastructure upfront, the capital expenditure, it still would never make sense from an operational expenditure side of things because it’s so expensive to maintain a network when there’s one person per route mile or one person per every two route miles. So we started looking at alternative technologies. The Jumpstart program was one of our first grant programs and focused mostly on fixed wireless access, different fixed wireless technologies. So it was really a pilot program and tried to get a sense of what does relative cost look like as opposed to a wireline deployment? What does speed of deployment look like and what are some other factors that we might not be thinking about as we take alternative technologies into account? We have three projects that are underway, almost completed on a few of those.

And so I think we’ve had some great learning opportunities along the way, started establishing some great partnerships with some of those fixed wireless providers. And I’m hopeful we’ll really create the foundation for how we look at alternative technologies through BEAD and otherwise across the state, because I think there’s a lot to be said, not only for providing cost-effective technology, but really when we start looking at Maine, in the state, if we look at climate change and the impact, looking at resiliency and redundancy of networks. And so I think things like fixed wireless and even LEO satellite really can compliment wireline and they can actually work together pretty well when we start looking at ways to ensure consistent connectivity.

Jessica Dine:

That’s a really great point and a good way of looking at it. We’re just coming up on time, so I think we’re actually going to have to stop here. But thank you, Brian. This has been great. And for our audience, if you liked what you heard today, please feel free to check back on ITIF’s Access America page where we’re regularly putting out episodes, honing in on specific elements of BEAD. Thanks and have a nice day.