Presentation followed by discussion and possible directions to staff on any and all matters regarding the Yuma County broadband middle mile fiber backbone project. (Jenny Torres, Economic Development Manager and Susan K. Thorpe, Yuma County Administrator)

According to the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, broadband is essential to rural communities in the six pillar areas of:

1. Economic Development 
2. Education  
3. Tele-health
4. Civic Engagement
5. Public Safety
6. Quality of Life

 
The Arizona Statewide Broadband Strategic Plan identified access to affordable broadband services as a critical element to innovations in education and health, the furtherance of economic development and enhancements to public safety services.  
 
The State Broadband Strategic Plan states: “Arizona citizens, particularly students in rural and underserved areas, deserve the same access to educational opportunities, healthcare and other resources as those in metropolitan and higher-economic areas. Many of Arizona’s rural residents and businesses find that they do not have high-capacity, high-speed digital communications services available at all, or the available services do not provide sufficient capacity to support new video-intensive internet services such as E-learning, telehealth, telework and internet protocol television (IPTV). These shortcomings have been limiting factors affecting the availability of jobs, educational opportunities, public safety services and healthcare services in such areas.”
 
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic Yuma County had poor internet service. Legacy providers have not sufficiently upgraded existing infrastructure. People across Yuma County became painfully aware of the serious lack of adequate internet service during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for schoolchildren in rural areas, individuals working from home, and people requiring remote healthcare.  Agricultural technology development and implementation was hindered by lack of broadband access in agricultural areas.
 
In order to support rapid deployment of this now-essential infrastructure, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors declared Broadband its top priority for use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and plans to use them toward a county-wide broadband middle mile fiber backbone.
 
Building on several years of work by the Community Broadband Action Team, Yuma County formed a Broadband Task Force that began work in March 2021. Members of the Task Force include Yuma County, City of Yuma, City of Somerton, City of San Luis, Town of Wellton, GYEDC, representatives of the agriculture community, IT subject matter experts and the State Broadband Director.
 
The Task Force developed and Yuma County issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) on July 6, 2021 for a Broadband Middle Mile Fiber Backbone and a County Wide Area Network (WAN). The purpose of the middle mile fiber backbone is to lower the barrier to entry for last mile service providers and to incentivize service to unserved and underserved areas of the County. The County WAN was later removed from consideration of the middle mile project; and the County sites will be served by the middle mile backbone. The RFP specified an all-underground backbone network, and a minimum capacity so that last mile providers will be able to serve at least 1 Gbps per residential end user and 10 Gbps per commercial end user. The RFP identified a target date of December 2022 for completion of the middle mile backbone.
 
The Task Force determined that additional technical expertise would be beneficial in reviewing and evaluating the proposals received in response to the RFP, and formed the Broadband Proposal Evaluation Team.  
 
The Proposal Evaluation Team consisted of several members of the Broadband Task Force as well as outside technical experts. Five proposals were received by the submittal deadline of September 7. Initial proposals included a project cost ranging from $29.1 million to $135 million. The Proposal Evaluation Team members individually reviewed and scored each proposal, then convened on Monday, October 11. Based on cumulative rankings, three of the five vendors were selected to participate in interviews on Friday, October 15.  
 
The Evaluation Team considered each of the three vendors’ written proposals as well as their presentations and discussions during the interview process. The Team assessed each vendor’s experience, approach to design, construction and project management, and cost to build a middle mile fiber and conduit backbone.
 
Following these presentations, the Team arrived at a consensus recommendation to the County to enter into negotiations to develop a contract with ALLO Communications (dba ALLO Arizona, LLC) for a middle mile fiber Broadband Backbone in Yuma County. The recommendation letter is attached.
 
Yuma County plans to own the Broadband Backbone upon construction completion. The County will contract with ALLO to operate, maintain and market the middle mile fiber backbone in an open access, competitively neutral, non-discriminatory manner. ALLO also has an interest in providing fiber to the premise for residential and commercial use. The contract will be structured so that the price to lease middle mile network capacity for ALLO will be the same as for other interested last mile providers and private networks.
 
Negotiations will begin immediately upon authorization by the Board of Supervisors. Subject matter experts on the Proposal Evaluation Team have offered to assist Yuma County and ALLO in developing a final design and construction plan that will meet the needs of our entire community.
 
The current estimated Broadband Backbone is 181 miles in length with an estimated cost of $37.5 million. The Broadband Backbone length and cost are subject to change based on engineering and design specifications of the final network architecture. Yuma County will commit 50% of its total American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding toward the Broadband Backbone. Yuma County and ALLO will seek Arizona and Federal Broadband grant funds to assist in funding this important project. The County will request that the City and Town in Yuma County also commit funding toward the project using a portion of their ARPA funds, or other funds as deemed appropriate.