Tennessee Telecom Association

Relatively Quiet Session Doesn’t Mean Things Aren’t Busy

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In each of the last few years, the first quarter has been dominated by major legislative efforts for TTA members and our allies.
So you would be forgiven for thinking that a year like 2018, when no major telecom bills seemed to get any traction in the state legislature, must have meant for a slow first quarter for TTA and our legislative team.

That was not the case at all.

This spring has seen a TTA delegation traveling to Washington, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai visiting our state, the governor adding $5 million in broadband grants and our first-ever legislative breakfast in the new home of the state legislature. In addition, TTA and its members have been involved in two national industry conferences in Nashville: the Broadband USA Summit and the NTCA PR and Marketing Conference.

To me, this means two things:
1) It’s exciting and encouraging that our industry and rural broadband have become such hot topics as to have that much activity swirling around them.
2) It’s more important than ever for TTA members to keep telling our story and sharing the message that we are Tennessee’s rural broadband experts.

Everyone is looking for solutions to provide rural residents with broadband connectivity, and it’s crucial that TTA members remain an important part of the solution here in Tennessee. The only way we achieve that is to stay busy like we have so far this year. I would like to thank all of the TTA company representatives who have traveled far and sacrificed time to be the voice for our industry around the state and around the nation. I look forward to gathering together again next month at the annual meeting in Franklin.

TTA Members Honored With TeleChoice Marketing Awards

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NTCA’s PR and Marketing Conference was held in Nashville at the end of April, and, fittingly, three Tennessee telcos were honored with TeleChoice awards for their marketing work.
Twin Lakes received two awards for branding and marketing campaigns, while DTC and NCTC took home awards for local video content and single-target print publication, respectively. For DTC, it was the second year in a row to receive the award for local video.

According to NTCA, the annual awards program aims to honor excellence in telco public relations and marketing work. Entries in six categories were judged on innovative strategies, design, writing, creativity and other elements specific to each category. “I would like to congratulate all of the 2018 TeleChoice Award winners for their incredible work,” said NTCA Chief Executive Officer Shirley Bloomfield in a press release. “The marketing efforts of NTCA member companies continue to play a critical role in educating and raising awareness of communications technologies, services, initiatives and issues that impact the vitality of rural communities and our nation.”

The full list of winners is available online.

It’s not the first time TTA members have received such awards. Skyline Membership Corporation received TeleChoice awards in 2017, 2016 and 2015 for its annual report. In 2017, both Skyline and WK&T were winners in their division of the single-target print publication category. Ardmore Telephone received TeleChoice awards in 2015 for its customer magazine and single-target print publication, followed by the award for its website in 2016.

“To have four TTA member companies win this year — when the big national conference is right here in Nashville — that just underscores what a good job our members are doing in communicating about broadband with rural Tennesseans,” said TTA Executive Director Levoy Knowles.

TTA Members To Benefit From Congressional Spending Bill

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A $600 million investment in rural broadband approved in March as part of a congressional spending bill is expected to have a profound effect in Tennessee, where independent and cooperatively owned companies deliver critical services to nearly 30 percent of the state.

The Omnibus bill appropriated funding for a new pilot grant and loan program administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service. The program will provide broadband to underserved rural and tribal areas. This investment is part of nearly $1 billion in total new rural broadband projects.

“Small telcos have a proven track record in overcoming challenges in rural areas to provide robust, sustainable broadband, and their many efforts in conjunction with long-standing, highly effective USDA backing are the embodiment of precisely the kinds of public-private partnerships that our nation should be leveraging to tackle such challenges in the future,” according to a news release from NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield.

“We are excited by the promise of the resources provided within the omnibus and the prospect of continuing our members’ work with RUS. We are grateful to Congress for its attention to rural broadband concerns, and consistent with the directives of Congress, we hope that this new effort will build upon, and be coordinated with, existing broadband-focused initiatives within RUS and at the Federal Communications Commission to realize the shared goal of robust, affordable and sustainable universal broadband,” says Bloomfield.

It is unacceptable that millions of people in rural America currently lack access to reliable broadband, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue says in a news release.

“I have traveled extensively across the nation, and everywhere I go I have heard how important increased broadband is to rural Americans. Reliable and affordable internet e-connectivity truly is the key to productivity in the 21st century, and I’m pleased Congress recognized this need and has provided this critical funding,” he says.

About 80 percent of the 24 million households in the United States do not have reliable, affordable high-speed internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission. E-connectivity plays a critical role in establishing quality of life, access to health care, effective schools and other vital services.

A few conditions are mandated in the funding bill:

  • Ninety percent of the households served by any project funded through this program must be unserved or underserved and can’t currently have 10/1 Mbps broadband access.
  • Any entity receiving funds from the program is prohibited from overbuilding an existing RUS borrower.
  • No more than 4 percent of funds received through the program can be used toward administrative costs.

FCC Chairman Meets With Members Of Tennessee Telecommunications Association

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The rules guiding expansion of rural broadband must be modernized, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said during a visit to Middle Tennessee in April, when he met with members of the Tennessee Telecommunications Association.

The FCC has announced $500 million in support for rural broadband deployment, and Pai said the FCC wants more predictable, long-term support so rural communities served by small carriers are not “stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.”

Rules governing expansion are important for TTA members, whose companies provide high-speed broadband and fiber to more than 136,000 rural residents and businesses across Tennessee.

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, joined Pai at the meeting. “Our rural areas cannot have 21st-century economic development, 21st-century health care, 21st-century law enforcement or 21st-century education without high-speed broadband,” Blackburn said.

Levoy Knowles, executive director of TTA, said assistance through federal funding is paramount for TTA members.

“Our members are working and pouring everything they’ve got into getting rural Tennesseans connected,” Knowles says. “We are grateful to Chairman Pai and Congressman Blackburn for all the work they’ve done to see that we receive federal funding for our efforts. We are very appreciative that they joined us today to discuss these critical issues.”

TTA members have installed more than 21,000 miles of fiber in rural areas across the state, and by 2019, they will have spent more than $243 million to connect rural Tennesseans with gig-speed fiber.

Several issues were discussed at the meeting with Pai.

  • With many rural hospitals closing, high-speed broadband and fiber connect patients and health care providers through rural telemedicine programs.
  • Today’s teachers are moving from printed to electronic textbooks, meaning that rural students have a critical need for internet service so they can do homework.
  • Internet service providers at the meeting said they appreciate the state and federal funds they receive to help make high-speed broadband and fiber available to more rural Tennesseans.
  • Because there are fewer potential subscribers per mile of fiber, the economics of providing it to rural areas are challenging.
  • Beyond profits, however, high-speed broadband and fiber are valuable tools to recruit businesses — and jobs — to rural areas and to retain those already located there.
  • Rep. Blackburn said 50 percent of rural hospitals lack adequate internet access.

With rural hospitals closing and teachers moving to electronic textbooks, the need has never been greater for expanding rural broadband, Pai says.

“For better, healthier, more profitable communities, rural Americans need more access to high-speed broadband,” he says.

Governor Haslam Adds $5 Million To Broadband Grants

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In his 2018-2019 budget amendment, Gov. Bill Haslam took advantage of increasing revenues to fund projects supporting school safety, opioid addiction, aeronautics job training — and rural broadband.

The amendment added $5 million in nonrecurring grant money to the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Grant program. Coupling that with the $10 million already allotted for the grants, the state is offering $15 million to broadband providers in support of bringing broadband to some of the states’ rural communities.

“By significantly increasing the amount of grant funding for these projects, the governor is showing not just that broadband is essential for all Tennesseeans, but also that he has faith in providers like our TTA members to build the networks in the rural parts of our state,” said TTA Executive Director Levoy Knowles. “TTA members received about half of the funding in the first round of grants, and as Tennessee’s rural broadband experts, I would expect another strong showing the next time the grants are announced.”

The initial round of grants, announced in January, included five grants for TTA members:

  • Aeneas Communications: $190,000 to serve parts of Hardeman County
  • Ben Lomand Communications: $1 million to serve the Pocahontas Community in Coffee County
  • DTC Communications: $1.7 million to serve parts of Smith and Wilson counties
  • Scott County Telephone Cooperative: $1.9 million to serve Surgoinsville in Hawkins County
  • Volunteer First Services: $76,714 to serve the Sunset Ridge Community in Cumberland County

Other grant recipients include Comcast, Gibson Electric Membership Corporation, Sunset Digital Communications and Tri-County Fiber Communications.