Agenda - 02-21-2017 - 6-a - Minutes

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15 1 Commissioner McKee said a representative of Piedmont Electric asked him to convey the 2 Cooperative's interest in collaborating with the County on broadband. Their towers and poles 3 might be able to play a role in the extension of broadband. 4 5 Jim Northup explained a recent County attempt at attracting smaller providers. The County 6 began collaborating with the State on a vertical assets inventory in August 2015. In that context 7 they were able to do customer market research for internet service providers as an incentive for 8 them to extend into underserved areas. Eight or nine providers attended a meeting, including 9 landline and wireless services. They briefed the attendees on all the vertical assets located in 10 Orange County, including towers not owned by the County and County buildings (our most 11 numerous vertical asset). Only one company gave them a proposal, but it had an exorbitant fee 12 and showed no interest in expanding into their underserved areas. 13 14 Commissioner McKee added that there was not a lot of enthusiasm. 15 16 Jim Northup said that they learned from that. Now they are looking at what other communities 17 do to attract providers, and that appears to be internal fiber projects: providing fiber networks to 18 "backhaul" to existing towers so that smaller providers can be more competitive against the 19 larger providers. The fiber they are installing will connect our facilities to each other while at the 20 same time providing something of value they can offer to smaller providers needing incentives 21 to connect to the larger system. 22 23 John Roberts said, in reply to a question from Chair Dorosin, even if the law prohibiting local 24 governments from becoming internet service providers were repealed, there is still no authority 25 under any legislation permitting counties to do so. In North Carolina, if the State has not 26 authorized a county to do something then the county may not do it. In addition, since there is 27 special legislation allowing some municipalities to act as internet service providers, then the 28 absence of explicit State authority for counties to act as internet service providers is especially 29 prohibitive. 30 31 Chair Dorosin said that a better legislative strategy for Orange County would be to get local 32 authorization to serve as an internet provider rather than to repeal the existing prohibition. 33 34 Commissioner Jacobs said Orange County is an aquarium inside an ocean. ALEC promulgated 35 a model law that has been adopted by dozens of states to prevent local governments from 36 providing this kind of service. Now that we at least have a Democratic Governor, they might 37 explore whether there is interest in pursuing legislation to help all rural communities. Rural 38 development is supposed to be an interest of the people who control our State government. He 39 said he happened to believe that they are immune to the notion of contradiction or hypocrisy, 40 and so appeals to such notions will do nothing. But Senator Tillis was in the General Assembly 41 when the restrictions on local governments were passed. He might be able to tell them why he 42 is opposed to local authority. They could then go to someone who might be willing to propose 43 an adjustment to the legislation. He said he does not think the legislature is going to be 44 supportive of a local authorization for an individual county, and if it were, then only Durham 45 would be less likely to get an individual authorization from the legislature than Orange. He said 46 there might be specific points in the law that they can get clarified in our favor by either the 47 legislature or the Governor making a statewide proposal. 48 49 Commissioner Price said there are efforts taking place at the state and national levels to give 50 local governments authority to expand internet access into underserved areas. But they are not 51 there yet. The N.C. Association of County Commissioners has been getting more support for its 15