{"id":23336,"date":"2018-02-20T17:44:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T23:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23336"},"modified":"2018-02-20T17:44:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T23:44:57","slug":"bill-would-ease-regulations-for-certain-broadband-partnerships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23336","title":{"rendered":"Bill would ease regulations for certain broadband partnerships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee heard testimony Feb. 20 on a bill that could expedite the expansion of broadband internet service in rural Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Lynne Walz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB1113, introduced by Fremont Sen. Lynne Walz, would exempt from current Public Service Commission regulations any partnership between a public entity and a private company that provides high-speed broadband internet service.<\/p>\n

Walz said 51 percent of Nebraska\u2019s rural population does not have access to broadband. Rural communities soon will require high-speed internet not only to stay competitive, she said, but to grow and change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has become increasingly clear that affordable and reliable internet access is no longer a luxury, but a necessity,\u201d Walz said. \u201cThis would empower local officials to partner with the private sector to invest in their communities and build a platform that would allow them to build and grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would exempt these partnerships from regulations that prohibit any fiber lease agreement that is set at less than the market rate or requires that at least 50 percent of a political subdivision\u2019s profits be remitted to the Nebraska Internet Enhancement Fund.<\/p>\n

Kristen Gottschalk, representing the Nebraska Rural Electric Association, spoke in favor of the bill. She said having access to high-speed internet is no longer about being able to stream movies or play video games.<\/p>\n

Reliable internet access is an important tool to keep business alive in rural Nebraska, Gottschalk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery new piece of agricultural equipment that comes from manufacturers now has a modem that is designed to connect to the internet,\u201d she said. \u201cBut most of the modems go unused because they cannot connect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also supporting the bill was David Young, fiber infrastructure manager for the city of Lincoln. He said public-private agreements would facilitate affordable, competitive and robust internet connections across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy encouraging public entities to partner with the public sector, we will be able to drive down the costs of deploying broadband to both rural and urban areas,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n

Eric Carstenson, president of the Nebraska Telecommunications Association, opposed the bill. He said a bill introduced earlier this session would create a broadband task force to study and consider public-private partnerships. The Legislature should wait to act until the results of that study are clear, Carstenson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment competition in the private telecommunications industry will chill future investment,\u201d Carstensen said. \u201cBut we should continue to look at new and innovative ways to achieve that public-private partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee heard testimony Feb. 20 on a bill that could expedite the expansion of broadband internet service in rural Nebraska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-23336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transportation-and-telecommunications","tag-sen-lynne-walz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/LB1113Walz2-20-18a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23339,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23336\/revisions\/23339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}