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Ramon Sanchez sat at his kitchen table, looking at a bill from his internet provider. He massaged his forehead slowly and took a deep breath in frustration.
“I don’t understand technical things,” said the 62-year-old in Spanish. “But I know it is too expensive, and the service does not work well.”
He lives on Salvador Road in a secluded home a few miles off of Highway 11, a lonely 30-mile stretch of road in Luna County that connects the small village of Columbus with the more urbanized city of Deming. A grid of dirt roads winds through about a dozen far-flung houses in this area of thorny desert brush and sandy flatlands. On the eastern horizon are the Florida Mountains, and toward the west is the Cedar Mountain range, which extends to the Mexican border 20 miles to the south.
His isolated life is hard, he said. A head injury forced him to stop working, and his wife is bedridden, leaving them struggling to pay their bills. The internet has become a necessity for his family, he said, because his son needs it for school work.
But the signal is random and weak. The landline telephone service he uses is also problematic. It allows him free local calls to Columbus, but he is charged long-distance rates for his calls into Deming, the city where he and his wife have their doctors.
“And with this,” he said, holding up his cell phone, “sometimes I have service, and sometimes I do not,” said Sanchez, adding that he’s tried a range of cell phones, from Cricket to T-Mobile, without much improvement.
Weak, spotty internet the norm for thousands
Stuck in the quagmire of sporadic internet coverage, weak cell phone signals, and limited options for his low-income household, Sanchez is experiencing the dilemma facing most of the estimated 8,500 people living in the impoverished rural areas of Luna County. With a total population of about 25,500 residents, the county’s most developed broadband infrastructure is in the city of Deming – where nearly 15,000 residents live – and the Village of Columbus, which has a population of about 1,500.
Beyond those two population centers, the county is largely a digital desert, struggling with a poverty rate of more than 26 percent (https://datausa.io/profile/geo/luna-county-nm) and lacking the money and technological skills to use the internet. Luna County ranks among the highest poverty rates in the state.
“With poverty comes ignorance because many of them have never been taught how to use the internet, they don't have a device, or they simply don't have the money to buy one,” said Christie Ann Harvey, executive director of the Greater Luna County Economic Opportunity Council, which has been instrumental in coordinating broadband infrastructure projects in Luna County.
“We have in Luna County one of the highest digital distress rates, and generally it's due to the economic conditions that people live under, so it's exacerbated by poverty,” she said.
The digital distress rate is an indicator that shows which areas have a higher proportion of homes that either have no internet devices or only mobile devices.
The Purdue University Center for Regional Development uses data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey to track digital distress rates. Its latest data indicates that Luna County has a “high” distress rate, and that 22.8 percent of residents do not have a computer device, 30.6 percent only have a mobile device, 28.4 percent do not have internet access, and 26.2 percent use only a cell phone for internet connectivity. (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4af5d52dffe84b7895ea0864395305a3?data_id=dataSource_1-180f1bd56ca-layer-5-0%3A1804)
Report: Residents want better internet
An August 2023 Broadband Gap and Feasibility Report conducted by Finley Engineering and
CCG Consulting on behalf of Luna County found significant dissatisfaction among residents who were asked about their online experiences.
More than 70 percent of respondents said they wanted better internet, and nearly 60 percent of those people who have school-aged children said their home internet was not stable enough for schoolwork needs.
“(Luna) County had some of the slowest broadband we’ve seen anywhere in the country,” stated the authors of the report. “A lot of folks in the County told us that they don’t have any good broadband alternatives at their homes since all options available to them are slow.”
Congress has made universal access to high-speed internet one of its highest priorities since the COVID-19 pandemic revealed serious digital limitations for many U.S. communities, particularly those in rural and impoverished regions.
NM to get $675M for broadband upgrades
In June, the Biden-Harris Administration announced another major investment – $42.45 billion for a national high-speed internet grant program, which is part of its “Investing in America” agenda. The initiative is funded by the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. As part of this allotment, New Mexico is slated to receive about $675.4 million to bolster its broadband access. (https://internetforall.gov/news-media/biden-harris-administration-announces-state-allocations-4245-billion-high-speed-internet)
A release from the White House stated that “with these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-over-40-billion-to-connect-everyone-in-america-to-affordable-reliable-high-speed-internet/)
But officials in New Mexico predict even that money is not enough to remedy problems with stable high-speed internet.
“A preliminary analysis of the FCC data indicates that the total capital cost for extending high-speed, end-to-end fiber broadband to both unserved and underserved locations is approximately $2.81 billion to $4.12 billion,” stated a May report from the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access & Expansion. “However, New Mexico was only allocated approximately $675.4 million. Even if matching funds raise the total to $1 billion, New Mexico faces a significant shortfall that will challenge the State’s creativity and partners,” the report states. (https://connect.nm.gov/uploads/1/4/1/9/141989814/new_mexico_bead_five-year_action_plan_-_final_20230828.pdf)
Upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure will be a massive undertaking. The federal government has prioritized fiber-optic internet as the standard, requiring a myriad of permits through public, private and tribal lands, and a laborious effort of installing fiber lines through the difficult terrain of the mountains and ravines that separate the often isolated homes in this county.
Three projects in the works
Currently, three large grants have been awarded to companies that will begin work on upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure:
These grants, together with current upgrades being provided by Comcast for all of its Deming subscribers, will still leave 2,044 homes and businesses with internet speeds slower than national standards.
Most of Luna County is ‘unserved’ or ‘under-served’
The federal government has three categories that describe an area’s internet capabilities:
Historically, download speeds – which can affect how quickly a person downloads a large file or and how well residents can use streaming services – have been faster than upload speeds, which can affect how quickly a person loads a video or photo onto a social media app, for instance. Trying to upload a large file with slow internet could take hours, versus the seconds it takes with high-speed internet. But increasingly, new internet use norms are demanding faster upload speeds, too.
As part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, areas with internet speeds less than 100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload are likely eligible for government grants to improve broadband infrastructure.
The Finley report shows that most of Luna County is registering at 14 Mbps download /5 Mbps upload. The exceptions are Deming, which has average speeds of 60 Mbps download/26 Mbps upload, and Columbus which has an average speed of 77 Mbps download /8 Mbps upload – a reflection of the high speeds available at the Columbus library, the Finley report stated.
Only a few pockets countywide are categorized by the government as “served.”
Internet options vary
Like most areas, Luna County currently has a mix of companies and internet technologies, none of which have provided its rural areas with stable, high-speed internet connectivity.
Three primary phone companies are operating in Luna County: CenturyLink (Lumen), Valley TeleCom, and Western New Mexico Telephone Company, which primarily provide copper-wire DSL broadband service for many of their subscribers.
Comcast Xfinity – the nation’s largest cable television company – is the cable TV and broadband provider in central Luna County in and around Deming.
The county also has a few fixed wireless providers – Transworld Network Corporation (TWN) is the only one mentioned in the Finley engineering report – that are primarily focused on remote communities. Fixed wireless technology beams internet signals from a hub, such as a tower, through the air to a receiver in a person’s home.
In addition, Luna County has the three major cellular companies – AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile – that offer mobile hot spots and fixed wireless options for their subscribers. These options have fluctuating speeds and reliability, depending on how close subscribers are to cell towers. The farther away, the spottier the service.
Satellite internet out of reach for many
The internet technology with the most promise for rural areas is also the one most out-of-reach for low-income households like many in Luna County. Satellite internet, which beams its signal from space, bypasses the need for costly ground wiring but subscriptions to the service are expensive.
Viasat, HughesNet, and Starlink offer satellite internet for Luna County at a cost of about $180 per month for 100/20-Mbps internet speeds. While the FCC National Broadband Map shows that large swaths of Luna County are already served by these satellite internet providers, the federal government’s broadband funding, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “should prioritize projects designed to provide fiber connectivity directly to the end user.” (https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/BEAD-Frequently-Asked-Questions-%28FAQs%29_Version-2.0.pdf)
And, like rural Luna County resident Bob Caskey discovered, the satellite service can be unreliable.
“I have a satellite dish over there,” he said pointing to a corner of his yard where he installed a HughesNet receiver. “The reception is pretty spotty. It's not the best. Sometimes it'll be great and other times you're buffering, buffering, buffering, so it comes and goes,” he said. “More often than not, it's going to get hung up.”
Further down the road from him, at the boundary between Deming and Columbus, Daisy Sanchez said she’s sometimes satisfied with the speed, but other times “it’s too slow.”
Report: Public safety a concern
Another issue detailed in the Finley report was that residents who were interviewed stated they sometimes felt unsafe living in internet dark zones.
“One of the biggest concerns uncovered during the interviews is a concern for public safety,” the report stated. “There is no broadband or cellular coverage in the western part of the county. There is no reliable broadband at the volunteer fire department. There is not enough broadband at the jail to support multiple virtual court appearances at the same time. The police would like to upgrade to better computers, but the broadband won’t support the enhanced software,” stated the report.
In Columbus, a place notorious for a confusing system of home addresses, emergency responders said internet failures occur randomly, which forces them to revert to outdated paper maps to try and find homes seeking emergency assistance.
“I can't find anybody if I don't have internet access on my phone,” said Nicole Lawson, past mayor of Columbus who is currently working in the village’s emergency response team. “If they’re out in the county, how am I going to find them?” she said, adding that she sometimes must temporarily abandon her search for an emergency location, and must search for an internet signal instead.
“I'm going to have to drive until I get (an internet) connection with central (dispatch) again, then get directions to go back into a no-coverage zone to find this person because I don't have Wi-Fi,” said Lawson.
Columbus Fire Chief Andres Ramos agreed that a lack of internet was a critical problem during emergency situations, and he said broadband improvements “will definitely benefit the public and us over here.”
“Nowadays everything goes through the Internet, so it will be faster through our Google Maps, for the people who do not have number addresses on their homes. We’ll be able to find them a lot easier,” he said.
Some residents satisfied with their service
But not everyone is having internet problems in rural Luna County. Those who can afford to pay for fiber-optic connectivity say the service is fast and dependable. Fiber-optic internet is typically the gold standard of connectivity.
Mike Florey has lived off of Highway 11 right outside Columbus for the past six years. His property is a complex of structures that tap into Valley Telecom’s fiber-optic internet, he said.
“I don't think we can get much better Internet service than we have right now,” said Florey, who was patrolling his property on a quadrunner, and had a pistol on a holster across his chest. “It’s a beautiful day, absolutely crisp,” he said.
“I have fiber optic with Valley Telecom. It’s very good, very high-speed access,” said Florey, adding that he’s had the $80 monthly service for about a year.
“I watch movies unbuffered, and I have three computers downloading.”
Others, even those living in low-income households, are also able to have access to stable high-speed internet because they live close to town centers with broadband infrastructure or nearby to cellular phone towers.
“I have internet with Valley (Telecom), and it is good, it doesn’t give me problems,” said Guadalupe Morales, who lives with her husband and three young children near the Columbus Village library, which has a fiber internet connection. “But I think the cost is too high,” she said, adding that she pays about $90 per month. “That’s the only negative thing.”
Lamar Eckstein Jr., 62, his wife Rhonda Eckstein and 9-year-old grandson, Hunter, live in Akela, a rural area of Luna County. Their proximity to a cellular tower along Interstate 10 provides fast, reliable internet through a T-Mobile “gateway device” – a combination router and a modem.
“You know, we aren’t rich, but see here, I can instantly go, boom, right there. I want to watch ‘Planet of the Apes,’ or we can watch ‘Black Christmas,’” he said, switching to the multiple movie options on his screen. “See how fast that goes?”
Eckstein is aware of the government funding that has been designated to improve fiber broadband access for the county, but said he looked to cellular technology because it was readily available for his home.
“Waiting for the government, with all of its red tape money, the process to get their funds moving, I mean it could be next year, and it could be 20 years from now,” he said. “People can’t wait that long.”
Entrepreneur aims to serve residents in two countries
The reservation Eckstein has with waiting for the government to provide broadband internet services is a sentiment shared by others in Luna County. With estimated completion dates for the county’s broadband grant projects ranging from two years to five years, one Columbus resident started his own company to provide high-speed internet services for the region.
Jorge Salomon Gutierrez, 37-year-old owner of Alfa Business Solutions in Columbus, returned to the village after graduating from college in 2018 to help his parent’s business in Palomas, Mexico, which is right across the border from Columbus.
“But there was no Internet connection, not on the Mexican side, not even on the American side,” said Gutierrez. “It was so hard to even get a call, an email, or a text message from anybody that you wanted to make business with.”
So he started his company, tapping into an existing fiber line in Columbus, and beaming a radio signal out to a handful of subscribers on both sides of the border. His business has grown to about 400 subscribers – 100 on the U.S. side and 300 on the Mexican side.
Gutierrez said he’s looking forward to the improved internet service, but isn’t expecting improvements soon.
“I would like to see it, but I've been waiting for that for seven years to see the expansion of the fiber. The way I see it, it is taking forever for the rural areas. The government can do the push, but for things to happen, you need somebody local to be pushing harder. If not, it will only happen at the pace of the government, and I think many people understand what the pace of the government is.”
County could consider public-private partnerships
The Finley report, which includes information from hundreds of interviews and pulled data from past projects and a variety of government sectors, provided recommendations for Luna County to maximize its chances of providing universal high-speed internet coverage for its residents.
The report’s authors suggest a dedicated person or staff, with the help of volunteers, devoted entirely to finding interested ISPs and educating the public as a unified team about the critical need for improved broadband services.
“This is the year to get ready for the giant grants, and you’ll have to find the solutions and identify the needed funding before the end of the year and possibly sooner,” the report stated.
An immediate step, the report stated, should be to “to reach out to potential ISP partners” and sharing the data of the report, which should be made public through public meetings, a website and newsletter.
A successful way to share “revenues, profits, and risks,” according to the report, is to pursue Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). A model mentioned by the study is a PPP in Northwest Colorado between a group of counties, four cities, a health care district, a regional economic development agency and “a local consortium of anchor institutions.”
Through that partnership, the Colorado counties of Moffat, Rio Blanco, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, and Routt all benefitted through a surge of fiber internet being installed to homes, neighborhoods and institutions, as well as other internet technologies – wireless broadband, cellular, and microwave towers – bolstering internet connectivity for areas that had been previously under-served.
Ramon Sanchez, who struggles with bills and digital isolation in his secluded home in the Luna County desert, said he’s looking forward to the arrival of dependable high-speed internet for all New Mexicans. While aware of other technologies to connect, he said he realizes his only option is to wait for the government to complete its plans.
“It’s easy to forget about the poor people,” he said. “I’m not complaining, but I know for people who do not have the money, all we can do is wait and hope for the best.”
Reyes Mata III is a freelance journalist working with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative to cover COVID-19 and pandemic recovery from a solutions-reporting lens. For info, visit www.southNMnews.org or surNMnoticias.org.
Ramon Sanchez sat at his kitchen table, looking at a bill from his internet provider. He massaged his forehead slowly and took a deep breath in frustration.
“I don’t understand technical things,” said the 62-year-old in Spanish. “But I know it is too expensive, and the service does not work well.”
He lives on Salvador Road in a secluded home a few miles off of Highway 11, a lonely 30-mile stretch of road in Luna County that connects the small village of Columbus with the more urbanized city of Deming. A grid of dirt roads winds through about a dozen far-flung houses in this area of thorny desert brush and sandy flatlands. On the eastern horizon are the Florida Mountains, and toward the west is the Cedar Mountain range, which extends to the Mexican border 20 miles to the south.
His isolated life is hard, he said. A head injury forced him to stop working, and his wife is bedridden, leaving them struggling to pay their bills. The internet has become a necessity for his family, he said, because his son needs it for school work.
But the signal is random and weak. The landline telephone service he uses is also problematic. It allows him free local calls to Columbus, but he is charged long-distance rates for his calls into Deming, the city where he and his wife have their doctors.
“And with this,” he said, holding up his cell phone, “sometimes I have service, and sometimes I do not,” said Sanchez, adding that he’s tried a range of cell phones, from Cricket to T-Mobile, without much improvement.
Weak, spotty internet the norm for thousands
Stuck in the quagmire of sporadic internet coverage, weak cell phone signals, and limited options for his low-income household, Sanchez is experiencing the dilemma facing most of the estimated 8,500 people living in the impoverished rural areas of Luna County. With a total population of about 25,500 residents, the county’s most developed broadband infrastructure is in the city of Deming – where nearly 15,000 residents live – and the Village of Columbus, which has a population of about 1,500.
Beyond those two population centers, the county is largely a digital desert, struggling with a poverty rate of more than 26 percent (https://datausa.io/profile/geo/luna-county-nm) and lacking the money and technological skills to use the internet. Luna County ranks among the highest poverty rates in the state.
“With poverty comes ignorance because many of them have never been taught how to use the internet, they don't have a device, or they simply don't have the money to buy one,” said Christie Ann Harvey, executive director of the Greater Luna County Economic Opportunity Council, which has been instrumental in coordinating broadband infrastructure projects in Luna County.
“We have in Luna County one of the highest digital distress rates, and generally it's due to the economic conditions that people live under, so it's exacerbated by poverty,” she said.
The digital distress rate is an indicator that shows which areas have a higher proportion of homes that either have no internet devices or only mobile devices.
The Purdue University Center for Regional Development uses data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey to track digital distress rates. Its latest data indicates that Luna County has a “high” distress rate, and that 22.8 percent of residents do not have a computer device, 30.6 percent only have a mobile device, 28.4 percent do not have internet access, and 26.2 percent use only a cell phone for internet connectivity. (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4af5d52dffe84b7895ea0864395305a3?data_id=dataSource_1-180f1bd56ca-layer-5-0%3A1804)
Report: Residents want better internet
An August 2023 Broadband Gap and Feasibility Report conducted by Finley Engineering and
CCG Consulting on behalf of Luna County found significant dissatisfaction among residents who were asked about their online experiences.
More than 70 percent of respondents said they wanted better internet, and nearly 60 percent of those people who have school-aged children said their home internet was not stable enough for schoolwork needs.
“(Luna) County had some of the slowest broadband we’ve seen anywhere in the country,” stated the authors of the report. “A lot of folks in the County told us that they don’t have any good broadband alternatives at their homes since all options available to them are slow.”
Congress has made universal access to high-speed internet one of its highest priorities since the COVID-19 pandemic revealed serious digital limitations for many U.S. communities, particularly those in rural and impoverished regions.
NM to get $675M for broadband upgrades
In June, the Biden-Harris Administration announced another major investment – $42.45 billion for a national high-speed internet grant program, which is part of its “Investing in America” agenda. The initiative is funded by the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. As part of this allotment, New Mexico is slated to receive about $675.4 million to bolster its broadband access. (https://internetforall.gov/news-media/biden-harris-administration-announces-state-allocations-4245-billion-high-speed-internet)
A release from the White House stated that “with these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-over-40-billion-to-connect-everyone-in-america-to-affordable-reliable-high-speed-internet/)
But officials in New Mexico predict even that money is not enough to remedy problems with stable high-speed internet.
“A preliminary analysis of the FCC data indicates that the total capital cost for extending high-speed, end-to-end fiber broadband to both unserved and underserved locations is approximately $2.81 billion to $4.12 billion,” stated a May report from the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access & Expansion. “However, New Mexico was only allocated approximately $675.4 million. Even if matching funds raise the total to $1 billion, New Mexico faces a significant shortfall that will challenge the State’s creativity and partners,” the report states. (https://connect.nm.gov/uploads/1/4/1/9/141989814/new_mexico_bead_five-year_action_plan_-_final_20230828.pdf)
Upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure will be a massive undertaking. The federal government has prioritized fiber-optic internet as the standard, requiring a myriad of permits through public, private and tribal lands, and a laborious effort of installing fiber lines through the difficult terrain of the mountains and ravines that separate the often isolated homes in this county.
Three projects in the works
Currently, three large grants have been awarded to companies that will begin work on upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure:
These grants, together with current upgrades being provided by Comcast for all of its Deming subscribers, will still leave 2,044 homes and businesses with internet speeds slower than national standards.
Most of Luna County is ‘unserved’ or ‘under-served’
The federal government has three categories that describe an area’s internet capabilities:
Historically, download speeds – which can affect how quickly a person downloads a large file or and how well residents can use streaming services – have been faster than upload speeds, which can affect how quickly a person loads a video or photo onto a social media app, for instance. Trying to upload a large file with slow internet could take hours, versus the seconds it takes with high-speed internet. But increasingly, new internet use norms are demanding faster upload speeds, too.
As part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, areas with internet speeds less than 100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload are likely eligible for government grants to improve broadband infrastructure.
The Finley report shows that most of Luna County is registering at 14 Mbps download /5 Mbps upload. The exceptions are Deming, which has average speeds of 60 Mbps download/26 Mbps upload, and Columbus which has an average speed of 77 Mbps download /8 Mbps upload – a reflection of the high speeds available at the Columbus library, the Finley report stated.
Only a few pockets countywide are categorized by the government as “served.”
Internet options vary
Like most areas, Luna County currently has a mix of companies and internet technologies, none of which have provided its rural areas with stable, high-speed internet connectivity.
Three primary phone companies are operating in Luna County: CenturyLink (Lumen), Valley TeleCom, and Western New Mexico Telephone Company, which primarily provide copper-wire DSL broadband service for many of their subscribers.
Comcast Xfinity – the nation’s largest cable television company – is the cable TV and broadband provider in central Luna County in and around Deming.
The county also has a few fixed wireless providers – Transworld Network Corporation (TWN) is the only one mentioned in the Finley engineering report – that are primarily focused on remote communities. Fixed wireless technology beams internet signals from a hub, such as a tower, through the air to a receiver in a person’s home.
In addition, Luna County has the three major cellular companies – AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile – that offer mobile hot spots and fixed wireless options for their subscribers. These options have fluctuating speeds and reliability, depending on how close subscribers are to cell towers. The farther away, the spottier the service.
Satellite internet out of reach for many
The internet technology with the most promise for rural areas is also the one most out-of-reach for low-income households like many in Luna County. Satellite internet, which beams its signal from space, bypasses the need for costly ground wiring but subscriptions to the service are expensive.
Viasat, HughesNet, and Starlink offer satellite internet for Luna County at a cost of about $180 per month for 100/20-Mbps internet speeds. While the FCC National Broadband Map shows that large swaths of Luna County are already served by these satellite internet providers, the federal government’s broadband funding, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “should prioritize projects designed to provide fiber connectivity directly to the end user.” (https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/BEAD-Frequently-Asked-Questions-%28FAQs%29_Version-2.0.pdf)
And, like rural Luna County resident Bob Caskey discovered, the satellite service can be unreliable.
“I have a satellite dish over there,” he said pointing to a corner of his yard where he installed a HughesNet receiver. “The reception is pretty spotty. It's not the best. Sometimes it'll be great and other times you're buffering, buffering, buffering, so it comes and goes,” he said. “More often than not, it's going to get hung up.”
Further down the road from him, at the boundary between Deming and Columbus, Daisy Sanchez said she’s sometimes satisfied with the speed, but other times “it’s too slow.”
Report: Public safety a concern
Another issue detailed in the Finley report was that residents who were interviewed stated they sometimes felt unsafe living in internet dark zones.
“One of the biggest concerns uncovered during the interviews is a concern for public safety,” the report stated. “There is no broadband or cellular coverage in the western part of the county. There is no reliable broadband at the volunteer fire department. There is not enough broadband at the jail to support multiple virtual court appearances at the same time. The police would like to upgrade to better computers, but the broadband won’t support the enhanced software,” stated the report.
In Columbus, a place notorious for a confusing system of home addresses, emergency responders said internet failures occur randomly, which forces them to revert to outdated paper maps to try and find homes seeking emergency assistance.
“I can't find anybody if I don't have internet access on my phone,” said Nicole Lawson, past mayor of Columbus who is currently working in the village’s emergency response team. “If they’re out in the county, how am I going to find them?” she said, adding that she sometimes must temporarily abandon her search for an emergency location, and must search for an internet signal instead.
“I'm going to have to drive until I get (an internet) connection with central (dispatch) again, then get directions to go back into a no-coverage zone to find this person because I don't have Wi-Fi,” said Lawson.
Columbus Fire Chief Andres Ramos agreed that a lack of internet was a critical problem during emergency situations, and he said broadband improvements “will definitely benefit the public and us over here.”
“Nowadays everything goes through the Internet, so it will be faster through our Google Maps, for the people who do not have number addresses on their homes. We’ll be able to find them a lot easier,” he said.
Some residents satisfied with their service
But not everyone is having internet problems in rural Luna County. Those who can afford to pay for fiber-optic connectivity say the service is fast and dependable. Fiber-optic internet is typically the gold standard of connectivity.
Mike Florey has lived off of Highway 11 right outside Columbus for the past six years. His property is a complex of structures that tap into Valley Telecom’s fiber-optic internet, he said.
“I don't think we can get much better Internet service than we have right now,” said Florey, who was patrolling his property on a quadrunner, and had a pistol on a holster across his chest. “It’s a beautiful day, absolutely crisp,” he said.
“I have fiber optic with Valley Telecom. It’s very good, very high-speed access,” said Florey, adding that he’s had the $80 monthly service for about a year.
“I watch movies unbuffered, and I have three computers downloading.”
Others, even those living in low-income households, are also able to have access to stable high-speed internet because they live close to town centers with broadband infrastructure or nearby to cellular phone towers.
“I have internet with Valley (Telecom), and it is good, it doesn’t give me problems,” said Guadalupe Morales, who lives with her husband and three young children near the Columbus Village library, which has a fiber internet connection. “But I think the cost is too high,” she said, adding that she pays about $90 per month. “That’s the only negative thing.”
Lamar Eckstein Jr., 62, his wife Rhonda Eckstein and 9-year-old grandson, Hunter, live in Akela, a rural area of Luna County. Their proximity to a cellular tower along Interstate 10 provides fast, reliable internet through a T-Mobile “gateway device” – a combination router and a modem.
“You know, we aren’t rich, but see here, I can instantly go, boom, right there. I want to watch ‘Planet of the Apes,’ or we can watch ‘Black Christmas,’” he said, switching to the multiple movie options on his screen. “See how fast that goes?”
Eckstein is aware of the government funding that has been designated to improve fiber broadband access for the county, but said he looked to cellular technology because it was readily available for his home.
“Waiting for the government, with all of its red tape money, the process to get their funds moving, I mean it could be next year, and it could be 20 years from now,” he said. “People can’t wait that long.”
Entrepreneur aims to serve residents in two countries
The reservation Eckstein has with waiting for the government to provide broadband internet services is a sentiment shared by others in Luna County. With estimated completion dates for the county’s broadband grant projects ranging from two years to five years, one Columbus resident started his own company to provide high-speed internet services for the region.
Jorge Salomon Gutierrez, 37-year-old owner of Alfa Business Solutions in Columbus, returned to the village after graduating from college in 2018 to help his parent’s business in Palomas, Mexico, which is right across the border from Columbus.
“But there was no Internet connection, not on the Mexican side, not even on the American side,” said Gutierrez. “It was so hard to even get a call, an email, or a text message from anybody that you wanted to make business with.”
So he started his company, tapping into an existing fiber line in Columbus, and beaming a radio signal out to a handful of subscribers on both sides of the border. His business has grown to about 400 subscribers – 100 on the U.S. side and 300 on the Mexican side.
Gutierrez said he’s looking forward to the improved internet service, but isn’t expecting improvements soon.
“I would like to see it, but I've been waiting for that for seven years to see the expansion of the fiber. The way I see it, it is taking forever for the rural areas. The government can do the push, but for things to happen, you need somebody local to be pushing harder. If not, it will only happen at the pace of the government, and I think many people understand what the pace of the government is.”
County could consider public-private partnerships
The Finley report, which includes information from hundreds of interviews and pulled data from past projects and a variety of government sectors, provided recommendations for Luna County to maximize its chances of providing universal high-speed internet coverage for its residents.
The report’s authors suggest a dedicated person or staff, with the help of volunteers, devoted entirely to finding interested ISPs and educating the public as a unified team about the critical need for improved broadband services.
“This is the year to get ready for the giant grants, and you’ll have to find the solutions and identify the needed funding before the end of the year and possibly sooner,” the report stated.
An immediate step, the report stated, should be to “to reach out to potential ISP partners” and sharing the data of the report, which should be made public through public meetings, a website and newsletter.
A successful way to share “revenues, profits, and risks,” according to the report, is to pursue Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). A model mentioned by the study is a PPP in Northwest Colorado between a group of counties, four cities, a health care district, a regional economic development agency and “a local consortium of anchor institutions.”
Through that partnership, the Colorado counties of Moffat, Rio Blanco, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, and Routt all benefitted through a surge of fiber internet being installed to homes, neighborhoods and institutions, as well as other internet technologies – wireless broadband, cellular, and microwave towers – bolstering internet connectivity for areas that had been previously under-served.
Ramon Sanchez, who struggles with bills and digital isolation in his secluded home in the Luna County desert, said he’s looking forward to the arrival of dependable high-speed internet for all New Mexicans. While aware of other technologies to connect, he said he realizes his only option is to wait for the government to complete its plans.
“It’s easy to forget about the poor people,” he said. “I’m not complaining, but I know for people who do not have the money, all we can do is wait and hope for the best.”
Reyes Mata III is a freelance journalist working with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative to cover COVID-19 and pandemic recovery from a solutions-reporting lens. For info, visit www.southNMnews.org or surNMnoticias.org.
Ramon Sanchez sat at his kitchen table, looking at a bill from his internet provider. He massaged his forehead slowly and took a deep breath in frustration.
“I don’t understand technical things,” said the 62-year-old in Spanish. “But I know it is too expensive, and the service does not work well.”
He lives on Salvador Road in a secluded home a few miles off of Highway 11, a lonely 30-mile stretch of road in Luna County that connects the small village of Columbus with the more urbanized city of Deming. A grid of dirt roads winds through about a dozen far-flung houses in this area of thorny desert brush and sandy flatlands. On the eastern horizon are the Florida Mountains, and toward the west is the Cedar Mountain range, which extends to the Mexican border 20 miles to the south.
His isolated life is hard, he said. A head injury forced him to stop working, and his wife is bedridden, leaving them struggling to pay their bills. The internet has become a necessity for his family, he said, because his son needs it for school work.
But the signal is random and weak. The landline telephone service he uses is also problematic. It allows him free local calls to Columbus, but he is charged long-distance rates for his calls into Deming, the city where he and his wife have their doctors.
“And with this,” he said, holding up his cell phone, “sometimes I have service, and sometimes I do not,” said Sanchez, adding that he’s tried a range of cell phones, from Cricket to T-Mobile, without much improvement.
Weak, spotty internet the norm for thousands
Stuck in the quagmire of sporadic internet coverage, weak cell phone signals, and limited options for his low-income household, Sanchez is experiencing the dilemma facing most of the estimated 8,500 people living in the impoverished rural areas of Luna County. With a total population of about 25,500 residents, the county’s most developed broadband infrastructure is in the city of Deming – where nearly 15,000 residents live – and the Village of Columbus, which has a population of about 1,500.
Beyond those two population centers, the county is largely a digital desert, struggling with a poverty rate of more than 26 percent (https://datausa.io/profile/geo/luna-county-nm) and lacking the money and technological skills to use the internet. Luna County ranks among the highest poverty rates in the state.
“With poverty comes ignorance because many of them have never been taught how to use the internet, they don't have a device, or they simply don't have the money to buy one,” said Christie Ann Harvey, executive director of the Greater Luna County Economic Opportunity Council, which has been instrumental in coordinating broadband infrastructure projects in Luna County.
“We have in Luna County one of the highest digital distress rates, and generally it's due to the economic conditions that people live under, so it's exacerbated by poverty,” she said.
The digital distress rate is an indicator that shows which areas have a higher proportion of homes that either have no internet devices or only mobile devices.
The Purdue University Center for Regional Development uses data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey to track digital distress rates. Its latest data indicates that Luna County has a “high” distress rate, and that 22.8 percent of residents do not have a computer device, 30.6 percent only have a mobile device, 28.4 percent do not have internet access, and 26.2 percent use only a cell phone for internet connectivity. (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4af5d52dffe84b7895ea0864395305a3?data_id=dataSource_1-180f1bd56ca-layer-5-0%3A1804)
Report: Residents want better internet
An August 2023 Broadband Gap and Feasibility Report conducted by Finley Engineering and
CCG Consulting on behalf of Luna County found significant dissatisfaction among residents who were asked about their online experiences.
More than 70 percent of respondents said they wanted better internet, and nearly 60 percent of those people who have school-aged children said their home internet was not stable enough for schoolwork needs.
“(Luna) County had some of the slowest broadband we’ve seen anywhere in the country,” stated the authors of the report. “A lot of folks in the County told us that they don’t have any good broadband alternatives at their homes since all options available to them are slow.”
Congress has made universal access to high-speed internet one of its highest priorities since the COVID-19 pandemic revealed serious digital limitations for many U.S. communities, particularly those in rural and impoverished regions.
NM to get $675M for broadband upgrades
In June, the Biden-Harris Administration announced another major investment – $42.45 billion for a national high-speed internet grant program, which is part of its “Investing in America” agenda. The initiative is funded by the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. As part of this allotment, New Mexico is slated to receive about $675.4 million to bolster its broadband access. (https://internetforall.gov/news-media/biden-harris-administration-announces-state-allocations-4245-billion-high-speed-internet)
A release from the White House stated that “with these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-over-40-billion-to-connect-everyone-in-america-to-affordable-reliable-high-speed-internet/)
But officials in New Mexico predict even that money is not enough to remedy problems with stable high-speed internet.
“A preliminary analysis of the FCC data indicates that the total capital cost for extending high-speed, end-to-end fiber broadband to both unserved and underserved locations is approximately $2.81 billion to $4.12 billion,” stated a May report from the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access & Expansion. “However, New Mexico was only allocated approximately $675.4 million. Even if matching funds raise the total to $1 billion, New Mexico faces a significant shortfall that will challenge the State’s creativity and partners,” the report states. (https://connect.nm.gov/uploads/1/4/1/9/141989814/new_mexico_bead_five-year_action_plan_-_final_20230828.pdf)
Upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure will be a massive undertaking. The federal government has prioritized fiber-optic internet as the standard, requiring a myriad of permits through public, private and tribal lands, and a laborious effort of installing fiber lines through the difficult terrain of the mountains and ravines that separate the often isolated homes in this county.
Three projects in the works
Currently, three large grants have been awarded to companies that will begin work on upgrading Luna County’s broadband infrastructure:
These grants, together with current upgrades being provided by Comcast for all of its Deming subscribers, will still leave 2,044 homes and businesses with internet speeds slower than national standards.
Most of Luna County is ‘unserved’ or ‘under-served’
The federal government has three categories that describe an area’s internet capabilities:
Historically, download speeds – which can affect how quickly a person downloads a large file or and how well residents can use streaming services – have been faster than upload speeds, which can affect how quickly a person loads a video or photo onto a social media app, for instance. Trying to upload a large file with slow internet could take hours, versus the seconds it takes with high-speed internet. But increasingly, new internet use norms are demanding faster upload speeds, too.
As part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, areas with internet speeds less than 100 Mbps download/20 Mbps upload are likely eligible for government grants to improve broadband infrastructure.
The Finley report shows that most of Luna County is registering at 14 Mbps download /5 Mbps upload. The exceptions are Deming, which has average speeds of 60 Mbps download/26 Mbps upload, and Columbus which has an average speed of 77 Mbps download /8 Mbps upload – a reflection of the high speeds available at the Columbus library, the Finley report stated.
Only a few pockets countywide are categorized by the government as “served.”
Internet options vary
Like most areas, Luna County currently has a mix of companies and internet technologies, none of which have provided its rural areas with stable, high-speed internet connectivity.
Three primary phone companies are operating in Luna County: CenturyLink (Lumen), Valley TeleCom, and Western New Mexico Telephone Company, which primarily provide copper-wire DSL broadband service for many of their subscribers.
Comcast Xfinity – the nation’s largest cable television company – is the cable TV and broadband provider in central Luna County in and around Deming.
The county also has a few fixed wireless providers – Transworld Network Corporation (TWN) is the only one mentioned in the Finley engineering report – that are primarily focused on remote communities. Fixed wireless technology beams internet signals from a hub, such as a tower, through the air to a receiver in a person’s home.
In addition, Luna County has the three major cellular companies – AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile – that offer mobile hot spots and fixed wireless options for their subscribers. These options have fluctuating speeds and reliability, depending on how close subscribers are to cell towers. The farther away, the spottier the service.
Satellite internet out of reach for many
The internet technology with the most promise for rural areas is also the one most out-of-reach for low-income households like many in Luna County. Satellite internet, which beams its signal from space, bypasses the need for costly ground wiring but subscriptions to the service are expensive.
Viasat, HughesNet, and Starlink offer satellite internet for Luna County at a cost of about $180 per month for 100/20-Mbps internet speeds. While the FCC National Broadband Map shows that large swaths of Luna County are already served by these satellite internet providers, the federal government’s broadband funding, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “should prioritize projects designed to provide fiber connectivity directly to the end user.” (https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/BEAD-Frequently-Asked-Questions-%28FAQs%29_Version-2.0.pdf)
And, like rural Luna County resident Bob Caskey discovered, the satellite service can be unreliable.
“I have a satellite dish over there,” he said pointing to a corner of his yard where he installed a HughesNet receiver. “The reception is pretty spotty. It's not the best. Sometimes it'll be great and other times you're buffering, buffering, buffering, so it comes and goes,” he said. “More often than not, it's going to get hung up.”
Further down the road from him, at the boundary between Deming and Columbus, Daisy Sanchez said she’s sometimes satisfied with the speed, but other times “it’s too slow.”
Report: Public safety a concern
Another issue detailed in the Finley report was that residents who were interviewed stated they sometimes felt unsafe living in internet dark zones.
“One of the biggest concerns uncovered during the interviews is a concern for public safety,” the report stated. “There is no broadband or cellular coverage in the western part of the county. There is no reliable broadband at the volunteer fire department. There is not enough broadband at the jail to support multiple virtual court appearances at the same time. The police would like to upgrade to better computers, but the broadband won’t support the enhanced software,” stated the report.
In Columbus, a place notorious for a confusing system of home addresses, emergency responders said internet failures occur randomly, which forces them to revert to outdated paper maps to try and find homes seeking emergency assistance.
“I can't find anybody if I don't have internet access on my phone,” said Nicole Lawson, past mayor of Columbus who is currently working in the village’s emergency response team. “If they’re out in the county, how am I going to find them?” she said, adding that she sometimes must temporarily abandon her search for an emergency location, and must search for an internet signal instead.
“I'm going to have to drive until I get (an internet) connection with central (dispatch) again, then get directions to go back into a no-coverage zone to find this person because I don't have Wi-Fi,” said Lawson.
Columbus Fire Chief Andres Ramos agreed that a lack of internet was a critical problem during emergency situations, and he said broadband improvements “will definitely benefit the public and us over here.”
“Nowadays everything goes through the Internet, so it will be faster through our Google Maps, for the people who do not have number addresses on their homes. We’ll be able to find them a lot easier,” he said.
Some residents satisfied with their service
But not everyone is having internet problems in rural Luna County. Those who can afford to pay for fiber-optic connectivity say the service is fast and dependable. Fiber-optic internet is typically the gold standard of connectivity.
Mike Florey has lived off of Highway 11 right outside Columbus for the past six years. His property is a complex of structures that tap into Valley Telecom’s fiber-optic internet, he said.
“I don't think we can get much better Internet service than we have right now,” said Florey, who was patrolling his property on a quadrunner, and had a pistol on a holster across his chest. “It’s a beautiful day, absolutely crisp,” he said.
“I have fiber optic with Valley Telecom. It’s very good, very high-speed access,” said Florey, adding that he’s had the $80 monthly service for about a year.
“I watch movies unbuffered, and I have three computers downloading.”
Others, even those living in low-income households, are also able to have access to stable high-speed internet because they live close to town centers with broadband infrastructure or nearby to cellular phone towers.
“I have internet with Valley (Telecom), and it is good, it doesn’t give me problems,” said Guadalupe Morales, who lives with her husband and three young children near the Columbus Village library, which has a fiber internet connection. “But I think the cost is too high,” she said, adding that she pays about $90 per month. “That’s the only negative thing.”
Lamar Eckstein Jr., 62, his wife Rhonda Eckstein and 9-year-old grandson, Hunter, live in Akela, a rural area of Luna County. Their proximity to a cellular tower along Interstate 10 provides fast, reliable internet through a T-Mobile “gateway device” – a combination router and a modem.
“You know, we aren’t rich, but see here, I can instantly go, boom, right there. I want to watch ‘Planet of the Apes,’ or we can watch ‘Black Christmas,’” he said, switching to the multiple movie options on his screen. “See how fast that goes?”
Eckstein is aware of the government funding that has been designated to improve fiber broadband access for the county, but said he looked to cellular technology because it was readily available for his home.
“Waiting for the government, with all of its red tape money, the process to get their funds moving, I mean it could be next year, and it could be 20 years from now,” he said. “People can’t wait that long.”
Entrepreneur aims to serve residents in two countries
The reservation Eckstein has with waiting for the government to provide broadband internet services is a sentiment shared by others in Luna County. With estimated completion dates for the county’s broadband grant projects ranging from two years to five years, one Columbus resident started his own company to provide high-speed internet services for the region.
Jorge Salomon Gutierrez, 37-year-old owner of Alfa Business Solutions in Columbus, returned to the village after graduating from college in 2018 to help his parent’s business in Palomas, Mexico, which is right across the border from Columbus.
“But there was no Internet connection, not on the Mexican side, not even on the American side,” said Gutierrez. “It was so hard to even get a call, an email, or a text message from anybody that you wanted to make business with.”
So he started his company, tapping into an existing fiber line in Columbus, and beaming a radio signal out to a handful of subscribers on both sides of the border. His business has grown to about 400 subscribers – 100 on the U.S. side and 300 on the Mexican side.
Gutierrez said he’s looking forward to the improved internet service, but isn’t expecting improvements soon.
“I would like to see it, but I've been waiting for that for seven years to see the expansion of the fiber. The way I see it, it is taking forever for the rural areas. The government can do the push, but for things to happen, you need somebody local to be pushing harder. If not, it will only happen at the pace of the government, and I think many people understand what the pace of the government is.”
County could consider public-private partnerships
The Finley report, which includes information from hundreds of interviews and pulled data from past projects and a variety of government sectors, provided recommendations for Luna County to maximize its chances of providing universal high-speed internet coverage for its residents.
The report’s authors suggest a dedicated person or staff, with the help of volunteers, devoted entirely to finding interested ISPs and educating the public as a unified team about the critical need for improved broadband services.
“This is the year to get ready for the giant grants, and you’ll have to find the solutions and identify the needed funding before the end of the year and possibly sooner,” the report stated.
An immediate step, the report stated, should be to “to reach out to potential ISP partners” and sharing the data of the report, which should be made public through public meetings, a website and newsletter.
A successful way to share “revenues, profits, and risks,” according to the report, is to pursue Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). A model mentioned by the study is a PPP in Northwest Colorado between a group of counties, four cities, a health care district, a regional economic development agency and “a local consortium of anchor institutions.”
Through that partnership, the Colorado counties of Moffat, Rio Blanco, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, and Routt all benefitted through a surge of fiber internet being installed to homes, neighborhoods and institutions, as well as other internet technologies – wireless broadband, cellular, and microwave towers – bolstering internet connectivity for areas that had been previously under-served.
Ramon Sanchez, who struggles with bills and digital isolation in his secluded home in the Luna County desert, said he’s looking forward to the arrival of dependable high-speed internet for all New Mexicans. While aware of other technologies to connect, he said he realizes his only option is to wait for the government to complete its plans.
“It’s easy to forget about the poor people,” he said. “I’m not complaining, but I know for people who do not have the money, all we can do is wait and hope for the best.”
Reyes Mata III is a freelance journalist working with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative to cover COVID-19 and pandemic recovery from a solutions-reporting lens. For info, visit www.southNMnews.org or surNMnoticias.org.
