North Country making final push for universal broadband

ELIZABETHTOWN | After plenty of fits and starts, North Country officials believe they see a path to universal broadband coverage with help from federal grant money targeted to wiring those whose remote locations have made connection infeasible. In May, the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced today the availability of $288 million in grant funding for the deployment of broadband infrastructure, part of a federal CARES Act for Covid relief. But a final obstacle is knowing exactly who and where these unserved people are located. As such, anyone who is unserved or underserved is being asked to contact their town supervisors to be put on the map. "We're really making some progress, and the providers are at the table with us," said Lewis Supervisor Jim Monty. "So if you don't have broadband, contact your supervisor and let them know." Assemblyman Matt Simpson said it's been something of an odd turn of events: For years, officials have known about unserved communities, but there was no money to do anything about it. Today the money is available, but unserved homes aren't well-mapped. "I'm optimistic there will be plenty of money, but it was a bizarre situation," he said. "We had meetings for three years and we had no buildout." While broadband has of late been installed in a great majority of homes, providing, or even finding, the last few handfuls of unserved or underserved houses have been a problem for a number of reasons. The larger providers in particular have treated their customer list as proprietary information and reported some addresses as being covered when they were in fact not. Broadband advocates have had to fight those battles one address at a time, and recently formed a North Country Broadband Alliance of North Country counties to wield greater sway with the state public service commission. Further, past methods of determining whether a community had service were overly broad — for example, a census tract might be listed as being served if one person in that tract had broadband. And satellite service would count, even if the performance was unsatisfactory. Schroon Supervisor Jeff Subra said the towns have literally been working with people one customer at a time, trying to match them with a broadband provider able to do the work. "We're working very hard to make it happen for everyone," Subra said. "But if we don't know you don't have service, it's hard to include you." According to the AdkAction advocacy group, when state programs wind down by the end of this year, one to two percent of New York residents will still be considered unserved or underserved. "We want to make sure that these remaining addresses,100,000+ homes, and businesses, are not disproportionately located in the North Country," the group wrote in a web update. Monty said the northern New York counties are also getting assistance from the Lake George-Champlain Regional Planning Board, and working with the small providers that have been instrumental in wiring isolated residences. "We're trying to finish up what's left, and I think it's going to be a win for everyone," Monty said.

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North Country making final push for universal broadband

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