As we continue to sort through the massive amount of legislation that swirled through the General Assembly last Wednesday, another pair of bills that aim to provide a boost to rural Georgia. Both bills, sponsored by Sen. Steve Gooch (R-51 Dahlonega), propose ways to expand the deployment of broadband wireless internet across rural Georgia – a frequent complaint from those areas and a fix that could potentially serve to increase the economic activity in those areas.
Senate Bill 232, the Facilitating Internet Broadband Expansion Act (FIBRE), allows Georgia’s 41 electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) to deploy broadband, wireless and VoIP services across rural Georgia. These EMCs are often central to these communities, largely located throughout rural Georgia and have an infrastructure set up that lends itself well to broadband expansion. The bill sets regulations for EMCs that would provide these services that aims to keep a competitive marketplace for broadband – simultaneously allowing the EMCs to offer the service but working to keep them from immediately getting a monopoly in the market.
Senate Bill 426, the Broadband Infrastructure Leads to Development Act (BILD), is similar to 232 but aimed at other private companies that may be looking to get into the market. It streamlines the permitting and deployment of new wireless 5g technology for these companies that may need to utilize public rights of way. The bill also allows the construction of small wireless technology poles on existing structures and allows for the construction of new poles to facilitate the new technology.
“Thank you to my colleagues in the Senate for joining me in support of these broadband expansion bills,” said Sen. Gooch. “We have been working on these bills for a long time, and I am proud of our Chamber for taking action. Expanding broadband access has long been a top priority of the Senate, and we have taken another step toward providing rural Georgians with the services they need for economic development, telehealth, education and quality of life.”
As the economy moves toward more and more connected devices, 5g will be a critical piece of this evolution. Rural areas, already lagging behind in digital capability, risk being left even further behind. And it isn’t all about driverless cars. It’s potentially about wirelessly-connected farms that can offer higher yields, small downtowns that can support digitally-focused startups or factories that bring jobs for plenty of people – but also some robots that may require that digital connection.
5g is the next wave of this connection. It will phones a speedier connection – which is already spotty in many rural areas – and will enable the amount of bandwidth required for so many devices that are catching the IoT (internet of things) wave. Sensors, thermostats, cars and other new technology will all eventually connect to 5g but this requires a massive amount of new bandwidth to handle all the additional data. Wireless companies may to install thousands, potentially millions, of new connection points on top of nearly everything you can think of.
Opening up the legal framework for all this to happen anywhere in Georgia, especially rural areas, is critical and the General Assembly has taken its first steps.
