When Internet Access and Climate Change Collide

When Jennifer Sargeant initially launched her own marketing agency, a logical first step was creating YouTube content. The problem was that her home outside of Clermont, Florida, only had dial-up internet with speeds of 3 Mbps download and 1.4 Mbps upload at best. Thus, she brought her laptop with her to her local grocery store, Publix, plopped it into her grocery cart and uploaded her content via public Wi-Fi as she shopped. 

“This is a very sensitive subject for me,” she says. “It’s my skillset to make money for my family, and without internet, I can't do much.”

Beyond her ability to work, without reliable internet access, there is no one to call if an emergency occurs at home. If Sargeant, who is pregnant, went into labor at home during a regular outage of internet or power, she would be forced to drive between 30 minutes to an hour away for emergency services. Her cell phone only works with an internet connection, so there is no way that anyone could know she was in danger.

Between the constant uphill battle of internet access and climate change delivering heavier, slower hurricanes across Florida, Sargeant and her husband discuss relocating every few days. The effects of climate change in Florida are an everyday dinner table conversation as well. 

She isn’t alone. Last summer, the U.S. was hit with a record-breaking 23 natural disasters with $57 billion in damages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In fact, a 2022 AP analysis found that over the past 20 years, power outages have doubled in frequency due to climate-induced weather. And when the power goes out, most internet access goes down with it. If you live in a rural community without quality internet, cell service, or a landline, there is no 911, no emergency services, and no friends or family to call for help. 

After seeing the effects of a lack of internet access and connectivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government stepped in to fund vast improvements in internet infrastructure via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (BEAD). In June 2023, the allocation for each state and U.S. territory was officially announced. 

Beyond just a connection, another goal of BEAD is to incentivize internet service providers (ISPs) to build out infrastructure prepared to withstand climate change. 

However, even with the federal government footing a great portion of the bill to expand internet connections to disconnected communities, the question of how to fortify that access in a changing climate is debatable at best and irrelevant at worst among experts. 

Resilient infrastructure is essential as quality internet access ensures that vulnerable communities can share information quickly, protect themselves and their property from climate disasters, and contact emergency services if their lives are threatened.

Like Sargeant, you are entirely alone. 

Coastal internet designs

David Theodore, CEO of Resilient Internet, has been thinking long and hard about climate change and internet access for over twenty years. His business centers on creating climate-resilient internet access for large enterprise clients. 

Building such networks, in his mind, starts in large coastal cities. The chain of command begins on a tall roof. Heavy-duty hardware strong enough to withstand 150+ mile per hour winds are installed to provide fixed wireless signals throughout an entire building below. That same equipment is then installed on the next nearby roof until, like a chain, one by one, the connection leads to a high-tier data center.

The goal is to keep internet infrastructure off the ground to avoid floodwaters and ensure that its electric connection comes from an independent location. This type of solution is meant for critical locations, such as hospitals, that cannot afford to lose bandwidth in an emergency.  

According to Theodore, such a design can also be accomplished with fiber optics buried underground in metal pipes that are independently powered to ensure that no matter what happens to a power grid, the internet connection will remain accessible. 

The downside is that the cost of this arrangement to a potential residential consumer is prohibitively expensive, which goes against current consumer trends. Between 2015 and 2020 alone, USTelecom found that adjusted for inflation, the cost of the most popular broadband speeds decreased by 28.1 percent, while the highest speed packages dropped by 43.9 percent over five years. 

As there is more investment and build-out in broadband infrastructure, prices will naturally fall as ISPs fight to compete. But that could be detrimental to climate resilience. 

“Telecom operators do not want to spend money on resilience. They want to build cheap,” says Theodore. 

Even though Theodore positions his business to address communication outages and climate change head-on, he’s found that talking about the internet in this way isn’t very popular. From his experience, climate activists and the telecommunications industry fail to acknowledge the importance of internet resilience. When asked about the telecom community’s positions on climate change and infrastructure, he described the response as “crickets.”

But take Louisiana, a state with a lineage of natural disasters behind it. The state now has enough money from BEAD to build a quality internet connection for everyone who needs it. Yet despite the immediate need to extend reliable broadband due to this context, there remain significant challenges due to politics and cost.

Burying the line

In June 2023, Louisiana received more than $1.3 billion from the BEAD program to build out internet service to around 200,000 unserved and underserved locations across the state. 

Veneeth Iygnar, the Executive Director of Connect LA from the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development & Connectivity, describes the state as split when it comes to the way its internet infrastructure currently works.

“North Louisiana is more exposed to the environment and climate than Southeast Louisiana, where infrastructure is a bit more sturdy,” he says.

Case in point, North Louisiana utilizes more aerial fiber cables strung up between telephone poles than the South. That’s because aerial is cheaper for ISPs to build. However, it gets knocked down with so much as a slight wind. 

In the coming years, Iygnar hopes that Louisianans will have three choices for their internet service: satellite, a fixed wireless provider, and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). Thus, Iygnar has his sights set on deploying as much BEAD funding as possible into building fiber lines underground instead of aerially to protect them from disconnecting so easily. 

Carl Åhslund, the CEO of Open Infra, an open-source network fiber provider in Dallas, Texas, agrees that burying fiber lines is one of the critical methods to maintain resilience throughout a disaster. 

“Underground cables are, if placed at sufficient depth, more protected than aerial cables for most disaster events. FTTH would remain accessible as long as the [...] active equipment retains power,” Åhslund says. 

This was specifically put to the test in Sweden, where Open Infra was founded in 2009. Frigid Scandinavian temperatures quickly informed how networks were designed and constructed.

“Electrical networks in Sweden are winterized to withstand freezing temperatures, so [a power outage] has not been an issue historically, nor with Internet outages,” he says. “The main problem causing power outages has been storms bringing down trees on aerial power lines.” 

As for the fiber networks themselves, the majority in Sweden are now built underground. Stateside, Open Infra is building open-access fiber networks in Texas and Florida with equipment designed to function in high-heat environments. Consideration is also given throughout the planning process to flood risks so the team can reroute networks to high, dry land. 

But to Theodore, the prospect of putting all of the eggs into the basket of building out fiber underground isn’t enough. 

“It’s all underground or overhead fiber optic cable, and almost all of it depends on the same power grid,” Theodore says. “We’re talking about wires and telephone poles…There is no resilience there. [Telecommunications companies] acknowledge it’s not resilient, but they have no answer other than hardening the underground.”

Plus, the larger electrical grid that underground fiber lines depend on can get disconnected during a catastrophe, like a flood or rising sea levels. From Åhslund’s experience, the amount of equipment in a network makes a difference to fiber internet access during a power outage. The more powered equipment there is in the chain to reach a home, the more opportunity there is for an outage somewhere along the way.

Breaking from the Grid

One mode of internet access that is gaining traction across the country, especially in rural areas, to combat the effects of climate change on internet access are low-earth orbit satellites (LEOs). Part of the LEO appeal is that it’s largely designed for independent movement in RVs, boats, and other vessels with battery backups. 

Though LEOs create logistical problems for astronomers and an increased amount of space junk in our orbit, an expensive subscription to an LEO internet service, like Starlink, operated by Elon Musk-backed SpaceX, may be one of the only ways that residential households can conserve communication access in a disastrous event.

About a year ago, Sargeant put a $150 down payment on Starlink service. She recently received notification that the ISP is finally rolling out service to her area. She plans on having both Starlink and her current T-Mobile 5G Home Internet in her home in the future.

“A T-Mobile representative literally said that I should have another source of internet so that I don't only rely on [them],” she says. 

Starlink’s hefty start-up costs and monthly fees in the hundreds of dollars will add onto the $700+ investment that Sargeant has made at home to increase the reliability of her current 5G home internet speeds. 

To Theodore, the only way that he sees the core issue of climate resilience making its way to our internet connections is if there is a greater public-private partnership to shoulder the additional costs beyond what BEAD is meant to do: Deliver a quality internet connection, first and foremost, to those in need, like Sargeant.

Even as the harshest impacts of climate change continue across the Southeast, Louisiana plans on providing internet expansion no matter what to wherever it’s needed. BEAD, among other federal and state funding, hinges on delivering that access, even if people migrate due to climate.

In ten years, the goal is for every household to have a true choice for their internet connection. It just may be their own responsibility to identify the type of service that will withstand the risks of their region.

“I have to treat an unserved location in Grand Isle [on the Gulf of Mexico] the same as East Carroll Parish [in North Louisiana] on opposite ends of the state,” Iyengar says. “I have to get everyone what they need.”