Eagle-Net's Never-Ending Odyssey: Addressing Colorado's Unique Broadband Infrastructure Challenges

Although 80% of Colorado's population lives in the densely populated Front Range, the remaining 20% of Colorado residents live in sparsely populated regions. The Federal Communications Commission and the federal government's National Broadband Plan have prioritized universal availability of high speed Internet, but Colorado has struggled to close the "digital divide," which decreases the benefits of the Internet for public education and other services in rural regions. Using a $100 million federal grant and $35 million in additional funding from CenturyLink, Coloradans created the EAGLE-Net Alliance to address this issue. EAGLE-Net is a local government co-operative designed to create a middle-mile fiber network connecting Colorado's 178 public school districts and other community anchor institutions like hospitals. However, EAGLE-Net has already spent about 90% of its budget, yet it has only completed its broadband infrastructure build-out in six of Colorado's nineteen unserved counties. EAGLE-Net has also faced hostility from small telecom providers because of the organization's construction plan and because the executive team has focused on economic sustainability instead of ensuring optimal improvements to rural infrastructures. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration temporarily suspended EAGLE-Net's grant to determine if it is adequately completing its environmental assessments and to determine if the network will harm small telecom companies in rural Colorado. Many potential solutions exist; such as streamlining agency operations, repealing a state statute that prevents municipal broadband service, and accepting the need to operate at a loss in the most remote regions of Colorado.