DECD lends support to broadband growth

BANGOR – Efficient and affordable broadband Internet access is as important to Maine’s economy as the interstate highway system has been, a top state official and state senator said Monday.

Improving the speed and capacity of Internet service must be a major part of the state’s economic development strategy, said John Richardson, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, and Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton.

“I don’t think broadband has found its home in state government,” Richardson said during an interview at the Bangor Daily News.

“I’d like to take some ownership in broadband because it directly affects economic development.” The DECD hopes to lead efforts to install and improve broadband Internet access across the state, Richardson said Monday.

Richardson said he supports a bill Damon put forth this session that would allow educational and scientific institutions to string Internet cable on existing, privately owned utility poles.

“Broadband is unregulated. That’s a problem, to a degree,” Richardson said.

Both Richardson and Damon compared the state’s need for infrastructure, or cables that transmit Internet connections, to the interstate highway.

“I look at broadband the way I look at the highway system. You need the infrastructure to create the spine,” Richardson said.

“The further north I drive, the more critical the need is,” Richardson said, referring to the lack of high-speed Internet connections to businesses and residences in the rural parts of the state.

Damon said Monday it takes Maine businesses hours to transmit large files that take companies with wider bandwidth only minutes to transmit. The state must regard these data files as goods that must be sold and shipped, he said.

“We’re able to look at I-95 and see the economy that’s grown up around that particular piece of infrastructure. To me, information technology is equally as important as we move forward. We have an I-95; maybe we could have an IT-95,” Damon said, referring to “information technology.”

The University of Maine, The Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor and Sewall Co. of Old Town are just three of the companies that have approached Richardson to seek his help in bringing adequate and competitively priced broadband connectivity to Maine.

According to Richardson, if FairPoint Communications Inc.’s deal to acquire Verizon’s phone and cable Internet service goes through, it will compete with Time Warner Cable to provide broadband to areas of the state that still rely on dial-up Internet service. The two would also compete to expand existing broadband service statewide, Richardson said. FairPoint awaits approval from its stockholders, the state Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

Richardson said he is aware of public concern that FairPoint cannot afford major upgrades to broadband service, but he said the company has assured him it intends to invest in the effort.

“In the longer approach, we hope to have broadband in every home,” Richardson said.