CityAndStateNY.com
May 30, 2022
New York’s final frontier By Megan McGibney
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EW YORK IS continuing to expand broadband internet access statewide through a new initiative called ConnectALL. A replacement for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New NY Broadband Program, the ConnectALL initiative is a $1.4 billion program that will use $300 million of state money and $1.1 billion from the federal government. Of the federal money, $800 million comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and $345 million from the American Rescue Plan. The money will allow the state to provide faster internet speeds to areas that are below the recommended speed of 100 Mbps, give a $30 per month internet subsidy for low-income households and provide grants to assist with construction projects to lay fiber optic cables. Gov. Kathy Hochul also revoked the state Department of Transportation’s PERM 75 permitting program – known as the Fiber Tax – that allowed the department to impose a fiber optic fee, charging internet service providers thousands of dollars per mile on fiber installations in the state’s right of way. In 2015, when Cuomo started the New NY Broadband Program, 7 million New Yorkers and 113,000 businesses did not have internet access at 100 Mbps speeds, including more than 70% of upstate New York. About 256,000 locations, homes, businesses and community centers were connected to broadband right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. This helped many people get through the pandemic while working or attending school remotely. Despite that leap, there are still New Yorkers who lack broadband access, particularly those in rural areas. “It was a longtime goal of ours to remove barriers to the rural parts of the state,” said Scott Rasmussen, the acting director of ConnectALL. “Gov. Hochul recognizes that we’re not out of the woods yet. The next phase will see a more comprehensive way in terms of competition, equity and digital literacy.” Kristin Devoe, an Empire State Development spokesperson, said what was
left behind by the previous initiative was “very, very expensive” and there is much to be covered, especially in the hardestto-reach rural areas. According to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli as of September 2021, more than 1 million New York households do not have broadband connection. Most of these places are in the North Country, Mohawk Valley and Central New York. Another underserved place was the Southern Tier region. Steve Manning, the CEO of the telecommunications nonprofit Southern Tier Network, said between 15,000 and 22,000 households have been defined as underserved for not having 100 Mbps broadband access. Yates and Schuyler counties, the thirdand second-least-populated counties in New York, are setting up their own broadband projects to solve this issue. Yates County Administrator Winona Flynn came up with the Yates County ReConnect Project, which aims to provide broadband access to the 26% of households still using DSL or dial-up internet. It is being funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect grant, and it is a public-private partnership with an internet service provider. Flynn said the Fiber Tax would have cost the county about $20,000 a year, since Yates will be owning the installed fiber and share revenue with the provider. Fonda Chronis, the county administrator for Schuyler County, which has a population of 18,000 people, said eliminating the Fiber Tax will provide a significant savings for its own broadband projects. “We would have to pay to connect onto those lines,” he said. “Anything that raises the costs of these efforts takes away from our ability to run fiber. Anytime the state can take away a regulation and some costs, that’s completely beneficial to the overall project to getting broadband out to everyone that we can.” Marian Walrath, the project manager of the Yates County ReConnect Project, also pointed out that private internet providers cannot afford to install fiber themselves in rural areas, and therefore, choose not to install them. “They don’t make enough money to build to those locations,” Walrath said. “They’ll build in areas where we have a high-density location of properties. But where we have
The state is trying to connect the hardest-toreach places with broadband internet. all the farms and the houses that are a half a mile off the road, it then becomes for every mile that the internet service provider has to build, they’re not going to build down that road if all they’re going to get is that one person to sign up. City & State asked Charter Communications about its Spectrum internet service and the obstacles preventing it from providing broadband in rural New York. Lara Pritchard, a company spokesperson, said that while the costs of building a cable system should be the same statewide, fewer homes meant fewer chances in acquiring customers, and therefore, more money. There is also an issue with the telephone poles.
“Poles are typically owned by telephone or electric utilities, not cable providers,” Pritchard said. “When attaching to poles owned by those utilities, we need their permission. Many older poles in rural areas lack modernization and investment, and with the need to attach to more poles to get to potential customers in these areas, it often requires more pole replacements.
SOUTHERN TIER NETWORK
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