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Warren County part of regional broadband alliance

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Announced 8/17/21 by our partners at EDC Warren County ...

 

In a historic display of intermunicipal collaboration in the Adirondack Region, six area counties
have joined together to apply for a major federal grant to help bring high-speed broadband to
nearly 3,000 homes, businesses and institutions in critically unserved or underserved areas.


Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Warren and Washington counties are jointly applying to the
most recent broadband grant program from the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) for the North Country Broadband Deployment Program. They are being
assisted in their efforts by the Lake Champlain-Lake George Regional Planning Board and EDC
Warren County.


The counties and four participating broadband providers – Charter/Spectrum, SLIC Network
Solutions, Champlain Technology Group, and Hudson Valley Wireless — have jointly committed
to self-funding at least 10% of the project’s cost, with a goal of enhancing the application’s
chances in what is expected to be a highly competitive nationwide review process. With the
committed matching funds to date, nearly $20 million of broadband expansion is expected
from the project.

“Warren County is proud to join in this regional effort to address a critically important, shared
challenge together,” said Andrea Hogan, supervisor of the Town of Johnsburg and chair of the
Warren County Board of Supervisors’ Economic Growth & Development Committee.


“Inadequate technology infrastructure is perhaps the single greatest consequential challenge
facing our region,” said William Farber, chair of the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors,
supervisor of the Town of Morehouse, and one of the leading voices on broadband and cellular
in the Adirondacks for many years. “The digital divide jeopardizes public health and safety,
greatly impedes economic growth, and restricts the quality of life for residents and visitors. We
have intuitively known this for some time, but the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic
demonstrated the consequences in no uncertain terms. Broadband and cellular are critical
infrastructure. Efforts in Washington show that the federal government strongly agrees.”


The counties’ grant application recounts that 30% of telehealth sessions in the region failed
during the early days of the pandemic, according to research conducted by the Adirondack

Health Institute. In addition, the application tells of students who were forced to sit in the
parking lots of Wi-Fi-accessible public buildings in order to download classroom assignments,
and of school districts that had to mail hard-copy homework packets to students’ homes.
The economic case for expanding broadband is also compelling. Local businesses have long
struggled with inadequate coverage as they attempted to implement online shopping and other
modern-day business practices. Similarly, lack of coverage has hindered people’s ability to
relocate and work remotely from the region during the pandemic, or to establish new craft
industries here.


The application calls for bringing broadband to nearly 3,000 homes, businesses and institutions
in areas determined by the respective counties to be in greatest need of service. Upon project
completion, all the areas would meet or exceed 25 Mbps download speed, the minimum
established by the NTIA to qualify as high-speed broadband. If successful, the counties hope
this will be the first phase in a comprehensive initiative to bring broadband to all locations
within their borders.


“The days of talking about regionalization in the Adirondacks are over. We’re doing it,” said Jim
Siplon, president of EDC Warren County. “The energy and enthusiasm that county leaders have
brought to this project is contagious and I’m confident it will lead to even more collaborative
efforts going forward, whether it be further broadband expansion, housing, transportation or
any of the multitude of issues in which we share challenges and opportunities."