Overview
The Sanilac County, MI Broadband Team has completed its community technology assessment. The results of the assessment can be found by clicking the symbol for the sections below. Here you can find survey results, infrastructure assessments, and recommended actions the community can implement to improve the broadband and technology ecosystem at a local level.
Connected Infrastructure in Sanilac County, Michigan
Broadband access refers to the infrastructure that enables a high-speed internet connection. There are two primary types of broadband connections: fixed and mobile.
Fixed broadband is delivered to a user via several technology platforms including cable, digital subscriber line (DSL) over phone lines, fiber optics, and fixed wireless. Fixed broadband is designed for stationary use at a fixed location such as a home, business, or institution. From one location, however, fixed broadband service is often broadcast as a Wi-Fi network to connect nearby devices.
The following map shows where broadband is available in the community.
Recommended Actions
Description
Public-private partnerships take many forms, limited only by the imagination and legal framework in which the municipality operates. Some communities issue municipal bonds to fund construction of a network, which they lease to private carriers, with the lease payments covering the debt service. Others create non-profit organizations to develop networks in collaboration with private carriers or provide seed investment to jump start construction of networks that the private sector is unable to cost-justify on its own. A public-private partnership should not be simply seen as a method of financing. The strength of these partnerships is that each party brings something important to the table that the other doesn’t have or can’t easily acquire. The community can offer infrastructure (publicly owned building rooftops, light poles, towers, and other vertical assets for mounting infrastructure) for the deployment of a network, as well as committed anchor tenants. Private-sector partners bring network-building and operations experience.
Goals
Leverage existing community assets in partnership with private sector carriers to expand broadband network deployment.
Actions
- Determine Priorities: Competition, enhanced service, equity and service to all, public control over infrastructure, risk avoidance, redundancy, etc.
- Examine different models of partnership: Model 1: Private Investment, Public Facilitation: Make available public assets like fiber and conduit, share geographic information systems data, streamline permitting and inspection processes, offer economic development incentives to attract private broadband investment. Model 2: Private Execution, Public Funding: Identify revenue streams that can be directed to a private partner, issue RFP for private turnkey execution. Model 3: Shared Investment and Risk: Evaluate using assets to attract private investment, evaluate funding new assets to attract private investment, evaluate building new fiber assets to businesses and/or homes for leasing to private ISPs.
- Understand key legal considerations for localities looking to build a broadband partnership: Review authority issues, understand the legal tools and instruments that could shape the partnership, negotiate the agreement.
Responsible Parties
Local Units of Government; Broadband Providers; Community Anchor Institutions; Local Businesses, and others as appropriate.
Resources
Broadband USA's Introduction to Effective Public-Private Partnerships for Broadband Investments: https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/sites/default/files/resource-files/bbusa_effective_public_private_partnerships.pdf
United States Department of Agriculture: https://bit.ly/2yUGikq