High Quality Internet Is Coming

Towns and Cities can expect investment in coming years

After years of naming the issue, the United States Commerce Department is kicking off an investment in equitable broadband internet. This will be a boon to areas of need – particularly underserved urban areas and rural areas that have no access at all. In what Senator Richard Blumenthal calls a “down payment,” the first grant is going to go to a planning phase where the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will study the needs and possible implementation of broadband needs.

The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) was charged last year with developing a “comprehensive map of broadband accessibility and adoption by December 1, 2022.”

From their work, it shows that major portions of Connecticut’s Northwest Corner simply does not have access to quality high speed internet, with pockets elsewhere in the state including some notable patches in the East.

CCM partnered with OPM on one facet of this study by surveying individuals through our network to better understand the barriers to high speed internet.

For some residents of Connecticut, the barrier isn’t just a lack of access – meaning their neighborhood isn’t served – but a lack of equitable access. Internet might be available in their area, but it is not affordable or it is slow and unreliable.

This early funding is a step in the right direction to helping our state reach full broadband access. And as noted, it is simply the start of funding. According to reporting from the CT Mirror, our state can expect $100 million in additional funding over the next five years. Quoted in their article, both Senator Blumenthal and the head of the National Technology and Information Administration said that the funding is contingent on learning how we are going to use it, with the latter explicitly saying “Before we write a $100 million check, we want to see a plan for how you’re going to spend it.”

Officials argued that simply getting internet connectivity to these underserved areas is not enough. Without the hardware to connect to the internet, connectivity alone is not useful. Around $750,000 is going to providing internet-enabled devices to “historically disenfranchised groups.”

This is an extremely important investment. As noted in the CT Mirror and several other sources, this movement to reach all of Connecticut with good quality high speed internet is akin to getting America electrified in the early 1900s. And, hopefully, one day we will look back in a time and place where everyone is connected and wondered how people lived without it.

For more information on the OPM study, you can visit this website: https://ctbroadband-ctmaps.hub.arcgis.com/