Core Principles for Investment in Hawai‘i Broadband

• Despite the recognition that access to robust, reliable, and reasonably priced broadband service is a necessity, Hawai‘i had lacked strategic investment in middle mile structure.
• Public investment is needed to improve middle mile infrastructure and attract more internet providers to Hawaii, lowering costs and improving service.

Investment Pillars of the Strategic Framework

Access, Equity, and Literacy (AEL)

Federal support for universal internet access remains strong, with pandemic relief supporting device access, infrastructure, and affordability for low-income households. Funding channels include state/county/education programs and FCC/USAC subsidies (EBB/ACP, ECF, eRate). While equity and digital literacy efforts require further scaling, community-based outreach is expanding, integrating established programs with grassroots initiatives. The Strategic Framework will directly fund and encourage this integration, aiming to broaden services and ensure all benefits.

We aim to build sustainable community support for internet access beyond initial funding. This includes securing long-term financial support from public and philanthropic sources. Public libraries, community centers, and similar institutions are ideal partners. One-time funds will prioritize facility upgrades and strategic investments that lower long-term operating costs or subscriptions, ensuring sustainability. Identifying and addressing current and future unmet needs will also be crucial.

Last Mile (LM)

Another pillar with long-standing Federal support mechanisms focused on rural, high-cost, and unserved communities. These supports focus on building the edge, last mile connections into sparsely populated locations and deliver insufficient return on investment for carriers (with shareholders). Associated lifeline supports provided financial assistance to economically disadvantaged consumers to shore up the consumer revenue element of the equation.

Universal broadband service, has been at the roots of the ongoing discussion on the modernization of universal service supports. Until recently, the challenge of justifying the additional investment and ongoing price supports has been a high hurdle – including as discussed in the 2007 Hawai‘i Broadband Task Force (as context for its 2008 report). Those hurdles have been shattered by the pandemic by exposing the (now) critical need to make robust broadband service available to all. Significant funds are already available to help close the gap for most of Hawai‘i’s unserved communities – our challenge is to include investment in the underserved areas, primarily located in well-connected geographic areas. These underserved communities predominantly suffer from aged last mile infrastructure and a lack of investment interest from carriers (with shareholders).

Supported efforts will focus on strategic use of existing federal funds (Connect America, Rural Digital Opportunity Funds, Tribal Broadband Connectivity grants) and exploration of new solutions (wired/wireless) to extend internet access to underserved communities. This includes partnering with carriers and public housing authorities, similar to our approach for access, equity, and literacy initiatives.

Middle Mile (MM)

This pillar requires a paradigm-changing public investment, partnering with the private sector to make a long-term impact in the economics of broadband to ensure that Hawai‘i has robust, reliable, and reasonably priced broadband to secure its future. A handful of key assets in Hawai‘i’s Middle Mile infrastructure suffer from under-investment and have constrained our collective ability to leverage the power of global broadband access fully; historically, that constraint has been limited supply and high cost; looking to the future, the constraint will be exacerbated by fragile infrastructure. Together, these aging assets create a thin and highly vulnerable keystone to Hawai‘i’s successful future. These assets include,

• Interisland submarine fiber optic cables – aged, aging, and brittle
• Lack of readily accessible carrier-neutral submarine cable landing station(s)
• Limited, high-cost terrestrial fiber networks interconnecting key Middle Mile assets

Supported efforts will focus on developing high-value, shared, carrier-neutral infrastructure to address the limitations of private investors constrained by required return on investment principles. This includes strategically placed landing stations for undersea cables, making it easier and cheaper for internet providers to connect to Hawaii.

Public investment will focus on building high-capacity fiber optic cables connecting key locations like existing cable landing stations and data centers. This Middle Mile infrastructure will be designed for multiple users, including government facilities and universities, to improve internet access and reliability across Hawai‘i.

Governance and Sustainability (GS)

Any investments in Hawai‘i’s broadband infrastructure and services should be crafted to maximize long-term, strategic public benefits and shall be governed with sustainability as a core design principle. Regardless of the source of funds, the design of governance efforts associated with broadband infrastructure investments should include representation from relevant stakeholders and tasked to ensure that Hawai‘i continuously benefits from these strategic investments. Especially where substantial public resources are utilized, governance bodies should include participants representing executive sponsors from public broadband infrastructure, carriers, DoD and other Federal operators, healthcare and finance sectors, and public policy interests. A vital function of the governance bodies is the convening and managing of interests by the infrastructure consumers, including coordinating the assessment of suitable fees to support required operations and maintenance (O&M), administrative overhead, and future asset refresh cycles.

_{Last updated: June 20, 2022}