Supervisors plan to vote on broadband grant

WASHINGTON — Several months after an initial pitch from Natel Broadband to invest in infrastructure covering the south part of the county, supervisors plan to vote on a non-binding letter of intent next week that would support the project.

Natel Founder and President Mike Schill said the company wanted to invest in wireless broadband options for the southern third of the county, but needed government aid to make it financially achievable after some state funds were pulled.

“The reason that working with counties has become so important is because the original funding amount was 60%, and then they cut the number of census blocks,” he said. “In order to cover that same area, we need to basically make the same investment in infrastructure, so getting the help from counties has become imperative.”

The $152,197 ask is considerably lower than asks for some other counties according to Schill, who said the technology’s longevity would pay off.

“This platform is a real carrier grade product, which is why it’s so expensive,” he said. “It has really great capabilities, so I’d say the longevity is probably a 10 year life on this, at least.”

The state funding requires a minimum of 100 MB upload and download speeds per household for grant-winning projects. Schill said the wireless broadband towers they were planning could support such speeds for many users at once.

“The tower sites had to have fiber feeds to them which, the capacity is up to 10 gigs,” he said. “I think the capacity of all four sectors of a typical tower in the backplains is around 2 gigs each, 10 gig is more than enough to handle that. I think it would take a lot to max out … if we see a situation start to max out, we take steps to upgrade it right away.”

One lingering concern is possible interference with emergency communications. Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young said the county’s new system might not be compatible.

“We just put in a whole new radio system here in Washington County, we have a microwave system,” he said. “That’s all directional, so the question is, would there be a possibility that this wireless would interfere with that communication system?”

Schill said the towers would use frequencies only recently made commercially available. He said he didn’t expect it to be a problem.

“Both the client radio and the tower have a very high-power chip in it … they’ve developed that software to mitigate interference,” he said. “They’re pretty much interference-proof, which is a remarkable thing.”

County Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said he had heard some concerns from constituents, but he disagreed with them.

“Somebody said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to give this kind of money you’re favoring one company that provides broadband over existing companies,’” he said. “This new company coming in, Natel, provides competition. What we’ve got already is established and there is no competition.”

If the project goes through, county maps show the towers would provide service to a total of 500 households and 100 businesses in the county including those not in the grant-funded census blocks. The area is most concentrated at the southwest and southeast corners of the county.

Schill said construction could happen relatively fast.

“The beauty of this technology is we can get things up and running pretty quickly,” he said. “Our goal is to get all the towers built by the end of the year … it might be ambitious, it just depends on when it all comes together.”

While the letter of intent was on the agenda for this week’s meeting, it was pushed back due to a paperwork error that labeled it for the wrong county, though the rest of the document was accurate, according to county officials. If approved, the money would come from the county’s ARPA funds, another piece of the puzzle that may complicate approval.

“I think we’re still talking about how we’re going to divide up our ARPA funds,” Seward said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re still willing to consider this as part of that. No decisions have been made.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com