Bacon's Rebellion

Speaking of bringing broadband Internet to rural Virginia (see previous post)… PamunkeyNet, a business entity of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, has received approval from the GO Virginia State Board to develop a plan to bring broadband to Gloucester, Mathews, Middlesex and other rural counties along the Chesapeake Bay.

The newly awarded federal designation of the Pumunkeys as an officially recognized Indian tribe is key to the venture. According to a GO-Virginia document, the project would unfold over three years. GO-Virginia, a state-funded economic development initiative, would provide backing for two years. The Pamunkey-owned project would:

• Create a network of existing and new wireless towers throughout the Middle Peninsula and George Washington region that will have a high-performance backbone between towers and local access radios on each tower to provide affordable business, residential, and institutional broadband Internet service, and will provide Gigbit fiber services on the Pamunkey reservation.
• Create a fiber-based Technology Corridor on Route 33 between Rappahannock Community College, the planned Telework Center, and the Middle Peninsula Regional Airport.
• Design for linkage with Hampton Roads, specifically for VIMS and Rappahannock Community College, and anticipate the benefits of linkages to the south with transoceanic destinations from the MAREA landing point, as well as to the north at Ashburn.

Key to making this happen is Pamunkey access to federal funds — “the sole federally designated tribe in Virginia and a conduit to currently untapped federal resources.”

The project also would involve the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, the Rappahannock and Germanna community colleges, ten localities, and two electric co-ops.

Bacon’s bottom line: I’ve just finished reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s brilliant and confounding new book, “Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life.” Taleb doesn’t have much use for movers, shakers, and pundits (which would include people like me) who don’t have “skin in the game,” that is, people who, if their analysis proves unfounded, walk away unscathed. One commonly encountered group of skinless gamers is people who play with taxpayers’ money.

If you had to make a prediction, which would you pick to have a greater chance of economic success (that is, recovering the funds invested): Gary Wood’s plan (described in the previous post) for the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative to deliver broadband to its 36,000 customers, or the Pamunkey plan to deliver broadband to a geographic area of comparable size?

I would lay my money on Wood. In a word, Wood has put his ass on the line, and he reports directly to a board of directors, whose members represent the interests of the customer-members of the co-op. If the venture fails, co-op members will take a bath, board members will catch endless flack from their friends and neighbors, and Wood’s career likely will be ruined. I would feel even better if he had some of his own money at stake, but there is a clear line of accountability, and the people involved have a lot to gain or lose. Without knowing Wood personally, I feel reasonably assured that he will do everything within his power to make the project a success.

Conversely, it doesn’t appear that anybody has skin in the game in the Pamunkey deal. There is no indication that the Pamunkeys are putting up any of their own money or that they’ll suffer any loss if the project bombs. Basically, a bunch of bureaucrats are playing with other peoples’ money, and if the project fizzles, there is no discernible impact on any of the participating organizations. Furthermore, participation is so broad and so diffused, there won’t be anyone to hold accountable. The Pamunkeys might tap enough state, federal, and local money to get the broadband service built. But would the project be economical, in the sense of earning back its cost of capital? Who cares? It’s other peoples’ money.

The Central Virginia Electric Cooperative has been delivering electricity to the inhabitants of 14 Central Virginia localities for 80 years. Now it’s planning to provide high-bandwidth Internet connections. The company has announced a plan to invest $11o million to connect all 36,000 co-op members.

Co-op members will be able to purchase 100 megabits per second (mbps) access for $49.99 a month or 1 gigabit per second (gbps) for $79.99 a month, reports the Fluvanna Review.

Keeping the pricing reasonable was important to CVEC President Gary Wood. “I didn’t want this to become a premium service or a luxury service,” he says. Continues the Rivanna Review:

Wood said the project is anticipated to lose money for the first seven years and reach the break-even point in about 11. He admits that “give me $100 million and in seven years, I’ll start bringing you your profits,” hasn’t been the easiest argument to sell, but he believes it can be done with a combination of  loans, grants, state and federal funding and tax rebates.

CVEC is also asking for financial support from each of the counties in its service area.

For a for-profit business, eleven years would be a slow payback. But for an electric co-op, owned by its customers, that might seem like a reasonable proposition.

One objection, I would expect, would revolve around opportunity cost. By taking on a financial obligation of this size, the co-op might be limiting its ability to pursue other projects such as, say, grid modernization or solar energy. Another objection would be risk. What if rural residents aren’t willing to pay $50 to $80 per month for broadband access? Could disappointing revenues put the co-op in financial jeopardy?

But let’s face it, no one else is likely to want to deliver broadband to the rural residents of Central Virginia. This seems like a project that is custom-made for CVEC, and it could provide a model for other co-ops, who cover roughly a third of the geographic expanse of the state.