Getting Broadband, Avoiding Cutoffs Consumers Biggest Pandemic Concerns: Mass. Regulator

during an FCBA webinar Tuesday. Others asked how they could get better and cheaper broadband, she said. “If the pandemic taught us anything, or showed us anything, it was that broadband was necessary and folks needed to have broadband in order to work, learn and socialize from home,” she said. Most think of Massachusetts as an urban state, but the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) targeted many areas, Peterson said. Local areas needed to decide on their own how they would get connected. “That’s the story of the MBI,” she said: “It’s 50 little stories of how we sort of put everything together and made it work.” GeoLinks advocates a “hybrid” approach to getting people online, said General Counsel Melissa Slawson. Fiber, fixed wireless and mobile all work best in different areas, she said. GeoLinks likes mountains and hills for fixed wireless “because we can use them to our benefit to beam down to whoever the end user is,” she said: “We do have trouble sometimes in high foliage areas or areas where there’s a lot of inclement weather. … You just have to engineer around it.” Permitting remains a challenge for GeoLinks, she said. The company had to reroute an entire project around a mountain because of federal concerns, which meant a two-year delay in reaching a community and its school, Slawson said. T-Mobile considers 5G “very promising” for business customers, with opportunities in public safety, education, healthcare and agriculture, said Michele Thomas, vice president-government affairs. Wireless competition is “fierce,” and policymakers need to recognize the need for rapid deployment, she said. Regulators should identify “appropriate areas for regulation” and make sure “government funding is being done both efficiently and effectively,” she said. Continue “efforts to limit unreasonable restrictions on wireless deployment -- they’re still out there,” Thomas said.