OPINION: New Mexico will benefit from broadband affordability bill

Nearly every aspect of today’s world revolves around internet connectivity. From the moment we wake up to check the news and weather on our devices, to the time we fall asleep listening to YouTube videos, most New Mexicans are always online.

Broadband has become critical infrastructure and a part of our everyday lives.

The state’s Office of Broadband Access and Expansion is fully committed to getting New Mexico 100% connected. The agency is successfully and deliberately meeting the extraordinary challenges that come with deploying broadband in a vast state with rural and rugged terrain.

And OBAE is steadily closing the digital divide.

By the end of 2026, 94% of New Mexico’s location will have access to high-speed internet. And, after last month’s approval of $382 million in federal funding for broadband infrastructure projects through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, 100% of New Mexico locations will have access to broadband in about three years.

It’s quite an accomplishment — but there’s a catch.

Despite this future universal connectivity, as many as 180,000 New Mexicans, many of them elderly, could be left in the digital dust with no reliable, sustainable internet service.

Why?

Money.

That’s why we are pushing for passage of Senate Bill 152: significant broadband affordability legislation. This important bill authorizes $10 million in broadband funding to help low-income families afford broadband service.

The funding would come from the Public Regulation Commission’s State Rural Universal Service Fund, which by current statute, has $40 million specifically earmarked for broadband programs. The legislation stipulates that for the first year, the PRC uses $10 million for broadband affordability, and in subsequent years, may authorize up to $45 million for such programs.

The legislation is called the Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program.

We are encouraging New Mexico lawmakers to pass this bill, which will help level the playing field for so many rural families. This broadband funding will allow New Mexicans to compete and to succeed in life.

A New Mexican’s income should never be a factor when it comes to getting access to high-speed internet. There’s no justification for this because every New Mexican should be entitled to online opportunities.

High income should never be equated with high-speed internet. All New Mexicans deserve it.

This bill, designed to offer broadband discounts, will desperately help people like 63-year-old Danette Kellogg of Medanales in Rio Arriba. She lives alone in a remote area, lost her job and struggles to pay bills. She dips into her dwindling retirement to make ends meet.

Her local church recently agreed to pay for her internet for a month. Then she’s on her own. With her high-speed internet service running out, Dannette worries she won’t have the current online ability to find a job.

There are too many Danettes in New Mexico, and we believe lawmakers understand that broadband is truly a lifeline — not a convenience — particularly for impoverished constituents.

Many New Mexicans are in this position because in April 2024 the federal government did not extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). That program offered low-income households and eligible consumers broadband discounts.

SB 152 creates a state version of the federal ACP.

Everyone should realize broadband expansion is more than just construction and deployment.

New Mexicans should be able to afford it.

SB 152 will help do just that and deliver subsidies to ensure that low-income households receive broadband. We ask the Legislature to pass this bill, a move that will inspire and strengthen communities, and, in turn, empower New Mexico even more.

Matejka Santillanes is the executive director of the New Mexico Exchange Carrier Group.