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Comcast

    BITS

    Directing Rescue Funds to Broadband

    Officials need to decide if it is really worth it

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — A plan to extend a fiber-optic broadband network to 1,528 customers got a tentative green light from the select board last July 26. The idea was to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to hire OpenCape, the nonprofit internet service provider, to extend its existing network from the Provincetown Commons along Bradford Street to the West End rotary and back along the entire length of Commercial Street to where it joins Bradford.

    The new loop would extend OpenCape service to 1,150 homes and 378 businesses. Businesses would pay $80 a month and other residents $55 a month, OpenCape CEO Steven Johnston said, and the service would be more reliable than Comcast’s.

    But most of Provincetown’s homes (76 percent) and businesses (62 percent) would still not be connected. And the price tag for the town to install the loop would be $825,000.

    The state legislature passed a bond bill in 2020 that included $1.7 million to extend broadband service on the Outer Cape, but Gov. Charlie Baker never released the funds. The Baker administration will not invest in broadband here, says Sen. Julian Cyr, because we already have Comcast service, which may be expensive, spotty, and unreliable, but is good enough, according to the Baker team.

    So, the Provincetown Select Board has endorsed the idea of using the ARPA funds, expected to arrive in the town’s coffers soon.

    Connecting everyone in town to OpenCape’s fiber-optic network would cost $11 million, according to Johnston.

    “That price tag is not possible,” said select board member Leslie Sandberg. But, she added, the Bradford-Commercial loop would be a decent first phase, made palatable by the ARPA funds.

    The select board agreed to continue researching that option. “I would like the opportunity to put together a plan,” said Sandberg.

    “I am absolutely for that,” said David Abramson, the board chair. “A lot of people deal in a lot of data, and they don’t have a lot of options. We need to pursue this further.”

    Billions of dollars are coming to Massachusetts to help the state recover from the pandemic. (See related story on page A1.) Guidance from the federal government gives states “wide latitude” on use of the money, Johnston said.

    These pots of ARPA money are separate from the recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which will provide another $65 billion nationally to help policymakers beef up high-speed internet access, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

    Even though the pandemic relief funds sound like a gold mine, there are a lot of needs out there for this one-time cash infusion.

    Paul Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Barnstable County Chamber of Commerce, named the housing crisis as a top priority.

    The median sales price of a single-family home jumped from $410,000 in 2019 to $570,000 in 2021, according to the Cape & Islands Association of Realtors. Child-care options are both costly and minimal, which prevents parents from fully joining the work force in a severe labor shortage. Many are calling for universal preschool.

    Both of the bridges to the Cape require major repairs, Niedzwiecki added.

    Broadband remains one of the issues that people complain about, and it is essential to keeping Cape Codders working from home and students connected to teachers during shutdowns.

    “There is enough money to do something transformational,” Niedzwiecki said.

    But there is not enough to do everything.

    Comcast’s Monopoly

    The majority of Cape Codders have access to broadband, which is defined as a minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second (mbps) and a minimum upload speed of 3 mbps.

    Comcast, which enjoys a virtual monopoly on the Cape, provides a combination of fiber and coaxial cable lines to nearly all Cape homes and businesses at faster speeds than that. Marc Goodman, a Comcast spokesman, said the base customer package, called “the performance starter/internet essentials,” has a download speed of 50 mbps and an upload speed of 5 mbps.

    A test of the Comcast internet service at the Independent’s Provincetown office at 237 Commercial St. on Jan. 17 showed a download speed of 350 mbps, and an upload speed of 41.5 mbps (though a lot of work happens from a home office not served by Comcast, where a test that same day showed a download speed of 2 mbps and an upload speed of less than one mbps). A tool provided on OpenCape’s website allows you to check the current speed of your internet connection.

    Johnston said if you continue to check the speed daily, you will see it slow down during busy use times in the summer.

    OpenCape’s fiber network is as fast as Comcast but more reliable, Johnston said.

    Still, Comcast seems to be good enough for most users, said Randy Hunt, a former state representative from Sandwich who worked to address internet complaints when he was in the legislature from 2011 to 2021.

    “You need to meet people’s needs, and Comcast seems to do that with their coaxial cable,” Hunt said.

    But many customers have problems with Comcast. Provincetown Select Board member John Golden said, “The service we get is dismal at best. On the Fourth of July weekend, I couldn’t even believe how bad it was.”

    “Everyone has a story about Comcast’s customer service,” said Niedzwiecki. Then there is the issue of Comcast’s prices.

    The base price for internet service alone is $65 a month, according to Goodman and the local service rate posted online. Most people also get television through Comcast; those packages often exceed $200 a month.

    The OpenCape Option

    Jill Stauffer, executive director of the Provincetown Commons, a shared workspace, said she pays $450 a month to have a dedicated symmetrical connection through OpenCape. It is well worth it, she said, because in three years the Commons has lost its internet connection just twice for brief periods and only in rare circumstances, like a car accident taking out a utility pole.

    OpenCape is a nonprofit that used $40 million in mostly federal funds to construct a middle-mile fiber-optics network up Route 6. When it was completed in 2013, the OpenCape founders discovered a serious miscalculation: they had thought private internet service startups would appear and would install the costly “last mile” connections between the network’s backbone and local homes and businesses. That didn’t happen.

    This misstep has meant that most people cannot connect to OpenCape. Hospitals, municipalities, and larger businesses have spent the money to get their internet from OpenCape because it is a reliable backup, Hunt said.

    OpenCape is getting creative in selling last-mile connections through plans like the one Johnston pitched to the Provincetown Select Board last July. This provides at least some competition to Comcast, which would otherwise have a total monopoly on the Cape, said Stauffer.

    Pamet Point Road in Wellfleet is among the rural roads to get Comcast service last year after years of complaints. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    Perhaps it was this competition and loud complaining that motivated Comcast in 2021 to extend internet service to some rural roads that had been unserved for years. These included Pamet Point Road, Bound Brook Island Road, a portion of Old County Road, Pilgrim Road, and Old Hay Road in Wellfleet and Dorothy’s Lane, Long Nook Road, and Priest Road in Truro, said Goodman.

    Goodman asserted that only about 50 homes on Cape Cod now lack access to Comcast’s service. His claim could not be verified, because Goodman said the list of unserved roads is “proprietary” and he refused to disclose them.

    The trick will be to use the ARPA relief funds in an efficient way, Niedzweiki said. Cyr said OpenCape already provides internet to parts of the main streets in Hyannis and Falmouth for affordable rates. He said that could be a good model for high density areas like Provincetown.

    But for the residents of rural roads, the choices are less attractive.

    The Cape Cod Commission is about to put out a request for proposals to hire a consultant to examine what sort of internet service the Cape has now, what is lacking, and possible solutions (and associated costs), said Kristy Senatori, executive director of the commission.

    CONNECTIVITY

    New 10-Year Comcast License Leaves Questions Unanswered

    Not all are mollified by decreased density factor

    By

    Two years after they began, cable license renewal negotiations between five Lower Cape towns and Comcast have come to a close. On Feb. 23, the Truro and Wellfleet select boards voted unanimously to approve new 10-year cable agreements with the company.

    Eastham’s select board followed suit, unanimously approving that town’s contract on March 1. Brewster and Orleans, the other towns in the group, have yet to vote on their contracts, which expire in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, respectively.

    The terms of the contracts for all five towns are renegotiated with Comcast every 10 years. From a legal standpoint, the Comcast cable license agreement “doesn’t concern the internet,” said William Hewig, the KP Law attorney who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the five towns.

    The same lines that provide cable television service, however, are also the primary source of broadband internet connection on the Outer Cape. As previously reported in the Independent, because of the high fixed costs of cable infrastructure, Comcast has no real competition. It is, essentially, a monopoly. And many residents have no access to broadband because it is not considered a public utility, and Comcast, which ranked number 28 on the Fortune 500 list last year with more than $13 billion in profits, says it can’t afford to provide it for them.

    Included in the signed agreements is a reduced density requirement, which could mean that some currently unserved residents will get access to cable lines and, therefore, broadband. Comcast will offer cable to areas with 15 homes per aerial mile, down from 25 homes per aerial mile in the last contract.

    “It is the lowest possible density that we or anybody have ever been able to negotiate out of a cable company,” Hewig told the Wellfleet Select Board. “We know that’s an issue — it’s an issue in all the towns.” But, he said, “It’s just not possible to get them below that.”

    Eastham Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe noted at the March 1 select board meeting that about 38 homes in Eastham were not eligible for Comcast service under the prior agreement.

    “I’m not sure how far this will get us, but it may help some of those homes get connected if they want to,” Beebe said.

    Some Are Disheartened

    For some town officials, the results of the negotiation were less than satisfying.

    “As somebody underserved in Truro with school-aged children who are engaged in virtual learning, I’m a little disheartened by this contract,” Truro select board member Stephanie Rein said at the Feb. 23 board meeting, which she called in to by phone. Rein pays an “an exorbitant fee for satellite internet,” she told the Independent, and the connection does not provide a strong enough connection to join meetings by video.

    “I appreciate that we have the lowest number and that the new contract drops the density requirements,” she said. But, Rein noted, requests for cable extension are measured from the existing cables.

    Section 3.1 of the contract states: “Licensee shall upon request make Cable Service available to every residential dwelling unit within the Town where the minimum density is at least fifteen (15) dwelling units per aerial mile and twenty (20) dwelling units per underground mile providing, however, that any request for plant extension is measured from the existing Trunk and Distribution System and Licensee is able to obtain from property owners any necessary easements and/or permits in accordance with Cable Act.”

    “I don’t want people to have a false impression of how great this is,” said Rein, “because it gives them the chance that’s based on the trunk. I just wanted to point that out, because we are committing to that for the next 10 years.”

    “That’s correct,” said Hewig, “and I don’t think it’s great either. But it’s the best we’re going to be able to do with Comcast, and that’s all there is to it. They had their limits and we pushed them to the limit. This is the most we’re going to get on density, unfortunately.”

    Eastham Select Board member Art Autorino had his own concerns about Comcast’s access, speed, and reliability at a recent “Meet and Greet” — a virtual meeting of local business owners and managers with staff members of the town planning and development department.

    “There’s still quite a bit of consternation around the Comcast program,” said Autorino.

    Select board vice chair Aimee Eckman pointed out that the Comcast contract covered only cable television service.

    “It really technically has nothing to do with the internet,” she said. “There’s nothing in there that says they have to provide internet.”

    Revenue from Comcast’s internet service is not included when calculating the town’s 5-percent payment, Beebe explained. With more and more customers choosing internet-only packages for streaming services, the income to the town from cable fees is expected to decline.

    “We are anticipating that this revenue source is going to rapidly decrease over the next few years unless cable has some kind of resurgence,” said Beebe on March 1. “We need to start planning for that.”

    Concern About ‘Cord-Cutting’

    Since the early days of cable television, local governments have had varying degrees of regulatory control over cable companies. In exchange for permission to run cables along public land, cable companies pay “franchise fees” to municipalities and provide channels for public, educational, and government (PEG) television.

    The franchise fee in the current license agreement is 5 percent of Comcast’s gross annual revenues from cable television subscribers within each town.

    According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report from January 2020, “an increasing number of consumers are substituting streaming services for video services provided by cable companies and telcos. As a result, the amount of revenue state and local governments receive from cable and telco providers subject to franchise fees is declining, which also reduces the amount cable providers can be required to spend to support PEG channels.”

    This trend, known as “cord-cutting,” has many in public access television worried.

    “I am concerned about cord-cutting, as is the rest of the PEG community, but there are bills actively being worked on in various state legislatures and the FCC to address the anticipated drop-off in cable subscribers” Mia Baumgarten, chair of the Wellfleet Cable Advisory Committee, told the Independent.

    As of 2019, according to the CRS report, Federal Communications Commission rules stated that municipalities “may not regulate nonvideo services offered over cable systems by incumbent cable operators. The services covered by this prohibition include broadband internet service, business data services, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.”

    When the negotiations began, “we weren’t even sure the license would be renewed,” said Baumgarten. This would have meant a loss of funding for PEG.

    Public access TV, including board meeting recordings, is “democratizing public information,” said Baumgarten. PEG “isn’t just a fun thing to watch,” she said, “but an essential public service.” It has always been essential, she added, but it is even more so during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    TECHNOLOGY

    3 Towns Wait to See What Comcast Will Deliver

    A new contract offers benefits that are still unknown

    By

    WELLFLEET — Thanks to a new contract with five Lower and Outer Cape towns, Comcast may soon provide broadband internet connections to residents of Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham who live on roads with 15 or more homes per mile.

    But Comcast said that it doesn’t know how many new customers will get connected under the revised service policy.

    The telecommunications giant, which ranked number 28 on the Fortune 500 list this year with more than $13 billion in profits, has imposed a “density factor” of 25 residences per mile in Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham for years. Lowering the factor to 15 is seen as a big win by some town officials.

    Marc Goodman, Comcast’s director of public relations, insisted that the company doesn’t know how many homes might now get broadband. After the new contract is signed by all five select boards in December or January, Goodman said, home owners who believe they may qualify for service must ask Comcast to survey their roads.

    Goodman did not explain how Comcast has been able to enforce its 25-homes-per-mile density factor without road surveys that supposedly do not exist.

    William Hewig III of KP Law negotiated the contract renewal on behalf of the five towns this year. The group includes Orleans and Brewster, which, Hewig said, have had the 15-per-mile factor for the last 10 years.

    Hewig said he did not know how many more homes will get a faster internet connection as a result of the new contract. “The hope is it will bring in a lot more cable subscribers,” he said. “But we all know it’s a sparsely populated area.”

    By law, Comcast must provide its host towns funding for local programing and other benefits. Those benefits change every 10 years when the contract is renewed. The previous contract was signed in 2010.

    “We went into the negotiations saying, ‘All our towns need a lower density. It’s a non-negotiable term,’ ” Hewig said. “Negotiations were long. We were all courteous, but the negotiations were tough.”

    Comcast’s Goodman said providing broadband access to new customers might also depend on getting easements to cross private property.

    After the contract signing, Hewig said, Comcast will go to all the underserved roads in the area, such as Long Nook Road in Truro, to conduct surveys.

    Heather Draz, who lives on Pamet Point Road in Wellfleet, said it won’t help her. There aren’t enough houses there.

    Maeve Taylor, 4, tries to get homework done despite a very slow internet connection. Her home on Bound Brook Island Road has no broadband access. (Photo Tessa Bry Taylor)

    Draz’s two sons grew up doing their homework parked outside the Wellfleet Public Library to take advantage of the free wi-fi, she said. All their computer games, movies, and educational materials (she still has one son in college) must be downloaded from the internet to be used later at home.

    Draz has been advocating for better broadband for 10 years. She’s a regular at the cable advisory committee meetings.

    “If I can’t get it for my kids,” Draz said, “maybe I can get it for my grandkids.”

    Draz said the towns all deserve 100 percent connectivity, and the fastest way is to use local, state, and federal funds to pay Comcast to install lines in unprofitable rural areas.

    Millions of dollars in state funding has gone to the Berkshires to provide “last mile” infrastructure to towns that are so small and remote that Comcast would never get involved otherwise.

    “In some of these towns, you’re more likely to see Bigfoot than to have a great internet connection,” said Steve Johnston of OpenCape. “There was no way for them to ever get connectivity unless the state subsidized a connection.”

    OpenCape has used $40 million in state and federal funding to provide “middle mile” fiber-optic cable along Route 6. For most Cape businesses and home owners, however, the middle mile may as well be in Peoria. It’s the last mile that’s necessary.

    In last four years, the state’s Broadband Institute has spent millions to provide last-mile broadband to the Berkshires. Meanwhile, Cape Cod has received nothing from the Broadband Institute.

    The state’s policy, which dates back to 2008, prioritizes unserved areas like the Berkshires, while Cape Cod is merely “underserved.” And it is not underserved enough to meet the criteria for state funding. A 2010 report by the Truro Cable Advisory Committee found that 93 to 98 percent of Truro homes had access to Comcast broadband. This does not meet the state’s definition of “underserved.”

    But try telling that to the 65 to 198 homeowners in Truro who, the study found, have no Comcast access.

    State Sen. Julian Cyr is trying to help. He has proposed an amendment to the so-called Endure Act, to provide infrastructure for three Wellfleet roads: Draz’s Pamet Point Road, Bound Brook Island Road, and part of Old County Road.

    The Endure Act awaits action by the legislature. The IT Bond Bill, already signed by Baker, grants $1.7 million to OpenCape to be used in part to extend fiber-optic cable from where it stops at the Commons on Bradford Street to the rest of Bradford Street and all along Commercial Street.

    Fiber-optic technology is faster than Comcast’s coaxial cable. But Baker has not yet released the funds.

    Five years is a coon’s age in technology years, Johnston said, and the 10-year contract with Comcast is glacial.

    “Comcast is giving up the density factor — that’s a very small giveaway,” said Johnston. “To me, the 10-year contract is a red flag. It’s an eternity in the technology world. Towns need to ask themselves how they can take control.”

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed the Mass. Broadband Institute’s policy on unserved and underserved areas to Gov. Charlie Baker. The policy was in place before Baker became governor.

     

    OP-ED

    Connectivity Is a Necessity

    The pandemic has made remote communication incalculably more important

    By

    The Independent has published articles about the problem of internet connectivity on the Outer Cape, and we are currently waiting to see the results of the latest round of negotiations with Comcast about its policies. I believe that a wired broadband connection should be considered a basic necessity and should be available to every home in our region.

    A number of homes in Wellfleet, where I live, have no Comcast cable connection available. That is also true in Truro. They have been left out of company plans because of their remoteness; Comcast deems them not profitable.

    I think most of the roads left out in Wellfleet are in or near the National Seashore. Comcast has gone around them, down other National Seashore roads with more dense and profitable development near the beaches. Connecting to OpenCape’s fiber optic alternative network is prohibitively expensive. Satellite and cell coverage are not equal in data strength, amount, or capacity for internet service compared to Comcast cable.

    Where we are, near the Truro line, the cell phone signal is also poor. Why do we allow complete dead zones in our towns?

    Comcast has reportedly offered to reduce its threshold for service from 25 to 15 houses per linear mile. In Wellfleet, at least, this will not fix the problem. I believe it would leave out an estimated 5 to 15 percent of all homes in Wellfleet. I have been unsuccessful in getting data or maps of Wellfleet’s coverage from Comcast or the town administration.

    A serious commitment to close this gap in service is needed. Our town governments should demand accurate mapping of Comcast service coverage and, more important, lack of coverage. Putting ink on a contract with Comcast requiring service for every household would allow students and all residents to access what has become a basic utility.

    This is an issue of educational, economic, and health equity. The coronavirus pandemic has made remote communication incalculably more important. After 10 years of fact-finding and advocacy, ever since the last contract negotiation with Comcast, I feel frustrated and forgotten.

    It has been difficult for my family to keep up and on track. Common amenities like nonmetered wi-fi, streaming, updating, Zoom, Netflix, online courses, live calls, and gaming from home, which most people take for granted, are not available to us. The amount of time and money I have spent on workarounds is much too much. Being separated from aging and ill parents during the virus outbreak has made it even more difficult. Add the lack of ability to do common remote work and school functions from home, and you can imagine how I feel.

    I hope this situation will be fixed within the next 10 years, or before the next public health crisis. It will never happen if we don’t make the effort.

    CONNECTIVITY

    Five Towns Force Comcast to Expand Broadband Access

    New deal with the cable company is called ‘revolutionary’

    By

    TRURO — More residents in areas currently without broadband service will soon be able to get connected, following a breakthrough in negotiations with Comcast — though exactly how many will gain access is still unknown.

    The town administrators of Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster are close to inking a new 10-year license agreement with the cable company that lowers the minimum density required to provide broadband service to neighborhoods. The old agreement required there be at least 25 houses per linear mile on any one street for Comcast to provide broadband to it. Under the new contract, a minimum of 15 houses per linear mile will be needed, said Truro Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer.

    “That would be revolutionary,” said Mia Baumgarten, chair of the Wellfleet Cable Advisory Committee, noting the issue of less dense areas going without adequate connectivity has been longstanding.

    Negotiations have ended, but the final license has not yet been signed by the towns’ select boards, Palmer said. Comcast spokesman Marc Goodman would not comment because the agreement is not final.

    The pandemic has changed where and how people work. Many part-time residents hope they can hunker down in the woods of Truro and do their jobs with little more than a phone and a laptop. But Comcast’s so-called “density factor” thwarts many who work from home here.

    Every 10 years, the towns of Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Brewster renegotiate terms with Comcast as a block. On the table each time is what percentage of the fees paid to Comcast by customers goes back to each town to support public access television and government programming, like the recording of public meetings. The density factor is always raised, especially by Truro and Wellfleet, said Palmer. But the towns never had success changing that standard, said Mary Abt, a member of the Truro Cable Advisory Committee.

    No one could tell the Independent how many homes do not have broadband now, nor was there an estimate of how many would get it with the new lower density factor. A Truro Cable Advisory Committee study conducted in 2010 found that between 65 and 198 properties did not have Comcast broadband capability.

    In spite of not knowing how many will benefit, Palmer said this change was worth fighting for.

    When Comcast refused to lower the density factor, “We said, ‘No. We’re not going to sign a license,’ ” Palmer said.

    Both towns have homes in the Cape Cod National Seashore, where there is a three-acres-per-lot zoning requirement. That puts a lot space between homes, Palmer said.

    Now more than ever, a fast internet connection is a necessity rather than entertainment, said Teresa Martin, executive director of Lower Cape Community TV.

    “Yet the Federal Communications Commission has decided that broadband is not a utility,” Martin said. “This discussion has been going on for decades.”

    And it’s not likely to change, Martin said, under current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who did not come to the job from public service, but instead had been an industry lobbyist.

    “Comcast,” Abt said, should have been a public utility. “Then they would have to get to everybody.”

    TECHNOLOGY

    As Life Moves Online, Lack of Access Vexes

    Comcast’s ‘monopoly’ keeps others from serving the Cape

    By

    While debates about in-person schooling rage and doctor visits go virtual, Outer Cape towns are negotiating the next decade of internet coverage in the area. Contracts between the individual towns and Comcast, the Cape’s main source of broadband internet connection, are set to expire this winter.

    Due to the high fixed costs of cable internet infrastructure, Comcast has a natural monopoly on high-speed internet on the Cape. “Comcast is really the only game in town as far as lines and cables go,” Mia Baumgarten, chair of the Wellfleet Cable Advisory Committee, told the Independent.

    AT&T does not provide internet in Massachusetts because other companies own the cable networks necessary to do so, said Karen Twomey, the regional P.R. manager for AT&T and DirecTV.

    “Another company could come and run cables alongside Comcast’s, but is it profitable for them to do that if 90 percent of residents are on Comcast?” said Baumgarten. “It’s a monopoly.”

    Comcast is a monopoly, though, that many Cape residents can’t buy into. Many areas, especially in sparsely populated parts of the Outer Cape, have no cable service, and thus no broadband — and the company isn’t required to provide it.

    Former state Sen. Dan Wolf, founder and CEO of Cape Air, does not have access to broadband at his Harwich home. “There should be an obligation to deliver service even to places where it isn’t profitable,” he said. “If Comcast can’t do it, they should set up a reserve fund to pay OpenCape to do it.”

    OpenCape is a nonprofit headquartered in Barnstable that currently provides fiber optic internet service to municipalities and some businesses, with plans to one day serve private residences.

    “The only internet service I have at my home is an old-fashioned DSL over an old-fashioned phone line,” said Wolf. “My cell phone for work is T-Mobile, and very often I just stream off of my T-Mobile because the DSL is so bad. I can do email from home, but a lot of what we’re doing now is telemeetings, and it’s just too unreliable.”

    The Cape’s incomplete broadband coverage has prevented psychologist Edouard Fontenot and his husband from moving to Truro full time. According to Fontenot, who goes to friends’ houses to get work done, Comcast salespeople have said several times that they serve his area, only to look his address up and take it back.

    These are not isolated incidents. “I would say we have at least 30 homes that can’t get Comcast in Eastham,” said Town Administrator Jaqueline Beebe. “Some of those people have put up satellite dishes.”

    Satellite internet is available on the Cape through companies like Viasat and HughesNet. Though satellite is more widely available than cable or fiber in hard-to-reach locations, its speeds are generally much slower.

    In the past, a point of contention in towns’ negotiations with Comcast has been the number of homes per mile required for the company to provide service. Comcast’s standard to determine if providing service is financially viable varies. It is 25 houses per mile in Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham, and 30 in Provincetown, according to past contracts.

    James Paul Ludwig, a media consultant for Brewster, Truro, and Yarmouth who was involved in the last round of negotiations in 2010, said Outer Cape towns don’t have enough business to strike a bargain with Comcast. “Towns are always trying to negotiate that aspect of it. I’ve never thought it would work.”

    “Suddenly, what was a mere annoyance has become really critical for us,” Fontenot said. “As a health-care provider, it’s extremely discouraging and frustrating not to be able to transition more seamlessly into telehealth. Without broadband, it’s not doable. This is the thing that’s going to strangle the Cape from being a viable place to live after the pandemic.”

    It’s a pre-existing problem, Fontenot added, but the pandemic is “really shining a light on the way that people are not being served. In exchange for the capacity to be a monopoly, the trade-off should be that they be required to serve all areas.”

    Underserved, Not Unserved

    “The state of broadband on Cape Cod is uneven,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro. “We have antiquated service via a provider that has a monopoly on service. But we also have the potential through the OpenCape network.”

    OpenCape, founded in 2006, maintains a fiber “backbone” along Route 6 all the way to Provincetown. Its broadband has a higher bandwidth than the cable internet offered by Comcast, according to CEO Steven Johnston.

    OpenCape serves municipal buildings and a few businesses, including Wolf’s Cape Air. Aside from a residential experiment launched this year, however, Cape residents cannot link their homes to the fiber network. If the so-called last miles of fiber service were constructed throughout the Cape, Comcast with its spotty service would need to compete.

    Despite the hefty sum required to expand fiber access — $70,000 per mile, according to a 2019 Independent article — Barnstable County Administrator Jack Yunits remains hopeful. “We’d do anything we could to get broadband access going throughout the Cape,” he said. Yunits said the funds would be difficult to acquire through grants, “But I think we could do it in a revolving loan fund.”

    Most state funding for broadband improvements goes through the Mass. Broadband Institute (MBI). While Comcast’s hit-or-miss service is the only high-speed internet option on the Cape, MBI’s priorities are the 45 completely unserved towns in central and western Massachusetts.

    Marty Newell at the Center for Rural Strategies said that such funding difficulties are common in partially served areas.

    “A company can provide internet to one house in a county or census block and then declare that county served,” Newell said. “That means that potential competitors are locked out of a number of the grants and low-interest loans that Congress is so pleased about making available for rural America. Preference is given to unserved areas.”

    With the Outer Cape being underserved, state funding is not directed here. “I’m hoping that the pandemic puts pressure on cable companies to provide broadband access, the way we think of water or electricity as a human right,” said Mia Baumgarten. “I have my fingers crossed, but I can’t say I’m hopeful.”

    Olivia Weeks’s summer fellowship with the Independent is supported by the Harvard Alumni Association and the Harvard Club of Cape Cod. Carolyn Komatsoulis contributed reporting for this article from Boston.

    currents

    This Week in Truro

    By

    Meetings Ahead

    Truro is working on remote capacity to enable people to participate in public meetings. “We don’t have that in place yet,” said Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer. “So we have delayed all regular meetings.”

    A board of health meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 17, on the Truro Motor Inn’s plans to upgrade its septic system and avoid receivership was delayed. The board of health met briefly only to discuss the COVID-19 public health crisis. An audio of that meeting will be posted on the town’s website, Palmer said.

    Palmer said she hopes to have a remote access plan in place by the end of this week. Check the town’s website, www.truro-ma.gov, for updated information on the two meetings posted below, which could not be delayed.

    Thursday, March 19

    • Select Board, 2:30 p.m.; look for an update on remote access on the town’s website.

    Tuesday, March 24

    • Select Board, 5 p.m.; look for an update on remote access on the town’s website.

    Conversation Starters

    Technicalities

    Being the most rural town on Cape Cod has left Truro challenged when it comes to arranging online meetings, needed now due to the coronavirus crisis.

    One of the select board members lives on a street that does not have Comcast internet service because the street has fewer than 25 homes per mile. Comcast refuses to provide access to such homes because it’s not worth it for them, said Town Manager Rae Ann Palmer. The town is negotiating with the utility company to change its policy to reach people in areas of 10 homes per mile, Palmer said.

    Who’s Running

    Incumbent Stephanie J. Rein is the only person who has pulled nomination papers to run for a seat on the select board in the May 12 annual election.

    There is competition for two seats on the planning board, however. Incumbents John R. Riemer and Paul Kiernan have pulled nomination papers and so has a new candidate, Clinton Kershaw.

    There’s another race for one seat on the school committee; Colby J. Blehm has pulled and returned papers, while Denise M. Seager has pulled papers but had not returned them as of Tuesday.

    Incumbent Moderator Monica Kraft is running again. Martha Magane and Margaret Royka are unopposed for two seats on the library board of trustees. Incumbent Marilyn Adams is running unopposed for cemetery commission.

    Elizabeth Adele Gallo is running unopposed for the housing authority.

    All nomination papers must be returned by March 24 at 5 p.m. —K.C. Myers

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