Will CenturyLink be our broadband provider?

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Not surprisingly, only one company responded to Jefferson County’s solicitation of bids for the planning, design – and ultimately the construction – of the infrastructure to provide Internet broadband service to designated neighborhoods outside Monticello.

That company was CenturyLink, which has rebranded itself as Lumen Technologies (LT).
The sole bid from LT came despite the deadline being extended to give contractors additional time to respond.

Heather Pullen is senior public affairs consultant with Langton Consulting, the Jacksonville firm hired by the county to assist it with the project, which is being funded by RESTORE Act money coming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pullen reported to the Jefferson County Commission on Thursday, Oct. 15, that although her firm had reached out to numerous broadband providers across the state, they had all shied away from bidding because of the federal requirements attached to the funding that is making the project possible.

Specifically, she said, the providers objected to the requirement that they must turn over ownership of the system to the county once it is installed for a period of 15 years, after which time they can negotiate with the county to take back the system’s ownership.

The vendors, she said, objected to the provision, especially as they must maintain the system while the county holds ownership.

That said, Pullen said the next step in the process was for the formation of a committee to evaluate the sole bid and ensure that it met all the requirements.

“This will be an in-depth review of the references, since we only had one bid,” Pullen said.

That committee, as was appointed by the board, consists of County Coordinator Parrish Barwick, Planning Official Shannon Metty and Property Appraiser Angela Gray, with Solid Waste Department Director Beth Letchworth selected as an alternative if the event that Gray declined to serve.

The only public comment came from Monticello City Councilman Troy Avera, who emphasized he was speaking as a citizen, not an official. Avera expressed frustration that the county had not bothered to include the city as part of the area that was to get upgraded broadband service.

“I’m incensed that no one in the county approached the city on this,” Avera said. “You asked the city to help you extend the sewer line to the Lloyd interchange. You expect us to help you in the county, but you don’t approach us on this.”

Commissioner Betsy Barfield, who is the most involved with the RESTORE Act funding as a member of the Gulf Consortium, one of the many state and federal agencies that is overseeing the distributions and expenditures of the federal monies, explained that the money dedicated to the project was finite and came with strings attached.

Moreover, she said, the decision on which areas to upgrade was based on population and driven by CenturyLink, which had done the initial assessment that had formed the basis for the project.
“They (CenturyLink/LT) said the city already had Internet, and they wanted to put the service in areas that didn’t have Internet,” Barfield said.

Avera disagreed. The city, he said, needed high-speed Internet to make it economically viable. Furthermore, he maintained, the Internet service that CenturyLink currently provided was “of poor quality and costly.”

“We need to step back and see how we can do this as a community,” Avera said.
Pullen interjected that there was still time for such considerations, given that the project was only now going into the planning and design phase.

“We’re looking at six to eight months for planning and designing the system,” she said, adding that there was still time to make adjustments to the scope of the work.

Barfield agreed, to a degree, noting, “All cards are on the table.”

At the same time, she added the caveat that the county’s hands were tied as to what it could and couldn’t accomplish with the money.

“The U.S. Treasury dictates to us what we can do or not do,” Barfield said. “Treasury also dictates how we do it and when we do it.”

In the hierarchy of state and federal agencies overseeing the disbursement and expenditure of the money, the U.S. Treasury reigns supreme.

The county so far has been awarded $65,450 in RESTORE Act money for the planning and designing part of the system, which is expected to cost $1,243,000 or more to construct, with the additional cost to come from other RESTORE Act money and the broadband provider.

Areas of the county that are slated to receive first-time or upgraded Internet service at this point include U.S. 19 North in the vicinity of the former Jefferson Kennel Club; Asheville Highway and Aucilla Shores; Government Farms Road; Aucilla Forest; U.S. 90 West and Main Street; U.S. 90 West in the vicinity of Tallamont Drive; Desearcy Lane, Rhea Street, Tally Hills Drive and Sundance Road; Linton Place; Christmas Acres; Old Lloyd (including the I-10 Interchange and Heritage Hills); South Lloyd and Sanctuary Subdivision; Bishop Cemetery; and Waukeenah.