NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
Room 4713 HCHB, 1401 Constitution Ave., NW,
Washington, D.C. 20230
In the Matter of )
)
Request for Comments on Deployment of ) Docket No. 011109273-1273-01
Broadband Networks and Advanced )
Telecommunications )
COMMENTS
of
Gila River Telecommunications, Inc.
Gila River Telecommunications, Inc. hereby submits these comments in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) inquiry in the above-captioned proceeding.[1] Gila River Telecommunications, Inc. (GRTI) was established on July 6, 1988 for the purpose of providing the Gila River Indian Community with telephone service and other telecommunications services. GRTI currently has over 3,600 lines, including business, residence, and private line circuits. Approximately 48% of these are business lines. The state-of-the-art telecommunications system currently consists of 8 central offices equipped with Nortel DMS10 digital switching equipment. Fiber optic cable connects all central offices, in addition to ten Digital Loop Carrier concentrator units. The total system consists of over 117 miles of fiber optic cable and 410 miles of buried copper cable. GRTI is also a 25% owner of the Gila River Cellular General Partnership, serving the Rural Service Area 5 in Arizona. The service area includes a portion of the Interstate 10 corridor between Phoenix and Tucson, as well as all of Pinal and Gila counties.
GRTI is a rural telephone company, as defined in 47 U.S.C. § 153(37). GRTI provides a wide variety of telecommunications services in sparsely populated, remote, high-cost communities where the unemployment rate is more than three times the national average, median household income is below the federal poverty threshold and educational attainment is below the national average. These factors combine to create a market that poses formidable challenges to GRTI’s ability to provide basic phone service to the Gila River Indian Community without the assistance of Universal Service and federal initiatives designed to alleviate economic and social disadvantages specific to Indian Country, in general, and the Gila River Indian community in particular.
These chronic
economic and social disadvantages make the task of deploying broadband services
extremely difficult, especially in terms of gaining returns of initial
investments. As of the date of this
filing, GRTI has yet to deploy broadband services to households and small
businesses. However, recent surveys
performed by GRTI reveal that the demand for such services is high.[2] Therefore, GRTI intends to deploy broadband to a select number communities in
FY2002. In this regard, additional
federal funding mechanisms and initiatives are needed to further alleviate
economic and social disadvantages specific to Indian Country. Specifically, GRTI urges NTIA to develop
mechanisms and initiatives that will alleviate the financial burden of initial
“last mile” investments by providing a means of gaining returns on its initial
investments. GRTI also urges NTIA to
develop initiatives that support community-beneficial broadband services and
applications necessary for raising public awareness regarding the social,
cultural, economic and educational benefits of broadband. GRTI believes that such federal initiatives
are crucial for raising public demand and serving as a focus for community
demand-pull strategies designed to expedite broadband deployment.
Therefore, GRTI urges NTIA to:
1) Update the federal definition of broadband services from a symmetrical 200 Kbps to a symmetrical 8 Mbps to keep pace with emerging bandwidth-intensive telemedicine, education, cultural preservation and business applications requiring high resolution video;
2) Expand existing federal initiatives, such as NTIA’s TOP program, and advocate for the development of additional federal initiatives, such as the Native American Telecommunications Improvement and Value Enhancement Act[3], that will provide universal access to broadband services on tribal lands and promote tribal self determination and tribal sovereignty;
3) Alter current federal initiatives and develop future federal initiatives so that they DO NOT subsidize competition in rural markets—served by tribal telecommunications companies—that are not capable of supporting more than one local exchange carrier.[4]
II. How should broadband services be defined? Please discuss (1) what criteria should be used to determine whether a facility or service has sufficient transmission capacity to be classified as "broadband;" (2) how the definition should evolve over time; and (3) the policy implications of how the term is defined.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines broadband as: the capability of supporting at least 200 kilobits (Kbps) in the consumer’s connection to the network (“last mile”), both from the provider to the consumer (downstream) and from the consumer to the provider (upstream)[5]. Yet, many international standards organizations define broadband services as capable of transmitting at least 1.5 or 2 million bits of information every second – or megabits per second (Mbps).[6] For instance, Canada, the global leader in broadband deployment defines broadband as symmetrical 2Mbps.[7] However, it is clear that the term "broadband" is not universally applied and ranges from a low of 200 thousand bits per second (Kbps) to as high as 30 Mbps. Therefore, GRTI urges NTIA to update the federal definition of broadband services from a symmetrical 200 Kbps to a symmetrical 8 Mbps to keep pace with emerging bandwidth intensive telemedicine, education, cultural preservation and business applications requiring high resolution video.[8]
Furthermore, new and emerging applications such as peer-to-peer file interactions and HDTV will increase
individual
user demand for symmetric bandwidth well beyond the 8Mbps range. Over the last two decades, the development
of telecommunications and information technology markets have repeatedly proven
that what is considered fast today may be considered slow in six months or one
year as a result of synergistic changes in technology, applications and user
requirements. Therefore, GRTI urges
NTIA to review the federal definition of broadband periodically so that it can
evolve over time as new technologies and applications are introduced (i.e.,
HDTV, which requires 20 Mbps). The
policy implications for increasing the current definition of broadband and
encouraging its evolution over time are significant, especially in the context
of future E-Rate funding for schools and libraries and USDA RUS distance
learning and telemedicine funding for schools and healthcare facilities. GRTI believes that it is critical to the
future potential of rural communities on tribal lands that current federal initiatives
support the build out of infrastructure capable of supporting
bandwidth-intensive applications necessary for healthcare, education, cultural
preservation and economic development in the very near future.
GRTI urges NTIA to adopt universal access
to broadband on tribal lands as a government goal. Universal access to broadband on tribal lands is critical to
advancement of tribal self-determination, self-sufficiency, economic
development, education, healthcare and cultural preservation. Universal access to broadband will allow tribes to technologically
leapfrog over many of the well-documented challenges and barriers to
self-determination and self-sufficiency caused by continued economic, political
and social exclusion from mainstream America. Universal access to broadband in
Indian Country will provide tribal governments with the necessary tools to
streamline the management of information and provide for the delivery of basic
social services in a much more efficient and timely manner. Furthermore, universal access to broadband
on tribal lands is essential to the development of business, industry, and trade, as well as
distance learning, telemedicine, and telecommuting. The rate of deployment therefore has implications for the welfare
of American Indians and the economic development of Indian Country.[9] This is particularly true in the most rural
portions of Indian Country, where people stand to benefit greatly from
high-speed, distance-defying connections to external markets and employment
opportunities, urban medical centers, large universities offering specialty
courses, and similar distant resources.[10]
However, three critical barriers are currently impeding the deployment of broadband networks in Indian Country: 1) the lack of tribally-held capital to invest in building out the necessary infrastructure; 2) the lack of a favorable economic environment and a subsequent business case to attract outside investment to build out necessary infrastructure; and 3) the lack of available funds to develop community technology plans—in fact, only about 17% of tribal governments have developed technology plans.[11]
In light of the above mentioned impediments, GRTI believes that the following legislation is necessary to expedite the build out of broadband networks in Indian Country:
· GRTI urges Congress to pass and the President to sign the Native American Telecommunications Improvement and Value Enhancement Act (NATIVE Act, S. 761), which would create a $1 billion revolving loan fund for tribal cooperatives or tribal entities that have partnered with a telecommunications carrier to create a wireline or wireless telecommunications infrastructure. The NATIVE Act also would establish a grant program to provide matching grants to tribes to conduct feasibility studies for tribal telecommunications projects. Both the revolving loan and grant program would expire when 94% of households on tribal lands have telephone service, or ten years after the date the first loan is made, whichever comes first.
· GRTI urges Congress to pass and the President to sign the Community Telecommunications planning Act, S. 1056. The act would provide $60 million dollars in FY 2002 for communities to build telecommunications infrastructure. Tribes would be eligible to apply for this grant. Priority funding would go to rural and underserved areas.
GRTI encourages
continued funding for, as well as the additional development of, federal
initiatives that provide for public access to broadband services, such as pilot
projects that employ broadband technologies for the betterment of
communities—such as e-government, distance learning and telemedicine
applications, community technology centers, and small business development
centers. GRTI believes that federal initiatives that support
community-beneficial broadband services and applications are necessary for
raising public awareness regarding the social, cultural, economic and
educational benefits of broadband. To
this end, such federal initiatives are crucial for raising public demand and
serving as a focus for community demand-pull strategies designed to expedite
broadband deployment.
Therefore, GRTI believes that continued and appropriately increased funding for the following federal initiatives are necessary to expedite the build out of broadband networks in Indian Country:
· NTIA Technology Opportunities Program
· Department of Education Community Technology Center Program
· Small Business Administration Small Business Development Center Program
· United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utility Service (RUS) loans and grants programs[12]
· Distance Learning and Telemedicine Loan and Grant Program
· Local Dial-Up Internet Grant Program
· Broadband Telecommunications Services in Rural America Loan Fund
· RUS Telephone Bank
GRTI also believes that additional federal initiatives should be established to encourage the development of innovative content and services, particularly for learning, health, government, culture, entertainment, community building and e-business. The availability of such content is crucial for growing consumer demand because it makes the communications medium relevant and meaningful to their lives—this is especially when such content meets the cultural needs of a particular community.[13] Development of this content should be supported through incentives and direct funding as appropriate, through expanding the mandate of existing programs to incorporate funding for broadband content or by creating new programs. On-line content and services should:
· Reflect the social, economic, and cultural perspectives of American Indian tribal members
· Respond to significant special needs of users
· Be user-centered and user-friendly
· Be available in both English and tribal languages.[14]
GRTI believes that it is critical for the federal government to address
competition issues, in a manner consistent to the 1996 Telecommunications Act –
where tribally owned telecommunications companies exist – to protect the
investments of tribal telecommunications companies and to ensure that the best
interests of the affected communities are served. Specifically, GRTI is
concerned about federal regulatory mechanisms that subsidize competition in
market areas that are incapable of supporting more than one local exchange
carrier. Currently, markets served by tribal telecommunications companies, which
are carriers of last resort, are unable to support natural competition (i.e.,
unsubsidized competition).
GRTI believes that tribal telecommunications companies, such as GRTI, have proven to be critical in providing the hard-to-reach tribal communities in which they serve with access to telecommunications services and access to the Internet. And in the coming years, tribal telecommunications companies will prove to be critical in providing these same communities with access to broadband. Furthermore, tribal telecommunications companies, such as GRTI, ought to be viewed by the federal government—as they are viewed by the Indian Nations and tribal communities they serve—as being necessary for meeting basic social needs and necessary for facilitating tribal economic development. In this regard, GRTI believes that tribal telecommunications companies should be viewed as essential and necessary enterprises for facilitating tribal self-determination and self-sufficiency, as well as, the strengthening of tribal sovereignty. Therefore, GRTI believes that federal regulatory mechanisms and initiatives that DO NOT subsidize competition in markets served by tribal telecommunications companies, where such markets are incapable of supporting natural competition (i.e., unsubsidized competition), will support the best interests of the affected tribal communities, and will also support the best interests of Indian Nations attempting to promote self-determination, self-sufficiency and strengthen tribal sovereignty.
GRTI believes that current public policy
threatens broadband deployment as a result of the competing goals of furthering
universal service and promoting competition – that of competition and universal
access.
Specifically, GRTI is concerned that artificially induced competition in
rural areas serves to undermine the already weak business case for broadband
deployment.[15] Artificially induced competition threatens
the revenue base for tribal carriers but does not reduce the investments
required to provide service. In
addition, since tribal carriers continue to have an obligation as the carrier
of last resort they must continue to place and maintain the telephone plant
necessary to meet this obligation.[16] As a result, competition in rural areas and
deployment of advanced services are in conflict. For example, some of the Rural
Task Force’s recommendations exacerbate this conflict by freezing universal
service funding for incumbent carriers when competitive entry occurs, by making
all universal service funds (USF) fully portable to competitive eligible
telecommunications carriers (CETCs), by limiting the amount of USF available to
rural carriers that acquire rural exchanges from larger carriers, and by
limiting the overall size of the High Cost Fund available for rural
infrastructure investment.[17] Such requirements could prove to be
financially disastrous for tribal carriers serving markets that are unable to
support competition.
GRTI encourages the development of federal
policies that permit competition without subsidizing or artificially creating
it. GRTI encourages the development of
federal policies that provide adequate support for areas that do not have
sufficient demand to attract new entrants so that companies that have excelled
in serving rural communities in the past will have sufficient access to the
support they need to continue to provide services as carriers of last
resort. In this way, rural competition
can act to promote rural consumer interests without threatening the viability
of the carriers on which rural communities (increasingly) depend.[18]
If competition is to be subsidized
in rural areas, then the results are likely to be increased need for support,
diminished levels of service, or both.[19]
In
addition, GRTI strongly encourages the development of federal policies that
provide an accelerated depreciation schedule for broadband network
upgrades. Technology breakthroughs
cause equipment to become obsolete quickly.[20] Tribal carriers must have confidence that
they will be permitted to recover their capital investments in order to
encourage further broadband investment without hesitation.
In regards to federal efforts to deploy broadband on tribal lands, GRTI
urges NTIA to: 1) update the federal definition of broadband services from a symmetrical
200 Kbps to a symmetrical 8 Mbps to keep pace with emerging bandwidth intensive
telemedicine, education, cultural preservation and business applications
requiring high resolution video; 2) expand existing federal initiatives, such
as the RUS Broadband and NTIA TOP programs, and develop additional federal
initiatives, such as the Native American Telecommunications Improvement and
Value Enhancement Act, that will provide universal access to broadband services
on tribal lands and promote tribal self determination and tribal sovereignty;
and 3) alter current federal regulatory mechanisms and develop future federal
initiatives so that they DO NOT subsidize competition in rural markets that are
not capable of supporting more than one local exchange carrier.
Respectfully submitted,
GILA RIVER
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INC.
By: /s/ Kade L. Twist
Kade L.
Twist
480.921.1279
949 S.
Maple Ave.
Tempe,
AZ. 85281
[1] Request for
Comments on Deployment of Broadband Networks and Advanced Telecommunications, Docket No. 011109273-1273-01.
[2] GRTI surveys reveal a robust residential and small business demand for broadband services. In particular, demand for broadband among small business owners is 75%.
[3] Native American Telecommunications Improvement and Value Enhancement Act (NATIVE Act, S. 761) would create a $1 billion revolving loan fund for tribal cooperatives or tribal entities that have partnered with a telecommunications carrier to create a wireline or wireless telecommunications infrastructure. The NATIVE Act also would establish a grant program to provide matching grants to tribes to conduct feasibility studies for tribal telecommunications projects. Both the revolving loan and grant program would expire when 94% of households on tribal lands have telephone service, or ten years after the date the first loan is made, whichever comes first.
[4] It is paramount to note here that tribal telecommunications companies, such as GRTI, are carriers of last resort and have proven to be critical in providing the hard-to-reach tribal communities in which they serve with access to telecommunications services and access to the Internet. Therefore, tribal telecommunications companies, such as GRTI, are viewed by the Indian Nations and tribal communities they serve as being necessary for meeting basic social needs and necessary for facilitating tribal economic development. In this regard, tribal telecommunications companies are viewed as essential and necessary enterprises for the ongoing development of tribal self-determination and the strengthening of tribal sovereignty.
[5] See Broadband Reporting Order, supra note 8, at ¶ 22 (explaining that “full broadband” is synonymous with the term “advanced telecommunications capability,” i.e., as having the capability of supporting, in both downstream and upstream directions, a speed in excess of 200 Kbps in the “last mile.”).
[6] National Broadband Task Force Report [Canada], The New National Dream: Networking the Nation for Broadband Access, 2001.
[7] Ibid.
[8] According to GRTI Plant Operations Manager Derek E. White, 8Mbps is required for high quality video applications used for telemedicine.
[9] National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Rural Utilities Service, Advanced Telecommunications in Rural America: The Challenge of Bringing Broadband Service to All Americans, April 2000.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Economic Development Administration, Assessment of Technology Infrastructure in Native Communities, 1999.
[12] United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utility Service (RUS) loans and grants programs have been essential to the establishment, development and evolution of all tribal telecommunications companies. Without the RUS Telephone Bank and other RUS programs, tribal telecommunications companies would not have the means to exist. Therefore, it cannot be overstated how important it is, for both tribal telecommunications companies and the tribal communities they serve, that these RUS programs are adequately supported and appropriately funded.
[13] The Children’s Partnership, Online Content for Low-Income and Underserved Americans: The Digital Divide’s New Frontier, 2000.
[14] National Broadband Task Force Report [Canada], The New National Dream: Networking the Nation for Broadband Access, 2001.
[15] Dale Lehman, NTCA White Paper Series, The cost of Competition, 2000.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Comments of OPASTCO, Inquiry Concerning the Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability to All Americans, CC Docket No. 98-146.