Service providers looking to expand in Colorado will pay reduced fees to access state land alongside the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) highway network after the state announced a new fee schedule to facilitate access for fiber-optic broadband providers.

The announcement, made shortly before Christmas by CDOT, said the state’s reduced fee schedule is the lowest among Colorado’s neighboring states and is over 90 percent lower than the fee schedule that was initially proposed.

CDOT called the reduced fee schedule a “discounted option to help expand high-speed internet access throughout the state.”

“Underserved communities have an urgent need for improved broadband access, and today’s access fee plan offers another option for high-speed internet development throughout Colorado,” said Transportation Commission Vice Chair Terry Hart, according to the announcement. “CDOT’s right of way offers critical access to many of these communities, and so it is particularly important for this access proposal to move forward and offer these options as soon as possible.”

Hart’s comments continued to explain that CDOT’s fee structure “works to strike a careful balance that reduces private sector costs and preserves assets owned by taxpayers.”

The CDOT fee schedule will charge both an annual-use property surcharge and a one-time upfront fee to cover the permitting costs, the agency’s announcement stated.

“This follows the methodology used by the United States Forest Service for access to federal lands, which means that Colorado’s structure uses a setup that is familiar to the broadband industry,” CDOT’s Dec. 20 announcement stated. “This will also make access costs in Colorado lower than in neighboring states.”

According to CDOT, Colorado’s reduced fee schedule is a tenth of the cost providers would pay to access similar lands in Arizona and New Mexico, and the state’s fee schedule is a fiftieth of the cost providers would pay to access similar lands in Utah.

The initial one-time installment fee for permitting costs is $0.05 per foot, according to CDOT’s website, and the annual surcharge for property use is $0.10 per foot for urban counties. Urban counties listed by CDOT included Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, and Weld counties.

Conversely, the annual surcharge for property use in rural counties is $0.03 per foot and, like the annual surcharge for urban counties, will be adjusted annually using implicit price deflator-gross national product, according to CDOT’s website.

Providers can learn more and apply for permits with CDOT by clicking here.