Updating regulations and laws are important steps governments can take to facilitate broadband rollout. At the 2015 Annual Meeting, and in the above interview, MTA President and CEO, Brent Christensen outlined three bills in the Minnesota legislature that the MTA is championing that would further these goals.

• Updating rules for costs of remediation for crossing railroad tracks. The actual costs of remediation have fallen, thanks to new technologies like directional boring, but the rules for compensation haven’t kept pace. These costs can be significant in rural areas, with their low population densities.
• Ensuring an existing sales tax exemption on capital equipment also applies to various outside plant capital elements.
• Creating a level playing field is what the third piece of legislation is about. MTA’s proposal seeks to regulate Incumbent LECs in the same way as Competitive LEC, if there is a competitive marketplace. The concept is that competition will be a more efficient regulator of service quality and price than regulators.

Arcane regulatory rules aren’t headline news like hot button issues, such as net neutrality, but when they are no longer applicable they can serve as hidden barriers, slowing deployment and/or raising costs to the consumer.