<div>Oklahoma’s Mike Sanders Can’t Help but Help The Executive Director of the Oklahoma Broadband Office was called into duty and installed in March of 2023. He tells me that shortly after being term-limited out as an Oklahoma representative and House Majority Leader and being settled into a relatively low-stress consultancy, he was asked by several of his former colleagues to take the reins of Oklahoma’s newly established broadband office. “I did not know all the ins and the outs about broadband at all. And I was very hesitant to be honest with you,” says Mike Sanders, “But the more phone calls I received – and when I really looked at what this could absolutely mean – I was drawn to it and the ability to serve rural parts of our state that had been forgotten.”Sanders says that while a few state employees were working on broadband efforts prior to the ‘office’ officially opening, the few working in the small group weren’t even connected to broadband. “When I walked into the Oklahoma Broadband Office, my first day, I walked into an office that was being asked to deploy $1.3 billion in federal funds. That same office did not have broadband.” Sanders recounts that since then, people, policies, procedures, and yes, a broadband connection, have all been put in place in a newly created, standalone state agency employing 18 people. He ticks through staff hired, including grants people, finance people, and a GIS specialist. He even had to get legislation passed to hire a general counsel. More hires are pending with field support and technical staff eventually needed in the field to support project implementation. First order of business for Sanders and the Oklahoma broadband team was to get $374 million in ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds out the door, grant agreements being signed. Groundbreakings for these projects are just underway across the state. ARPA project awards numbered more than 125 with at least one in 55 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties. There might have been more, but a few areas didn’t receive requests, due in part to insufficient infrastructure. “We had some ISPs who decided not to apply largely because middle-mile infrastructure wasn’t in place to enable feasible builds.” Sanders and his team have allocated about $35 million set aside to support what Sanders described as ‘much-needed’ middle-miles infrastructure to support applicants of all federally funded programs, including BEAD.  “We want to shore up our backbone, so we don’t lose potential BEAD applicants.”In advance of BEAD funding, Oklahoma recently (September 26) announced allocation of ~$158 million in CPF funds. The grants cover 50 projects to be completed by 12 separate ISPs. Another $109 million in matching funds from the ISPs will assist in connecting approximately 28,000 Oklahoma homes and businesses.<img src="https://assets-v2.circle.so/0ti7az3cf8abqmgyilvfvupapemp" style="width: 100%;">Beginning BEAD Sanders points out the FCC Broadband Map shows that currently approximately 10% of total BSLs in the state remain unserved or underserved. Conservatively, at least 170K locations need to be connected by ARPA, CPF, and BEAD. Fortunately, Oklahoma has an additional $750 million in BEAD funding to allocate in the coming months. While the BEAD program’s stated ‘universal access’ goal could be called aspirational, Sanders is still striving towards it with the explicit state-mandated goal of 95% coverage. He estimates that 3 to 5% will require alternative technology for connection because “I can't justify getting to one home or two homes and spending half a million dollars. But those people still deserve the opportunity to be served.”While most of Oklahoma’s BEAD connections will be fiber (Sanders estimates 80 percent), Sanders describes himself as ‘all in’ with whatever tool in his toolbox will get the connectivity job done. “There are places where licensed fixed wireless as well as satellite will need to play a role.” Oklahoma began its BEAD challenge process in late September. This, admittedly, leaves a lot to be done the first half of next year once the challenge phase is completed. Sub-grantees will need to be selected in what Sanders anticipates being one round, maybe two. But, for now, he’s focused on the ongoing challenge process which he expects to be interesting. “I know personally that the FCC map is not correct. Although they say this or that area is covered, I will bet everything I own that ‘covered’ areas on the map do not have connectivity.”As for the project areas, Oklahoma will be drawing what Sanders calls ‘project area nets,’ (Network Expansion Territories), that will incorporate both the more appealing areas to serve and high-cost areas in an effort to spread the challenging areas amongst ISPs. “We have a great relationship to be honest with all of our internet service providers and we’re optimistic that there will be no shortage of applications for the project NETs.” With all these steps being mapped out, grant agreements signed, and the plan being approved by the NTIA, Sanders says buildouts should start around spring of 2026.<img src="https://assets-v2.circle.so/w72s0c31masw0tqq2no2d5vhtyor" style="width: 100%;">A State with a Twist(er)While Hollywood may lead us to believe that Oklahoma is one sort of terrain – vast plains with man-hunting tornados on the prowl – Sanders explains that Oklahoma’s landscape is really ‘multiple States.’ West is very rural, flat, and the home of agriculture, while east is characterized by hills, granite, and forests, creating unique challenges for deploying broadband depending on where you are in the state. Another challenge facing Sanders and his team are the 39 federally recognized tribes, many of which still have disputed boundaries today. The Oklahoma Broadband Office has reached out to all of them in an effort to work together to ensure coverage, including on tribal lands. Driven to Public Service After interviewing nearly half of the broadband office leads, Sanders strikes me as the person I’d vote ‘most likely to be President’ for the BEAD yearbook. Let me explain – Sanders tells me that he was inspired early in life, watching Ronald Reagan talking about a ‘shining city on the hill.’ He describes turning to his father on his seat in front of the floor in front of the couch and saying, ‘Dad, that's what I want to do when I grow up.’ He says that whether his dad believed him or not, that was when he became bound and determined to follow a path of public service. From that point on, Sanders says he really took a liking to public service, government, and history. “I loved what his vision for America was. I started to dive more into government and history, as a nine-, ten-year old while most kids were outside on their bikes,” says Sanders. <img src="https://assets-v2.circle.so/98zbwcsf7vd5zhpl4pbdgluheg0o" style="width: 100%;">As a high school student, Sanders volunteered for the elder Bush’s 1992 presidential campaign. This included knocking on doors, canvassing for votes, and doing ‘campaign grunt work that no one else wanted to do.’ Upon graduating from college at Oklahoma Christian University, Sanders again turned to local and national public service. This included working for the George W. Bush presidential campaign and even fighting over hanging chads in Florida. He served the Bush administration in several roles including director of White House interns, in the USDA Rural Development, and finally as senior advisor for the chief of the Natural Resources and Conservation Service. As the Bush administration wound down, Sanders returned to Oklahoma, ran and won his state house seat in his home of Kingfisher in western Oklahoma. Eventually he would rise to Oklahoma’s House Majority Leader before being term-limited out in 2020. Looking beyond his current role of broadband chief, Sanders looks forward, “If I ever decide to run for office again, and God willing that happens, I think that as long as the folks who have hired me to do a job and I continue to make a difference, I will stay as long as they want me or as long as my health and my wife allow me to [laughing].”Speaking of his wife, Sanders may not even be the most impressive political figure in his own household as his wife (Nellie Tayloe Sanders) is Oklahoma’s Secretary of Education. Why Broadband? But back to his current role as Oklahoma’s broadband director, there is still much to do. Sanders explains that when the broadband office position presented itself, he felt it was the best opportunity for him to continue in his public service.“I'm a big picture guy. And I know what this is going to mean for Oklahomans, for generations to come,” says Sanders. “This will be a life changing experience from a healthcare, education, and tourism standpoint.”Growing up in rural Oklahoma himself, Sanders feels a kinship with those he describes as never having high-speed internet in their communities. He wants to make sure rural residents of the state have as much access as anyone, as he notes that connectivity is an economic development imperative.“I get chills when I talk about what we’re doing because I know that in ten, 20 years we're going to have our hand on history,” says Sanders. “We're going to know that we made a difference. The kids and grandkids of people I see at ribbon-cutting events in rural Oklahoma, they're going to be part of something so special and so unique. The next time we talk about some of these communities, there may be 5,000 people there living and starting families and starting businesses.” <img src="https://assets-v2.circle.so/s4uuqsvmsqw5b128aubo13cbiphr" style="width: 100%;"></div>

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Meet Mike Sanders, OK

<div>A report posted on <a href="https://bartlesvilleradio.com/pages/news/410492024/osage-nation-to-break-ground-on-broadband-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Bartlesville, Oklahoma Radio website</a> yesterday notes that the <a href="https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/news-events/news/ntia-broadband-projects-groundbreaking" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Osage Nation</a> is gearing up to begin construction on a new broadband project backed by $54 million in federal funding. As the article notes:Beginning on Monday, March 4th, the Osage Nation will hold a ground breaking on its National Telecommunications Information Administration projects. This construction is funded by nearly 54 million dollars in federal grant funds to the Osage Nation to build out high speed broadband throughout the Osage Nation.More than 200 miles of fiber optic cable will be spread throughout 16 towers for WIFI. The opening event is set to take place at 10 a.m. at the Wakon Iron Chapel in PawhuskaThe Osage Nation has been a big winner of various federal broadband funding opportunities, receiving a <a href="https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/news-events/news/osage-nation-awarded-406-million-tribal-broadband-connectivity-program-grant" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$40.6 billion grant</a> from the Commerce Dept./NTIA’s <a href="https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/funding-programs/tribal-broadband-connectivity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program</a> in August 2022, and another <a href="https://osagenews.org/osage-nation-awarded-54m-to-improve-high-speed-broadband-on-reservation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$13.9 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture</a> less than month later. </div>

Osage Nation to break ground on $54M, 200-mile broadband project in Oklahoma

Mike Sanders

Executive Director

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