
Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
In this episode of the podcast, Chris sits down with Representative Kelly Kortum of Montana to discuss his efforts to repeal a law that restricts municipal broadband networks in the state. Drawing on his personal experience growing up in a small Montana town with limited Internet access, Representative Kortum shares how his passion for technology has shaped his advocacy for better broadband for rural communities.
The conversation explores Montana’s existing barriers to broadband expansion, including outdated legislation favoring incumbent cable companies and the impact of federal funding programs like ARPA and BEAD. Representative Kortum highlights the critical role cooperatives and nonprofits, like Yellowstone Fiber in Bozeman, play in bridging the digital divide. Together, they emphasize the importance of local control in infrastructure development and the broader implications of equitable broadband access for innovation and economic growth.
Tune in to learn how one legislator is working tirelessly to empower small towns across Montana with faster, affordable Internet and to challenge corporate control of connectivity.
This show is 17 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.
Transcript below.
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Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license
Kelly Kortum (00:07):
You can read the law and see it was written as a non-compete clause between the government and the incumbent cable company.
Christopher Mitchell (00:15):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in St. Paul, Minnesota. Today I'm speaking with Representative Kortum [00:00:30] from Montana. Welcome to the show.
Kelly Kortum (00:32):
Thanks for inviting me. Christopher, I'm really excited to talk about networks
Christopher Mitchell (00:37):
And you're coming to us from Bozeman, which has a pretty cool network, is building one out and you're, I think kind of like a tech guy in the house, right?
Kelly Kortum (00:48):
I am one of the only IT people in the legislature, maybe the only one. And yes, I do come from Bozeman where there's some local nonprofits building that I'd love to talk about, but right now I'm [00:01:00] in Helena, Montana for the legislative session.
Christopher Mitchell (01:02):
Of course, I should have known that. The thing that we wanted to talk to you about is a bill that you are once again championing. Montana is one of the more recent states to develop a law that discourages municipal networks. It's not nearly the worst, but it seems to be counterproductive to where we're going. But before we get there, let's talk about why this issue is a priority [00:01:30] for you. You said you're one of the only IT people. Is that a part of your identity and what makes you so passionate about broadband?
Kelly Kortum (01:37):
My journey begins in a small town in eastern Montana called Ekalaka, where I got to be known as the guy that all the people called to come fix their computer,
Christopher Mitchell (01:46):
Not just your parents then. So it's a real benefit
Kelly Kortum (01:49):
The entire town, it paid for some of my college I expect, but I grew up on 56 K modem that probably ran at about 30 k, so I was [00:02:00] really excited when I downloaded my first song overnight, that was a pretty big moment for me to get that 10 megabytes of whatever on that slow modem. So I started with slow Internet and in choosing my college here in Bozeman, Montana, that was a big part of was choosing it was choosing an engineering or tech school and having Internet that actually worked and I could watch a video on say my first streaming video was in 2004 at the university and it was pretty exciting. So I guess [00:02:30] my small town roots and my lack of good Internet access has kind of informed my whole life that way, and now that I have a little bit of power to help, maybe some folks back in Ekalaka or Eureka or any of the small towns around Montana get some better quality Internet, their lives will change. So I guess I just want people to have it better than I did.
Christopher Mitchell (02:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's really important, and I actually kind of expected you to say a little bit more recent, but 2004, [00:03:00] you still beat a lot of people on the Internet
Kelly Kortum (03:04):
And I've lived there ever since.
Christopher Mitchell (03:07):
So what is the barrier in Montana?
Kelly Kortum (03:09):
Long before my time, some big players in the Internet industry convinced some legislators here. I believe in my own party to write a law that preempted municipal or government networks as they like to say. I mean, you can read the law and see it was written as a non-compete clause between the government and [00:03:30] the incumbent cable company. I guess that's the big barrier is just making sure or is we have to repeal that line that says governments can't be involved in broadband rollout because it is hurting our state and especially our small towns, and given all the ARPA and BEAD money that we've got over the last four years, we should have more to show for it than we do.
Christopher Mitchell (03:50):
One of the things that has been claimed is that having those kinds of laws would result in a lot more private sector investment. I'm [00:04:00] guessing that the cable company hasn't gone and invested. A lot of the gains in Montana have been from the cooperatives, local telephone companies and others. They actually might not be on what I would consider the right side of this issue, but it is interesting to me, and we'll talk more about that in a second, but it's interesting to me how this is a cable company that's able to push a law like that and they get it and then they do exactly what we would expect, which is invest the bare [00:04:30] minimum. And in fact, I think this is the same cable company that kind of, I feel like abused one of the recent years in which Montana was putting broadband money out there for rural areas and kind of grabbed it for these urban or suburban areas that were not really in the spirit of the bill. So any chance I have to really remind people about the nature of these big cable companies, I'll take it. I appreciate [00:05:00] that.
Kelly Kortum (05:01):
I appreciate that. Thanks for making sure that people know where their tax dollars are going. I know in that first rollout that didn't have nearly the stipulations that BEAD money, that ARPA money, all the rules were written by the state, and it turns out that that big cable company got half of those contracts and again, they were in suburban areas where they could lock in profit for 20 years and it didn't get any new Internet access out to the Montanans that have been waiting for 20 years and have been relying on [00:05:30] whatever co-ops can do. I do believe co-ops are a big part of the model that rolls out Internet to everyone just like they did with electricity a hundred years ago. I hope we can start focusing more on those that are actually serving and not just profiting.
Christopher Mitchell (05:44):
Yes. So what does your bill do and is it one of the 500 page bills that people get so open in arms about?
Kelly Kortum (05:51):
Thank you. It is very simple, bill, as they always say, when they pitch a bill, what it does, it just repeals that law that prevents municipalities [00:06:00] or government, county governments from getting involved in the Internet process and at this stage, they can still contribute money to the Internet, but they can't own any part of it. So that's just giving free money to the corporations to build a network and profit on it for you at the cost of your taxpayers. So it just repeals that portion, the non-compete clause basically, that gives these, especially the incumbents a huge [00:06:30] advantage and again, leaves regular people just wishing they could get any sort of access.
Christopher Mitchell (06:37):
And this law, this is one, and I was thinking that it was much like Pennsylvania. I just pulled it up really quick. Both Montana and Pennsylvania have this sort of idea that a city should not be able to build a network if a private provider is around, and I say around because that's about as specific as this is. It's remarkable to me that under the terms of this law, [00:07:00] if a private company serves one household and there's 1700 other households in the community that cannot get service, the town is not able to offer service because a private sector is already doing it. It's remarkable.
Kelly Kortum (07:13):
Not only that, but in these huge grants that we got from the federal government, they managed to write a challenge process to where if another ISP signed up for that grant, they're saying, oh, look, we have this little property right next door and we're going to serve that area and we're way ahead of you with [00:07:30] our network, so just let us do it. And then they just don't do anything and where's that money go?
Christopher Mitchell (07:34):
Yes. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the things that any entity can change its mind on things, and we've often seen that with promises that were made. I mean, this goes back to those days that you were talking about when you would've loved to have DSL in your small town. I'll bet that you had multiple years where a telephone company was saying, oh yeah, we're going to do it next year, and then it just doesn't happen.
Kelly Kortum (07:59):
To their [00:08:00] credit, they were a co-op and they were doing just the very best they could get us anything in that town. I know our school had maybe a 10 megabit network and I had that 30 K network up through the copper on the hill, but I'm glad to report that they've come a long way since then, but it's not anything near what we can encounter in the cities where we have multiple options and multiple types of Internet cellular or point to point or fiber or whatever it is.
Christopher Mitchell (08:28):
The folks that represent the telephone [00:08:30] companies, I've been to their conference and I've spoken with them, they've made really remarkable investments across Montana and they're actually fairly close, or they had been fairly close to the Minnesota folks as well. Minnesota has a lot of local small companies. Some are co-ops, some aren't. And what I find interesting is both of them have a deep nervousness and opposition to communities making these investments. And even in Minnesota where we've seen some of the [00:09:00] communities partnering with these co-ops to help get them money and that sort of a thing, which to me is great love to see that sort of thing happen. There's still this nervousness, and I think they're one of the opponents that you have to deal with in this bill. I mean, some of the companies that we support making investments are unfortunately, I think opposed to changing the law to allow communities to make more investments.
Kelly Kortum (09:26):
I did experience some rural pushback, but on the other side, [00:09:30] a lot of the rural economic development associations throughout the state we're really excited about it. So sometimes it's friendlies that don't want to give up their monopoly either.
Christopher Mitchell (09:42):
Yes, and I think this is one of those things where it just strikes me, this is so important. Who knows how many people would be inspired to be doing some remarkable breakthrough innovation who don't have that opportunity because they're just struggling to get through school when they don't have access [00:10:00] to resources that others do. I've always felt like a mayor should be able to be the one that decides does their community need more investment in how to prioritize it? The local city council, these are the people that are deciding what kind of infrastructure to focus on and they should be free to do it.
Kelly Kortum (10:19):
I agree. They also argue that governments don't have the money to do this, but the companies do when they just don't spend it on investing in the community. I'm a little [00:10:30] skeptical of all that.
Christopher Mitchell (10:31):
Yeah, I mean these networks, they can come with a price tag, and at the same time, governments build roads, bridges, they build things that cost a heck of a lot more money than these networks. So I've always felt like there's a lot of arguments that I'm sure you come across, but ultimately I feel like the argument that usually results in these laws is really a poor one. I've written you a [00:11:00] check and I expect you to vote in a certain way. That's what seems to get these laws passed and then defended.
Kelly Kortum (11:06):
Yep. No argument there. Another problem that we're running into Montana a lot more recently has to do with local control. 20, 30 years ago, Montana was known for solving its problems very locally and would come up with innovative solutions, say to fix the Internet or make the sewer system work better, or finally pave that road on Main Street for the first time in a hundred years. But recently [00:11:30] it's kind of gone the other way. The state legislature has cut down on municipalities writing certain taxes, say like gas taxes or managing what they ban and what they allow, like plastic bags. So I expect going into the environment, they're still kind of on that inter-local control kick. So I know that's going to be a little bit of a fight, but I also know a lot of my colleagues across the aisle live on these little tiny towns that are underserved by the big providers [00:12:00] and want somebody to actually come up with a solution rather than just shoveling money at a giant corporation.
Christopher Mitchell (12:06):
Yes, and that's one of the things that we've found is a benefit is that if you a Bill succeeds, we may see more investment from those out-of-state companies. We may see more investment from some of the local companies who now are a little bit more worried about the possibility of having to compete, and you can actually see a significant increase in investment into these [00:12:30] communities without the public having to invest anything in terms of building a service. And so that's a win-win. Yeah, and I'm disappointed to hear what you were saying because Montana has a real history of independence and it sounds like some of the kind of groupthink where it seems like people outsource their thinking to the National Party. It seems like that's taking a hold. We've seen that in Texas as well where there's a lot of the Republicans in Austin [00:13:00] are taking away a lot of the authority of Republicans in small towns, and it's frustrating to watch.
Kelly Kortum (13:06):
Yes. A constant ongoing problem is who has the power and where, and I think we're going to find this is the direction that Montanans haven't wanted historically for a hundred years since the Copper Kings were in Butte, and I think that natural distrust of authority and of the big spenders is healthy and helps us again, solve our problems here where we are.
Christopher Mitchell (13:29):
Let's send out a high [00:13:30] note. Are you able to subscribe to the community network in Bozeman?
Kelly Kortum (13:34):
So it's not strictly a community network, but not yet. About 80% of Bozeman is covered by a nonprofit fiber company called Yellowstone Fiber.
Christopher Mitchell (13:46):
We call it a community network, but opinions can draw different lines elsewhere.
Kelly Kortum (13:51):
Sure. It's not owned by the city. It's a nonprofit entity and it's the only nonprofit ISP in the state, I believe, and [00:14:00] they have rolled out fiber gigabit or 10 gigabit service to 80% of town, and now we're looking for that last 20% of funding to finish out the city and hopefully show off its success and expand to other communities that aren't quite so blessed with technology and money.
Christopher Mitchell (14:19):
Excellent. I know that that project, I was involved a little bit in some of the discussions of just trying to figure it out in the early days. I know that the city, the local government, [00:14:30] was very involved with that local nonprofit. I mean, it really seemed like it was truly a community effort with cities, businesses, and this nonprofit trying to work together to figure out some way of providing a high quality service to everyone.
Kelly Kortum (14:46):
It was, and it still is a good project, and I hope we can model that sort of more community-minded behavior to other states in the nation as my bill goes forward, and I've got one more [00:15:00] term ahead of me, and they're going to keep hearing about this if they find an excuse this time.
Christopher Mitchell (15:06):
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. We saw these efforts in Washington where they also had a restriction and there was people that carried the bill for multiple years and then it popped through, and what it takes is perseverance and continuing to get the word out, and eventually we hope that you can get the votes you need, and hopefully that will be in the year 2025. Not too far from now.
Kelly Kortum (15:30):
[00:15:30] I share this hope. Thank you.
Christopher Mitchell (15:33):
Alright, well, thank you so much for your time and your advocacy Representative Kortum.
Kelly Kortum (15:37):
It's been a pleasure, Christopher. Thanks for having me today.
Ry Marcattilio (15:40):
We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available @communitynets.org/broadbandbits. Email us @podcastatcommunitynets.org with your ideas For the show, follow Chris on Bluesky. His handle is at @SportShotChris. Follow communitynets.org stories on Bluesky, the handles [00:16:00] @communitynets. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter @ILSR.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Sby [00:16:30] for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.