Dan Warren is a lifelong resident of New Mexico. He was born in Gallup where he enjoyed running around in the hills and cliff country of the surrounding Navajo and Zuni reservations in his early years. He then lived in Santa Fe for the next nine years, graduating from Santa Fe High School. He volunteered at the Museum of New Mexico and at the Museum of Navajo Indian Ceremonial Art (now the Wheelwright Museum), where he was a docent. Dan worked his way through college at the University of New Mexico where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. Along the way, he worked as a dishwasher and also stocked the beer cooler at a Walgreens liquor store. Upon graduation, he worked for the New Mexico Highway Department performing environmental reviews for roadway and bridge projects. Finally, he worked for the City of Albuquerque where he worked as a transportation planner and eventually he was in charge of air quality planning. He retired and for the last 14 years has lived off-the-grid next door to the Gila National Forest in western Sierra County where he has an 80-acre homemade wildlife preserve.
At the end of July, numerous stories appeared relating to New Mexico receiving $675 million in federal grant monies to provide high-speed broadband “internet for all”. Although New Mexico has been working on improving broadband for many years, this is the latest infusion of money for the effort to bring many New Mexico families into the modern world where broadband has gone from being a luxury to being a necessity. People need good internet and phone service to conduct banking, general business, health needs, education, contact emergency services, etc. For students in school, good internet access has become an important component of the educational system. It has also become a huge part of the lives of children as social interactions with their peers occur via social media. Today, healthcare Televisits and the ability to access Zoom meetings are becoming new and important aspects of broadband.
Plans for Broadband in New Mexico
A review of plans by the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) is helpful. However, the documentation is extensive, very technical and immersed in jargon and acronyms that make it difficult for the average person to understand. For example, the January 2024 report contains a list of 102 acronyms used in the report. Even so, on page 8, Goal 1, within the executive summary of this report contains the following statement:
“For those highly remote communities where terrestrial networks cannot be deployed due to extraordinarily high costs or technical barriers, the State may consider initiatives to foster the adoption of existing non-terrestrial solutions, such as satellite-based broadband.”
Link to January 2024 New Mexico Broadband Plan Update – https://connect.nm.gov/uploads/1/4/1/9/141989814/state_of_new_mexico_three-year_broadband_plan_version__2024_update_.pdf
Link to July 2024 OBAE Plan Update – https://connect.nm.gov/uploads/1/4/1/9/141989814/new_mexico_ipv2_-_final_-_20240726.pdf
Because the plan suggests that they “may consider” satellite, I called the OBAE on September 30 hoping to find out what, if anything, might be happening to provide satellite internet to rural citizens who will probably never get cable service. I left a message. My call had not been returned as of October 3. On page 29 of the January report, I did find language that is slightly stronger saying they “will work on initiatives to foster non-terrestrial solutions”.
However, within the July 2024 two volume report I was not able to identify any specific non-terrestrial proposals. Specific projects, mostly for terrestrial (cable or towers?), are described in Volume 1. Perhaps it is there, but I did not see any mention of the Alamo community, although numerous puebloes are mentioned. Volume 2 has Section 15, Use of funding, however it is a short section and does not detail any specific projects. While Appendix B lists several hundred entities that were coordinated with (pages 141 – 152), I see no mention of Socorro, Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte, Catron County, Dona Ana County (the Las Cruces Rotary is mentioned), Sierra County, or Starlink.
Because I do not find any mention of today’s leader in satellite broadband (Starlink), for the moment, I assume little is being done on this front. I believe the report identifies 41 broadband providers for New Mexico. The only satellite services listed are Viasat and Hughes, however, based upon personal experience, I do not consider these services to provide “broadband” for rural areas that meet federal guidelines for internet speeds. Also, I believe the economic support provided for low income citizens (Affordable Connectivity Program) that do get Viasat or Hughes internet may lapse very soon. Again, I find no mention of Starlink within any of the documentation.
Educational equity in New Mexico.
This July 26 KUNM story describes the most recent federal grant for broadband and I discuss the NM Supreme Court’s mandate regarding equity in education:
https://www.kunm.org/local-news/2024-07-26/new-mexico-internet-for-all-plan-broadband-grants
While I am certainly not a lawyer, my understanding is that the lawsuit ‘Yazzie vs. Martinez’ mandated that New Mexico needed to bring equity to the educational system. Basically, New Mexico needs to make reasonable efforts to ensure that poor and underserved children receive fair and equitable resources so they have a chance to prosper during their education. I believe the New Mexico Supreme Court decided that providing equity in education is not simply desirable, it is a mandate. There are many stories regarding this lawsuit — here is one short discussion from about 2018 that is on a University of New Mexico website: https://race.unm.edu/assets/documents/yazzie-martinez-english.pdf
Is Starlink leaving other satellite services in the (star) dust?
According to one story regarding deployment of Starlink for maritime uses, Starlink is apparently 10 times faster and 10 times cheaper than older forms of satellite internet. Although not mentioned, personal experience reveals that Starlink also enables a person to utilize WiFi calling which allows a person to make satisfactory phone calls with it too. You still need a phone service like Verizon to do this, but for areas with no cellphone service, this can be a lifesaver – literally!
In addition, Starlink is beginning to take over the internet in the skys. Both United Airlines and Air France have decided to jettison Viasat and go with Starlink. Having used both systems myself, this is no surprise at all.
Link to story regarding Starlink taking over on the oceans:
https://spacenews.com/leo-takes-center-stage-for-communications-at-sea/
Links to recent stories regarding United Airlines, Air France, and Hawaiian Airlines going with Starlink:
https://spacenews.com/united-airlines-bumps-geo-operators-off-fleet-for-starlink-wi-fi/
https://spacenews.com/air-france-plans-to-connect-entire-fleet-to-starlink-wi-fi/
https://spacenews.com/free-starlink-wi-fi-now-on-most-hawaiian-airlines-transpacific-fleet/
Link to story about company that is trying to compete with Starlink’s takeover of the airline industry:
https://spacenews.com/gogo-buys-rival-to-tackle-starlink-aviation-expansion/
In addition, the FCC decided to open more radio wave capacity for Starlink and similar internet providers. This is a quote from the story:
“This action promotes spectrum efficiency, fosters competition, and expands the ability of satellite operators to deploy advanced services, including high-speed internet access to unserved and underserved areas,” the FCC said in a news release.
https://spacenews.com/fcc-releases-more-radio-waves-for-ngso-broadband/
Why Starlink is so much better
The reason Starlink works better than older satellite internet systems is because the newer satellites function in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Older satellite systems were Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). GEO systems such as Viasat and Hughes internet almost always advertise speeds as being “up to” some megabytes per second, but rarely can a customer achieve the kinds of speeds that broadband provides. The LEO systems use a constellation of satellites rather than one satellite located in a “stationary” location tens of thousands of miles above the earth’s surface. LEO systems have very low latency, meaning signals go back and forth quickly. Older GEO systems have high latency due to the long distances involved.
It has been claimed in a recent report that LEO satellite systems may actually be somewhat faster than fiber optic cable because the satellites can transmit signals using light faster in space than can be transmitted through the glass fibers in cable.
Hurricane Helene just devastated much of the southeast portion of the United States. Many people were left without communication although probably most of them had terrestrial broadband. If a person had a simple small generator and a Starlink set receiver unit, they could easily communicate with the outside world. (I would have protected the receiver if I knew a hurricane was coming.)
Will New Mexico’s underserved populations have to wait a half decade or more to get broadband?
Although the implementation of terrestrial broadband is making great strides in providing valuable help to unserved and underserved residents, it may be at least five more years before the goal of getting terrestrial broadband to people living in remote and very rural situations. This includes many Native Americans, ranchers, people living off-the-grid, and communities that are more isolated. I cringed when I heard the recent discussion about a major Comcast project in Rio Rancho that was great because it would help people in rural New Mexico. I certainly hope our leaders will pay close attention to the efforts of the OBAE and I hope that a serious effort will be made to immediately implement non-terrestrial broadband solutions. Starlink is currently the leader in satellite broadband, but other companies are working feverishly to create better competition.
The children of our state need good internet in order to thrive in today’s society, and they need it last week, not years into the future. Starlink is available to provide for this need if those in charge will only see that it happens.
I would not be able to provide the research and content for this communication if I had not spent $700 of my own money (with a monthly cost of $120) to obtain Starlink internet. With no cell towers in western Sierra County, I would not have even attempted to call OBAE if I had a service like Viasat or Hughes. On the bright side, Starlink advertised home receiver units for $299 this week. I can only imagine what the State could negotiate on a statewide contract to provide units to poor people in this state. Note that Starlink is $120 per month, but Viasat was $127. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford Starlink; others are not.
Other related links and stories:
The cost of broadband.
From July 2024 Volume 2 BEAD report:
“According to the FCC, the current unweighted median price of 100/10 Mbps broadband service in New Mexico is $69 per month, with an overall statewide pricing range of $30 to $89 per month.”
This does not accurately reflect that in the past internet providers in rural areas have charged much higher prices than are found in competitive urban environments. For example, Viasat charged me $127 a month for slow speed internet (3 or 4 Mbps?) with a 10 gigabyte monthly limit, but a subscriber in Las Cruces, Albuquerque, or El Paso could get much higher speeds (and more data?) for much less money. Several years ago, a Viasat subscriber north of Main Street in Los Lunas paid less for the same service as a subscriber south of that street. After reaching 10 GB, the users of the service would usually get “throttled” by the provider and for the rest of the month you had to “limp along” with very slow service.
Military internet: Falling behind the times?
In contrast to civilian companies that are quickly going to Starlink, the military appears to be choosing to remain behind the times as it decides to contract with Viasat for some service on ships.
https://spacenews.com/viasat-completes-first-broadband-upgrade-on-military-sealift-fleet/
Early story on Starlink technology.
Story from July 2021 describing the technology that would make Starlink the world leader in space-based internet:
https://spacenews.com/tech-breakthrough-morphs-gigabit-wifi-into-terabit-satellite-internet/
Thanks, Dan. I hope we get some competition in satellite broadband service because in the internet business, putting all our connections into one company that has the technical ability to control those connections seems not such a good, public act.
While this is a very information dense article what does stand out is it’s very blatant endorsement of Starlink, which is a privately owned company and subsidiary of Space X which is a privately owned company belonging to Elon Musk. I for one would not entrust my communications to Elon Musk. I wonder why the Citizen, whose independent journalism I have come to respect, suddenly seems to be very loudly promoting an Elon Musk company under the guise of reviewing broadband access in rural New Mexico? If the connection of Starlink to Elon Musk and implications of that situation, was made within the article, forgive me for missing it.
If those are pricing according to the FCC .Wow ,then Kinetic /Windstream is really ripping me off .. for a speed of 25 mbps ..I’m paying between $80 to $120.00 unreal right ? And that’s the amount for 25 mbps . To add to that note ..I’m in T or C ,not as in rural area ..paying that amount for a low speed .I think the FCC might want to look into the internet companies out here..there’s some discrepancy on price .
This examination of the effort by the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion is not intended to be a hard news story — it is merely my perception and opinion based on looking at news stories taken mostly from SpaceNews as well as my own limited experience having used satellite internet with the only three companies in the U.S. that provide such services.
It is unfortunate that the only company currently providing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband is Starlink. I am very hopeful that other LEO companies will show up in the sky soon. In my opinion, Elon Musk is far from being a respected billionaire. His recent comments in the press only lowered what little respect I have for him. His comment about helping Taylor Swift change from being a childless cat lady reveals a lot about him. He was recently sued by several former employees for sexual harassment which also raised my eyebrows.
My focus is on how to get badly needed broadband service to the children of New Mexico. I do not think we should deny children what they need for their education based upon the character or politics of the owner of a broadband company. If we were to look at the owners and board members of all the other 41 broadband companies listed (only three are satellite), I am sure we would find many other owners and board members of corporations that some of us might not like. Viasat is owned by the billionaire Redstone family. As I indicated, my perception is that Viasat has no qualms about charging much more for their satellite service if you live outside of a city. Note that populations in rural areas tend to be poorer.
Even though it may take years to “complete”, I hope the OBAE will continue placing fiber optic cable for the many remote areas so that there will indeed be some competition. Right now, there are too many places where there is really just one option for broadband. This seems to foster gouging by corporations that simply want to charge as much as they can, knowing that the customers have little choice. I hope the PRC actually regulates the price of broadband, but so far, it does not look to me like they do. I will leave Starlink as soon as another satellite broadband internet company shows up with a price lower than $120 a month. I am sure Starlink is charging me way more for broadband than citizens in Albuquerque or Las Cruces pay for a comparable service, and it is not because Mr. Musk needs the money for rent and a car payment.
I still shop at Walmart despite the Walton family members now being some of the first humans to exceed $100 billion in wealth. I don’t have much respect for the Waltons either.
Elon Rocks! Occupy Mars!
Can’t wait until my Tesla phone is ready and thinking about buying a Cybertruck.