Program offers low-cost broadband to underserved communities
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
County officials are entertaining the possibility of buying into Verizon’s Digital Inclusion Program – an initiative that is intended to provide wireless broadband and voice services to underserved communities.
As Verizon representative Richard Spurrier explained it to the Jefferson County Commission on Thursday evening, Aug. 5, the program is available for purchase only to state agencies, political subdivisions and non-for-profit organizations in 11 states, including Florida.
Eligible users of the program, Spurrier said, were individuals who participated in the National School Lunch Program, were Pell Grant recipients, or were members of households whose income was below the poverty level, as designated by the federal tax guidelines.
During the term of the agreement, eligible customers are able to purchase specified products and services for far lower than the market prices, provided that the level of participation remains no less than 10,000 active and billing lines of service in the aggregate. Otherwise, commercial rates apply.
Customers will also be responsible for provisioning their products and services with the appropriate software to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act.
Customers may participate in the program with Verizon purchased devices or ones purchased from other entities, so long at the latter are Verizon-approved devices and capable of activation by Verizon.
Under the program, which is available only through government sponsors, Verizon offers various coverage plans with 5G, 4G, 3G and 3G extended networks, including ones for $10, $15 and $20 monthly for unlimited data.
Spurrier emphasized that the program was available to individuals only through a local government, school district, library or the like.
“People would come to you for the program,” Spurrier said. “But someone in the county would have to administer the program.”
There was no deadline for applying to the program, he said. Once enrolled, however, it would require a one-year commitment, he said.
The commissioners instructed Library Director Natalie Binder to get with Spurrier to learn the ins and outs of the program, determine the possibility of the library administering the program, and report back to the board.
The library already hosts 15 hotspots, as well as providing outside Internet access to patrons in the parking lot.
Verizon bills itself as being committed to closing the digital divide and helping low-income and rural communities, as well as under-resourced schools, to thrive in the modern tech-centered world.
With assistance from government programs such as Emergency Broadband Benefit, the company claims that it is making high-quality broadband and equipment more affordable and accessible to customers so that they can remain connected for remote work and school.
Consultant hired to design broadband expansion
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
More and more across at all levels of government, broadband accessibility is being viewed as an essential necessity that requires a public investment, not unlike the electrification of the country in the 1900s.
And Jefferson County officials are no exception, with the board proceeding along various paths to provide and expand broadband service locally.
On Thursday evening, Aug. 5, the Jefferson County Commission approved the solicitation of a professional consultant to do the engineering design and operations planning for construction of broadband infrastructure that aims to ensure competitive, high-speed Internet connectivity to all homes and businesses in the county.
“It’s an unknown timeline for the project, but we think it’s going to happen sooner than later,” said County Attorney Scott Shirley, who drafted the solicitation document. “But we’ve structured it so that whoever does the design will also help with the construction phase when additional money becomes available.”
Commissioner Betsy Barfield, who has been working with Shirley on the proposal, explained that this latest plan is a substitute for the arrangement that the county was previously trying to do with CenturyLink to provide broadband to selected neighborhoods.
“This supplants the contract that we had with CenturyLink,” Barfield said.
She further noted that the county has $1.2 million from the Restore Act for the project. The Restore Act monies derive from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the settlement agreement that the federal government reached with the private parties responsible for disaster.
Besides the Restore money, the county is also receiving funding for the project from the American Rescue Plan Act, as well as other sources.
Jefferson County already has fiber-optic networks in place in certain areas, except that they are of a limited extent and also lack essential infrastructure components such as endpoint connections, according to officials.
It’s the officials’ contention that to support a diverse and sustainable economy, it requires a significant improvement and expansion of the existing fiber-optic infrastructure network to include all areas of the county.
The officials want the fiber-optic broadband to perform in the range of 50 to 100 megabits per second (Mbps), with an expressed preference for the range’s higher end. Under no circumstances, according to the county’s requirements, will the performance ever be lower than 25Mbps, down or up.
The purpose of the project, per Shirley’s explanation, is to identify the needs and implement solutions to improve and expand fiber-optic infrastructure throughout the county, including the essential “last mile” infrastructure.
The solicitation of an expert to design and plan a broadband infrastructure is one of the many irons that county officials have in the fire as part of their efforts to bring or expand high Internet connectivity to all parts of the county in the not too distant future.
Possible $25M grant in works
Rick Patrick
ECB Publishing, Inc.
During the regular meeting of the Madison County Board of County Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 11, the commissioners heard from Ed Dean, who has been working with the county in the acquisition of various grants. Dean informed the commissioners of a possible partnership with Jefferson County to work with Conexon to help improve internet access to the area.
Conexon is a company based in Kansas City, Mo. that works with rural electric cooperatives to bring high-speed broadband to rural communities and customers. “Our goal is for every home and business across rural America to have access to reliable, affordable, world-class high-speed internet delivered through fiber networks,” said Conexon partners Jonathan Chambers and Randy Klindt. Conexon currently works with Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative (TCEC). According to Dean, Conexon has expressed a desire to engage in a pilot project with Madison County and Jefferson County to bring extensive broadband access to the two rural North Florida counties.
According to Dean, the grant, valued at between $25 million and $30 million should provide enough resources that everyone in the area should be able to connect to the internet within 24 months. Dean stated that there was a great deal of support in Jefferson County for the grant proposal. Dean also stated there would be no cost to the county for the grant and no action from the board was needed to move forward. Dean did state he would be seeking letters of support from the commissioners, the school board and TCEC.