Two areas in Warren and Washington counties are among those who will benefit from New York state’s $25 million in funding to expand high-speed Internet access in rural upstate and underserved urban areas of New York through the Connect NY Broadband grant program.<\/p>\n
The award brings the total amount of funding awarded for broadband projects during Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration to more than $56 million, the governor’s office said.
\nEighteen broadband projects were selected to receive Connect NY Broadband grants based on the endorsement of the Regional Councils and technical scores awarded by a committee who analyzed and ranked projects competing for the $25 million in broadband funding.
\nAmong the local projects is $2 million for Connecting the Capital Region. In this project, Hudson Valley Wireless will provide high-speed fixed wireless broadband access to nearly 40,000 households and 2,000 businesses that currently do not have access in Washington and Rensselaer counties.<\/p>\n
State officials said the network will enhance public safety operations in the region by enabling redundancy of public safety communications and by allowing municipalities to use a portion of the bandwidth at no cost.<\/p>\n
The other project, Connect Thurman White Space Project, received a $200,000 award. This project with Warren County Economic Development Corp., is a public\/private partnership. Officials said it will provide broadband access to 89 households in the northeast area of the town of Thurman. The town will also offer economically disadvantaged residents access to public computers and enhanced digital literacy training, according to state officials.<\/p>\n
“Through the Connect NY program, we are bringing high-speed internet access to all corners of New York state,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The projects receiving these grants represent the very best proposals with the most potential to benefit statewide economic and community development efforts. These funds will strengthen New York’s broadband capacity and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service in unserved and underserved communities, counties and regions across the state.” According to the governor’s office, these projects will build approximately 6,000 square miles of new infrastructure and will provide high-speed Internet service to 153,000 New York households, 8,000 businesses, and 400 community anchor institutions – many without any means to access the Internet.<\/p>\n
In addition to economic benefits derived from broadband access, the projects being funded by Connect NY will create 1,400 new jobs, state officials said.<\/p>\n
Most of the funding will be for the “last-mile” of broadband service, which means the projects will provide high speed Internet connections directly to New Yorkers. Officials said the last mile is generally the most expensive portion of a broadband network, and often prevents many rural residents from receiving broadband service, even when service is available to nearby homes.<\/p>\n
The Connect NY program was designed to leverage existing networks which have been built by incumbent broadband providers, through private investments, other state and federal funding sources.<\/p>\n
Officials said an important component to the selection of projects was avoiding “overbuilds,” ensuring that project strategies leveraged existing network assets and requiring a comprehensive strategy to utilize broadband after projects were completed. The $25 million in state funding will be combined with a private sector investment for each broadband project, increasing the total statewide investment to more than $32 million, according to the state.<\/p>\n
Cuomo announced the $25 million Connect NY grant program in August of last year in an effort to promote broadband Internet access across the state, strengthen our communities and spur economic development.<\/p>\n
Project officials said more than $89 million in broadband applications were submitted through New York state’s consolidated funding application (CFA), which was created to give businesses and other entities streamlined and expedited access to economic development funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two areas in Warren and Washington counties are among those who will benefit from New York state’s $25 million in funding to expand high-speed Internet access in rural upstate and underserved urban areas of New York through the Connect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[66,118,135,137],"yoast_head":"\r\n