See article on Crain’s Detroit here.
Experts in the field of broadband internet access say they see a point in the not-too-distant future in which the state’s so-called “digital divide” has largely been bridged.
But that moment, when it happens, is far from the end of the work.
With nearly one-third, or about 1.25 million Michigan households, lacking a permanent, fixed internet connection at home, experts say the expected money from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed last summer — likely upwards of $1 billion for Michigan alone for broadband connectivity — will go a long way toward bringing that number down.
But the physical infrastructure is just one piece of the puzzle, according to Eric Frederick, executive director of the nonprofit Connected Nation Michigan, an advocacy organization for broadband access around the state. Addressing more systemic issues, such as internet affordability for lower-income households and teaching digital literacy will remain challenges for years to come.
“Infrastructure is not an easy thing to solve,” said Frederick. “But it’s a lot more black and white than the issues of affordability and devices and digital literacy. Like, those are just much messier to solve.”
Indeed, Joshua Edmonds, the director of digital inclusion for the city of Detroit, notes that the digital divide is not monolithic and that the issue of connectivity is different in a rural part of the state compared to a city like Detroit, where upwards of 35 percent of the population lives in poverty.
“I’m not having a conversation about the metaverse with a (Detroit) resident coming home to (low-speed) DSL internet,” said Edmonds, referring to the emerging immersive virtual reality technology.
The ultimate goal for Detroit, Edmonds said, is to address some of those systemic issues through a municipally owned fiber internet infrastructure the city plans to develop in the coming years with federal relief dollars.
Much of that work remains in the planning stages, said Edmonds, who noted the city would not operate the utility.
Edmonds declined to provide a cost for the proposal at this time, saying those details would be further outlined in the coming months, but said he believes there will be a pilot program up and running later this year.
Defining the problem
The Michigan Broadband Roadmap, done by the state’s Office of High Speed Internet and released last year, lays out the issue of the lack of connectivity in fairly stark terms:
- Nearly 35 percent of households earning less than $20,000 annually (197,000) do not have a broadband connection.
- More than 22 percent of residents age 65 and older (395,000) do not have broadband at home.
- Black and Latino Michiganders are nearly half as likely to have a home broadband connection than non-Black or Latino residents.
- Connecting currently disconnected Michigan households is estimated to produce $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion in annual economic opportunity, according to a 2012 study cited in the Broadband Roadmap report.
- Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies expect the number of employees working from home to triple from pre-pandemic times, according to a 2020 survey by the Atlanta branch of the Federal Reserve.
Statewide push
Expanding broadband access has increasingly become top of mind for a host of Michigan policymakers, advocates and broader industry groups, who all see reliable internet connectivity as part of a comprehensive economic development strategy.
And the efforts are mounting from all corners of the state. Take, for instance, the Homebuilders Association of Michigan.
Dawn Crandall, the association’s executive vice president of government relations, said that the organization has been forced to look beyond its standard mission of advocating for homebuilding, and take a more “holistic” view, which includes ensuring reliable broadband access.
That’s become especially true as new home construction has pushed into more outlying areas where connectivity is often an issue, and the pandemic and the need to work remotely have only reinforced the importance, according to Crandall.
“It used to be that we looked at housing as kind of a single issue,” Crandall said. “We need more housing. But there are a lot of things that play into that as we look at the economic development needs in the state.”
Other private-sector players also see ample opportunity to capitalize on the push for greater broadband connectivity as well.
Enter Aradatum Inc., a Brighton-based startup launched last year that has so far raised $15 million in growth capital from a variety of private investors. The startup has plans to deploy 5G high-speed wireless telecommunications towers in some of the country’s most remote areas, such as an island in Maine, according to founder Larry Leete.
The roughly 150-foot-tall towers the company is developing include a wind turbine that allows for them to be self-powered. That allows the company to access remote areas that large telecommunications companies tend to avoid, said Leete.
“Because we’re self-powered, we can immediately drop the tower in (those remote areas), giving people the broadband connectivity they’re looking for,” said Leete. “So there’s a lot of opportunity.”
Aradatum has partnered with Livonia-based Roush Industries and MAHLE Powertrain LLC in Plymouth for manufacturing and engineering of the towers.
Also on the state government front, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, last summer created the state’s High-Speed Internet Office, aimed at making “high-speed internet more affordable and accessible.”
The executive directive handed down by Whitmer calls for the hiring of a full-time chief connectivity officer for the state. The position, as well as the overall office, however, has gone unfunded by the Republican-controlled state Legislature.
Housed within the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity or LEO, the staff
position has been contracted out to the Connected Nation Michigan organization on a temporary basis.
Susan Corbin, LEO’s director, said in an email that the department “has been working with the legislature to make significant broadband investments and we are committed to removing barriers in high-speed internet availability, affordability and adoption for disproportionately impacted communities of color, those in rural areas, and low-income households.”
High speed in the UP
Perhaps not surprisingly, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with its large swaths of rural landscape, stands as one of the least-connected parts of the state.
Like others, Scott Randall said he’s hopeful that could soon change.
The general manager at Marquette-based fiberoptic company Peninsula Fiber Network LLC said his company has been investing tens of millions of dollars in fiber infrastructure in the state’s UP region and neighboring Wisconsin.
Like Frederick with Connected Nation Michigan, Randall said he believes the state is inching toward the bridging of the digital divide. For the UP region, that means further good news for its economic development efforts.
“(The UP) is a pretty unique part of the world. We love the outdoors and the clean air and all the water, and we’d like more people to be able to share that with us,” said Randall. “But I think for some folks, not being able to have broadband, it’s a big consideration. So this grander effort that’s in play, I think could really help tourism and maybe people considering relocating up here that maybe would not have thought about it before.”
Going forward
The federal infrastructure bill passed last summer totals $550 billion in new investment, which includes about $65 billion for high-speed internet access.
Specific allocations for states and cities is still being determined, but Frederick said he expects for Michigan to see somewhere between $1 billion and $1.3 billion for its broadband efforts.
“There’s been a lot thrown around about the infrastructure act and that it’s a once-in- a-generation investment, but I truly think it is,” said Frederick, noting that the money in that legislation is 10 times the amount included in the 2009 stimulus package passed in the wake of the Great Recession.
“And I honestly believe that we have an opportunity to close the digital divide in the state — or at least getting very, very, very close to closing it — over the next 10 years,” Frederick added.
“But it has to be done efficiently and effectively and transparently in order to be able to truly use these resources to close that gap.”
For Edmonds, the director of digital inclusion for the city of Detroit, the issue really boils down to just a handful of basic principles, he said.
“We need to be able to get lower-priced internet and we need to get an internet that people will legitimately want to enroll in, and not necessarily just had to choose between two options,” he said. “So we want choice, we want competition and we want lower costs. That’s what’s north for us, and quite frankly, that’s what should be north for the state.”
