KINGWOOD — U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito say West Virginia can build broadband infrastructure from the recent $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress, and on Tuesday, UScellular pitched an idea to them on how to do that.
The two senators met with UScellular President and CEO Laurent Therivel and others in Kingwood to hear and see how millimeter-wave technology could provide broadband in rural areas like the Mountain State.
“It will change America, and it will change all rural America, and it will change all West Virginia, more than anything that has been done over 30 years,” Manchin, D-W.Va., said of the bill, which has yet to be signed by the president.
He noted the state has a lot of “deferred maintenance” on bridges and roads.
“But the broadband connectivity we're seeing here with 5G makes all the difference in the world. You'll have telehealth, you'll have education, you'll have all the things we need,” Manchin said.
Broadband can even help West Virginia regain some of the population it has lost, he added.
“It'll make a difference in the type of people that we're attracting, the business people that want to be out and enjoy the quality of life in West Virginia, here in the Kingwood area, would be unbelievable. And we're just anxious for this to happen as quickly as possible,” Manchin said.
About $6 billion will come to West Virginia over eight years from the bill.
“Hopefully within one to years, you're going to see a big difference in what you're able to do that you couldn't do before,” the senator said.
The tour in Preston County started at a UScellular tower behind the Preston 911 center. Therivel said the company wanted to spotlight new millimeter wave technology. While broadband has been available through cellular service, the new equipment being tested has shown a tremendous boost in speed that can be sustained for customers within a few miles of a tower.
Information provided by UScellular mentions potentially marketing a 300 Mbps internet service.
After seeing and learning about the cell tower and the building that contains the millimeter technology, the tour moved to Camp Dawson, where UScellular had erected a TV screen with about 50 sites calling in to videoconference, so that the senators could see the speed at which the technology worked.
Each of the individual feeds was received through a wireless link back to the tower across the Cheat River and up the hill.
“It's a lot cheaper than trying to run fiber to every home and business, but it's still $1 million to $1.5 million for every one of these towers and shelters,” Therivel explained. The tower reaches about five miles.
UScellular hopes that states see this wireless technology as part of the solution to broadband and allocate some of the infrastructure money for that purpose. Therivel said that was the message they hoped the senators took away.
“You would need a lot of towers to connect everywhere, but if the alternative is connecting everything with fiber, it's a whole heck of a lot easier to put a tower every five miles and connect it with fiber and then use wireless to connect the homes and the businesses in that area,” Therivel said. “Out here, there's a lot of places it just isn't cost-effective to run fiber to everywhere, so a tower every five miles still makes better economic sense.”
During the presentation at Camp Dawson, UScellular employees in Beckley, Elkins, Kingwood and Lewisburg, along with other sites, asked Manchin and Capito questions. Brandy from Beckley asked them what's next to improve broadband in West Virginia, now that the infrastructure bill has passed.
There's “a boatload of money” for broadband coming from a number of federal sources, Capito, R-W.Va., said.
“Because West Virginia’s landscape presents natural challenges in deploying broadband, it’s critical to constantly explore new options to connect our communities, which is something I am actively doing through my Capito Connect initiative,” Sen. Capito said in a statement.
“Fortunately, fixed wireless has stepped in to provide service in the hardest-to-reach areas of West Virginia, and I’m excited to see its capabilities continue to grow and play a much-needed role in more rural areas. Innovative solutions, combined with key investments like those in the bipartisan infrastructure package, will go a long way in delivering affordable, fast and reliable internet in our state.”
Neither the country nor the state has ever had this many resources, Manchin said, so it's critical not to overlap and to have a clear understanding of what's available. If America could wire every house for electricity in the 1930s, surely we can provide broadband for everyone in the 21st century, he said.
President Joe Biden's struggle to pass the infrastructure bill put Manchin in the spotlight as a powerbroker in the Senate. Asked if he expects that drama to roll back, the senator said no.
“The bad stuff's just coming. The controversy's just coming. This has been easy compared to what's going to happen in the next two to three weeks,” he said.
Manchin pointed to legislation that he said could impact inflation and prices. He worries the newest proposal will “overcharge” the economy, raising prices in many areas.
“If the interest rate goes up just 2 percent, you're talking $600 billion of costs to the federal government, and a lot of programs that will be cut or slashed. And I'm protecting Social Security and Medicare with everything I've got,” Manchin said. “I want to make sure we protect what we have first, before we start expanding into much greater things.”