The Socorro County Commission meets in the County Annex building on Neel St. on the second and fourth Tuesdays each month.

The Socorro County Commission hasn’t given up on securing reliable broadband service for county residents. At its last meeting, County Manager Michael Hawkes updated commissioners on the progress.

“We’re ahead of the game compared to a lot of counties and we’re just waiting to see the state open up the application process for help with funding,” Hawkes said. “Our Lt. Governor said they were going to open up $123 million in state funding. We don’t know what the criteria are going to look like, but we’re hearing that the counties will have to be coming up with a 25 percent match. But that would be a very hard pill to swallow because, say if we got awarded $10 million, we can’t afford the $2.5 million match. We don’t have those types of funds.”

Hawkes said he doubts that an Internet Service Provider “will come in and plop down $2.5 million.”

But that’s only the first hoop to jump through, he said, because Socorro County needs about $64 million to bring broadband county-wide.

“The reason we are the second-worst county in the state, which makes us pretty much the second-worst county in the United States is because of the rurality, the topography, and the geography,” Hawkes said. “All those hurdles you have to cover with the fairly low penetration rate.”

He said one factor is knowing how many people in the county would actually be committed to paying for the broadband service.

“That would interest a lot of ISPs, knowing how many people would want to pay for it, but you know, that’s problematic,” Hawkes said. “One of the things I’m doing is reaching out to Western New Mexico. I don’t know about their capacity to tackle this big of an issue. Or put up that amount of money that ComNet said they would.”

According to Hawkes, ComNet is a manufacturer of fiber optic cables and a subsidiary of a conglomerate with internet resources.

“What I’m trying to do is coordinate ISPs that have shown interest, which currently is ComNet,” he said. “When we put out the invitation for ISPs to talk to the Commission, ComNet was the only one that came.

“So, one of the things that the county wanted is obviously a soup-to-nuts type of ISP that can go after the grants. The county doesn’t have the time or manpower,” he said. “Number two is to have the capacity to stand up a network through supply chain issues which we’re dealing with. So far it’s been ComNet that has stepped up to the plate.”

Hawkes admits it’s not an easy task to get done.

“It’s where we’re at and what’s it going to be and then work on our cost parameters,” he said. “I asked the state about a soft match, so they said they’ll look at it. Right now we’re waiting.”

John Larson, El Defensor Chieftain