MEIGS COUNTY, Ohio — New Era Broadband, a locally owned and operated internet service provider, is in a dispute with American Electric Power over a new technology that is disrupting internet access for hundreds of residents in Meigs and Athens counties.
“About a little over a year ago now, we started getting customers telling us that they’re having trouble with their service,” New Era owner David Hannum told the Independent. “We had one of the customers say, ‘Oh, by the way, my internet worked great until the electric company hung this box out on the pole by my house.’”
The box was part of AEP’s recently installed smart meter system, which uses the same group of frequencies that New Era Broadband uses to provide internet access to local residents and businesses. As a result, the signals created by the two companies interfere with each other, resulting in internet service disruptions.
In an emailed statement, an AEP spokesperson told the Independent that smart meters use two-way communication to securely send AEP data about customers’ power usage in “near real-time.”
“The technology improves billing accuracy and eliminates the need for a meter reader to enter customers’ property,” the spokesperson wrote. “It also allows us to detect outages earlier.”
According to AEP’s smart meter website, the meters broadcast updates in 15-minute intervals on the 902-928 megahertz frequency. This frequency range is an unlicensed and loosely regulated group designated by the Federal Communications Commission for general use.
Founded in 2007, New Era primarily serves Meigs County, but reaches into Athens, Washington and Vinton counties. It delivers internet services via radio towers that broadcast a signal which is then picked up by customers’ antennas.
Hannum said his company uses the 902–928 megahertz frequency range for its ability to carry a signal through dense foliage.
“Because of the terrain down here, with all the hills and all the trees, it’s difficult for us to punch the signal from our towers that we have around the county to a lot of these homes because it goes through trees,” Hannum said. “We have relied on the 900 megahertz spectrum to do this for us. It ain’t the fastest internet in the world, but it’s something when they would have nothing.”
Hannum told the Independent he’s lost over 100 customers since service started being disrupted last year. During this time, Hannum said that he has spoken multiple times with AEP but that the two companies have yet to find a resolution.
“Over the course of these conversations AEP Ohio has taken various steps to respond to New Era’s concerns, including delaying our implementation timeline by six months, conducting field studies, adjusting equipment and exploring alternative technologies,” an AEP spokesperson told the Independent in an email.In May of this year, Hannum contacted the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which has regulatory authority over AEP, to request assistance in solving the matter. Currently, the case is waiting for an administrative law judge to determine next steps, according to Matt Schilling, director of PUCO’s office for public affairs.
Rules, regulation and solutions
Both AEP and New Era Broadband are in compliance with FCC regulations that apply to the 902-928 megahertz range, said Julio Arauz, a professor in the J. Warren McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies at Ohio University.
The unlicensed frequency range is used for experimentation, education, amateur radio and more, Arauz said.
“[The rules] don’t say this has to be fixed by the internet service provider or this has to be fixed by AEP,” Arauz said. “What it basically says is that you’re going to have to come to an arrangement of how you deal with this.”
Devices are supposed to be able to accept interference, including interference that can interrupt operations, Arauz said. But too much interference would render everyone’s technology unusable.
Hannum told the Independent that it’s common for companies to participate in “gentleman’s agreements” to only use certain frequencies in order to avoid interference.
“We would do what you call channel planning,” Hannum said. “We got together with [another internet service provider], mapped out our towers, mapped out the frequencies, and said, ‘Okay, you guys use this range of the spectrum that’s available. We’ll use the other range over here, and we’ll coexist and get along fine.’ That worked great.”
Arauz and Sean O’Malley, a rural broadband consultant with Reid Consulting Group, told the Independent that these “gentleman’s agreements” are a form of dispute resolution that they’ve seen before. Arauz said that the only potential problem with this type of resolution would be if one party’s technology was incapable of limiting itself to a few specific frequencies rather than the whole spectrum.
An AEP spokesperson told the Independent that their smart meters are designed to use the entire frequency range and cannot be limited to specific frequencies within the 902-928 megahertz band. The spokesperson said AEP has had to accept interference from other sources in their smart meter system, and that doing so is part of using the frequency range.
“Ultimately AEP Ohio, like New Era, had to accept that interference as legally permitted in the 900 band,” an AEP spokesperson wrote in an email.
According to Hannum, AEP suggested that New Era seek a grant to upgrade its equipment so that interference isn’t as much of an issue. For Hannum, that’s not practical: Equipping a radio tower with the current equipment costs about $6,000 while the upgraded equipment would cost $30,000 per radio tower.
Another issue is that the grant program that funds broadband infrastructure projects, known as the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, requires a letter of credit worth 25% of the entire project.
“If we bid, say, a $1 million project, we still had to come up with $250,000 which we don’t have,” Hannum said.
Community reaction
The community response to the issue has firmly been in support of New Era Broadband, with a number of comment letters submitted to PUCO praising the company. Many of these comments refer to internet access as crucial for daily life and appear to reflect national attitudes toward internet access.
A 2023 survey by Consumer Reports found that 78% of Americans view internet access as equally important as other basic necessities. This same survey found that 85% of Americans rely on the internet for daily activities.
Perry Varnadoe, director of the Meigs County Economic Development Office, said that New Era Broadband provides internet access to the rural parts of the county where other providers don’t offer service.
“[New Era Broadband] serves the remote areas of the county that are the essential last mile that don’t get served,” Varnadoe said. “They serve the areas that for the bigger guys is just not profitable to do so.”
Varnadoe said that he has worked with AEP for about 30 years and that he’s always found them to be a “reasonable community-minded company.” However, in this instance Varnadoe said he can’t make sense of AEP’s actions.
“In our community, it’s a struggle to get broadband to remote areas, and every time you get some, you celebrate,” Varnadoe said. “The idea that folks may lose their service or have their service difficult to use is a real step back for us.”
If they lose access to New Era Broadband, customers would have to find a new provider — possibly with reduced connectivity and a higher bill.
Satellite internet, the most common solution for remote areas without wired internet, works best where there is an unobstructed view of the sky, O’Malley told the Independent. Trees, hills and even rain can cause connection issues.
“[Southeast Ohio has] all these steep hollers, and a lot of the houses are built down in those valleys. If you’re down in the valley, like you’ve got hills that are blocking your view, even if you don’t have trees in your yard,” O’Malley said.
Another issue for current New Era Broadband customers is that Wi-Fi calling is an important way to get around spotty cell service.
“In this part of the country, cell phones are hit and miss,” a New Era Broadband customer told the Independent. “It may be raining and you won’t have service in the same identical place you had it yesterday. Without internet service, without affordable, reliable internet service that is unlimited, we do not have the capability of making a 911 phone call in the middle of the night in the house.”
Future updates on New Era Broadband’s complaints to PUCO and public comments can be filed by visiting PUCO’s website.
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