Walter Riseman wants to see rural areas in Maine realize high-speed Internet service.

Last week, the local state representative introduced a bill to the Maine Legislature to take a step in that direction.

State Representative Walter Riseman (I-Harrison) on Tuesday, March 23 presented critical legislation to the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities & Technology Committee that would more clearly show the lack of high-speed Internet in rural Maine and force the development of broadband Internet infrastructure.

LD 83, “An Act To Clarify the Meaning of ‘Unserved Area’ within the State’s Broadband Service Laws” would expand the definition an geographic area where high speed broadband Internet is not available by increasing the standards from current low rates of 25 megabits per second to 100 megabits per second.

According to Riseman, since being elected in 2018, many constituents have contacted him about lagging or non-existent affordable high-speed Internet to their home. Shortly after Riseman began meeting with state stakeholders on this issue, it became apparent that this work begins with the municipalities to begin the process. 

Riseman working with municipal officials started the Harrison Broadband Advisory Committee, a town appointed committee to make a recommendation to the selectman on a plan to solve the broadband dilemma — and then began to involve other area nearby towns in western Maine conducting local surveys, completing their own mapping, and identifying the issues surrounding unserved and underserved areas of the community.

The town committee found that:

• Provider assessments of some unserved areas were inaccurate;

• Results of speed test data determined that upload/download speeds as presented were quite often inaccurate or over-stated;

• Customer service and service quality were not favorably rated;

• Expansion of Internet requested by the customers were determined to be unaffordable or unavailable.

In the town’s weekly newsletter sent out Friday, the Harrison Broadband Advisory Committee released resultsd from a survey conducted in late 2020. The BAC received 408 responses (23% of addresses).

“The information collected enables us to continue forward with assessment and justification for funding and expansion opportunities,” the BAC wrote. Some findings included:

• 74% of respondees represented a permanent residence or business.

• 44% were served by Spectrum, 27% by Consolidated, 11% by cellular hot spot, 8% by satellite, 6% had no service (65% had no availability, while 28% said the cost was too expensive), and 4% by cell phone. 

• When asked to rate their Internet service, 54% rated Spectrum either very good/good. Meanwhile, Consolidated received a 37% fair rating and 50% poor; cell hotspot and satellite had a 59% poor rating.

• In regards to service, 185 answered unreliable, intermittent connection issues; 170 said too slow; 124 responded costs too much; 62 said too many outages; 48 said poor customer support.

Some BAC’s findings were:

• There is strong community support to engage in regional collaboration for funding and solutions.

• Quality and disparity of broadband status significantly affects the town’s ability to work remotely, use tele-health and learn remotely.

• Achieving our goals will involve further evaluation of technologies, addressing the costs and investments, and maintaining civic commitment.

“Although more aggressive than federal standards, their legislature put them into statute so they could be more competitive globally and level the playing field between urban and rural areas of the state,” said Riseman. “The core elements of a successful modern broadband infrastructure will mean nearly 100% access, affordable consumer cost and reliability of service to provide for exceptional educational, telemedicine, safety and businesses opportunities.”

Rep. Riseman’s legislation was supported by the Maine Principals Association, MaineHealth, Northern Light Health, and the Maine Municipal Association at the hearing.

The Energy, Utilities & Technology policy committee will next make a decision on this bill and other similar measures to increase high-speed internet expansion before providing a recommendation to the full legislature.

Rep. Riseman is serving his second term in Augusta and is serving on the State & Local Government Committee.