New law could make it easier to bring broadband internet to the Key Peninsula

A bill that could make it easier to bring high-speed broadband internet service to the Key Peninsula has passed the state Legislature and is expected to be signed by Gov. Jay Inslee.

The bill allows retail broadband service to be offered by all public utility districts, port districts, towns, cities, and counties.

The Public Broadband Act (HB 1336) was sponsored by Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, whose 23rd District includes parts of Kitsap County. It passed the House 65-32 on April 23 with strong bipartisan support, according to the Democratic caucus. It now awaits Inslee’s signature.

The bill sweeps away a long-standing prohibition against public entities providing direct internet service. At the insistence of commercial cable giants, publicly-owned entities were allowed only to provide “wholesale” services, such as fiber-optic backbones, but were forbidden to sell directly to consumers.

“The pandemic has shown us that everyone needs affordable, high-speed broadband,” Hansen said in a release. “For the past year, we’ve all relied on the internet for remote school, remote work, remote healthcare, and more. Broadband is just as basic to modern life as power or water, and this bill allows all local governments to provide it directly to the public.”

No rush to retail

The bill will probably not spark a rush by public agencies to sell retail services, industry insiders say. But its immediate practical effect will be to allow public utility districts and others to tap into billions of dollars in federal infrastructure subsidies, most of which are intended for retail providers.

“PUDS are not really interested in retail,” Bob Hunter, general manager of Kitsap County PUD, told The Gateway in an interview earlier this month. “We think the open access system we are using, with private partners, works just fine. But without what’s called ‘retail authority,’ we can’t access the billions of dollars that’s going to be available in federal funding.”

Kitsap PUD might be interested in bringing gigabit broadband to the Key Peninsula if it could find a public partner there, Hunter said. A spokesman for the Peninsula Light Co., the co-operative that provides electric power on the peninsula, has said it is “listening” to its members on the issue, but has made no commitments.

Poor internet service on the Key Peninsula is legendary, and has grown worse during the pandemic, as hundreds of parents and students struggle to use the same slow, copper-wire network.

A survey by Key Peninsula Community Council last year found that 55 percent of KP residents who responded had internet speeds of less than 11 Megabit per second (Mbs) and 36 percent had less than 6 Mbs. A few users reported speeds below 1 Mbs. The FCC considers 25 Mbs the minimum for “good” internet service. In big cities, speeds approaching 1 gigabit per second have become common.

Slow service, or none

The Key Peninsula is 16 miles long and is home to about 16,000 people in communities like Wauna, Key Center, Vaughn, Home, Lakebay, and Longbranch. Most are served by Centurylink, with a small area bordering Mason County served by Comcast.

Two areas — one north and west of Vaughn, and the other near Longbranch — have no internet service at all, and no one willing to bring it, said Kris Hagel, executive director of digital learning at the Peninsula School District.

“It’s a big problem for us, especially when children have to learn from home,” Hagel told The Gateway earlier this month.

At the height of this school closure last winter, the parking lots at Vaughn and Evergreen elementary schools were full of cars in the dark of the night, as parents and students with laptops used the school wi-fi to access their lessons.

The problem is that most of the internet connections on the Key Peninsula are made over painfully slow copper lines left over from the old telephone system. The provider, Century Link, has made it clear it has no interest in upgrading to faster fiber optic cables. It will not pay, the company says, because it’s a rural area with too much distance between customers.

In both Mason and Kitsap counties, local public utility districts have gotten into the broadband business, more or less by popular demand.

Both Mason County PUD and Kitsap County PUD offer their members high-speed broadband over fiber-optic cable. The utilities own the cable, but lease capacity on it to private internet service providers which compete among themselves for customers.

Peninsula Light Co. is well-positioned to do the same, experts say. The Gig Harbor-based electrical cooperative owns nearly 6,000 poles and 130 miles of overhead wires on the Key Peninsula. But the co-op is skittish about getting outside its area of expertise.

“We’re an electric and water utility, and that’s what we do,” said Ryan Redmond, PenLight’s chief resources officer, told The Gateway earlier this month. “Right now, we’re listening. We are interested in what we can do to help, but that doesn’t mean we’re going into the broadband business.”

County could act, too

Pierce County is also considering becoming a provider, said County Council Member Derek Young, who represents Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula.

Young said the county is looking to commit $20 million to $30 million “immediately” to roll out broadband fiber optics “countywide as far as we can get it.”

“We’ve had conversations with possible providers in the past, but we’ve never had the wherewithal to make them real,” Young told The Gateway earlier this month. “Now we’ve got real cash to invest, and these conversations are going to get real.”

The federal government is poised to pour literally billions of dollars from the CARES act and President Joe Biden’s big infrastructure bill into efforts to widen broadband access.

Under Biden’s American Rescue Plan, the Department of Commerce, for instance, would be given $3 billion in additional funding for public works and infrastructure; the Treasury Capital Projects fund, $10 billion; the FCC’s Emergency Connectivity Fund, $10 billion; rural community development block grants, $45 billion, and so forth.

This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 5:30 AM.