U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announces broadband access expansion funding for NYS (March 29, 2023)

New York State is receiving $100 million for broadband access expansion.

The new federal investment comes from the $10 billion in the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Projects Fund.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said getting the American Rescue Plan act passed was one of his first acts as majority leader and that the fruits of that labor are being realized, “New York will receive $100 million in federal funding to help expand broadband and close the digital divide for communities across our great Empire State. It’ll connect over 100,000 families, homes, and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said investing in the internet can create enormous economic opportunity, “It has lifelong impacts, especially for kids. Research suggests that it leads to business creation, lowers unemployment rates, creates jobs, raises property values, and improves life and health outcomes in our communities. One study found that every dollar invested in rural broadband could generate $3 to $4 of local economic impact.”

New York’s Affordable Housing Connectivity Program is a competitive grant program designed to fund high-speed, reliable broadband infrastructure to and within low-income housing buildings.

CPF funds will be used to upgrade internet access in affordable housing units. New York has submitted its plan to the U.S. Department of Treasury for review.

Last year, New York enrolled a record one million qualifying households in the federal Affordable Connectivity Program, a nationwide subsidy to expand broadband access to low-income households. The federal program, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provides discounts of up to $30 a month toward internet service for eligible low-income households.

The map, along with an accompanying report, is the result of months of field assessments conducted by the Commission in the state’s most remote areas, covering more than 80,000 miles.

In order to collect accurate data, the Commission collaborated with 60 internet service providers and surveyed tens of thousands of New York consumers.

Prior to the map’s creation, New York, like most states, relied in part on federal data that only required broadband providers to deliver service to one address in a census block to designate the entire area as served. By collecting address-level data, New York is now able to depict what locations are served, underserved, and unserved in a more granular way, which will aid in allocating state and federal funding.

The interactive map allows users to explore the state’s broadband availability. Users are able to search an address to see what providers are available, what technology those providers are using and what speeds and pricing packages they offer. Users are also able to search at county, municipal, and school district levels to obtain data on percentages of served, underserved, or unserved populations at each level.

The new map will allow individual New Yorkers and policymakers to analyze a more accurate representation of which locations are served, underserved or unserved. The Commission found that 97.4 percent of New York State address locations are served by high-speed broadband service providers. The map demonstrates that high-speed broadband services remain unavailable to many New Yorkers in predominately rural areas. Furthermore, it shows that counties with the lowest median income were found to have the highest average prices for broadband and the lowest percentage of served locations.

The link to the interactive map can be found here: https://mapmybroadband.dps.ny.gov/

The Working to Implement Reliable and Equitable Deployment of Broadband Act (WIRED Broadband Act) establishes a new Division of Broadband Access that will deploy a series of ConnectALL grant programs. The initiatives include $300 million for the ConnectALL grant program, and another $1.145 billion in federal funds.

The ConnectALL Municipal Assistance Program will provide local governments with funding for broadband infrastructure projects that provide reliable internet service speeds of at least 100mbps for download and 20mbps for upload.

The ConnectALL Innovation Grant Program will develop, pilot, and promote innovative models and technologies for the delivery of new broadband solutions for rural and low-income areas, and foster collaboration between research and business sectors.

And the ConnectALL Digital Equity Grant Program will promote equitable access to broadband for all New Yorkers and support effective implementation of the State Digital Equity Plan.

The budget also repeals the DOT Right-of-Way fee for all projects. These fees added considerable one-time and annual costs to many broadband projects, which reduced the return on investment from these projects.

State Senator George Borrello

State Senator George Borrello and several other Upstate Senators are calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to eliminate an annual fiber-optic tax.

Borrello said the elimination of the fee in the state budget would have an immediate impact in rural areas in terms of broadband installation and access.

He said, since 2019, New York State has charged a fiber-optic fee on state highways. This tax is the only one of its kind with similar utilities like coaxial cable providers not assessed this surcharge.

Borrello added in a statement, “While the Executive Budget allocates $1.6 billion for new broadband projects, until the administration’s onerous fiber optic tax is eliminated, the drive to connect rural areas will continue to fall short and residents in these areas will continue to be unserved. Although state leaders often proclaim ‘broadband is as essential as electricity and running water,’ by levying a tax on fiber optic cables in state rights-of-way, but not other utilities, their words ring hollow. Any genuine commitment to closing the digital divide must include repeal of this fee.”

Sundquist said he wants to shape a new vision for Jamestown as “a modern city with strong roots.”

His goals include a “Vision Zero Campaign” to have zero fatalities or severe injuries from traffic accidents. Sundquist said the city has applied for a “safe routes to school” grant funding from the state department of transportation to help toward that campaign.

Sundquist also listed connecting and enhancing the waterfront of the Chadakoin River. Projects underway include the clean up of the lower Chadakoin River as well as grant funding received for development of the Chadakoin basin.

Another goal is to market Jamestown as a destination. Sundquist said he could see Jamestown becoming a hub for conventions. He also wants to use $5 million of American Rescue Plan funds toward healthy neighborhoods and housing initiatives.

He said the City administration has taken an aggressive approach toward supporting cannabis-related industries in the city. Sundquist said hundreds of jobs could be added and that new businesses have “already bought millions of dollars’ worth of unused property to redevelop thousands of square feet of currently vacant and underutilized warehouse, manufacturing, and commercial spaces.” He said with properties going back on the tax roll, the local property tax burden will be reduced.

Sundquist said he’s working with the county to secure a permanent location for CARTS in downtown Jamestown and that he’s continuing to work with county officials to restore commercial passenger air service to the Jamestown airport.

Sundquist said the joint municipal broadband feasibility study has been completed. He said the next step is to create an ad hoc committee that will go over the study, speak with experts, and determine a path forward.

The full State of the City address is available to read online at jamestownny.gov.

George Borrello (left) and Andy Goodell

State Senator George Borrello and Assemblyman Andy Goodell both expressed disappointment with Governor Kathy Hochul‘s State of the State address.

Borrello said the speech lacked “meat on the bones,” “But the only real specifics that she gave have to do with, you know, massive spending in New York City. She talked about airports, and train stations, and rail lines. And we already subsidize New York City’s MTA, their rapid transit system, to a tune of a billions of dollars a year. So unfortunately, we didn’t hear a lot about what we’re going to do for Upstate New York.”

Goodell said with Hochul facing a primary from a New York City candidate this year, his opinion is that her speech reflected politics versus policy. He said one example was where Hochul discussed needed infrastructure investments, describing several billion dollar projects in New York City, “They’re multi-billion dollar projects, and then [she] said ‘Well, I didn’t forget about the rest of the state. Long Island Expressway, we’re coming after your potholes.’ I was just shaking my head. Multi-billion dollar projects for New York City and in the State of the State she says she’s going to fix potholes in the rest of the state? Which should be done as a matter of routine.”

Borrello said there were items in the address that he could support, like broadband expansion. However, he said multiple fees are inhibiting that expansion, giving an example of a tax put into place at the beginning of 2020 that taxes fiber optic cable per foot of cable when it crosses a State Department of Transportation right of way. Borrello said the tax is higher per foot than the cost to run the fiber optic cable. He said the taxes and fees need to be eliminated, “We wouldn’t need to infuse more money into it, more taxpayer money. We would free up the market that is already there to expand into areas, particularly in rural Upstate New York. So I can get behind the idea, but it’s the method in which we’re going to do it that needs to be negotiated.”

Goodell said priorities raised in the address like COVID, tax reform, public safety, and housing are priorities he would agree with, “You know, I support her initiatives, or at least her acknowledgement of the problems, but deeply disappointed that there was no recognition or understanding or proposals that focus on the underlying reasons and the underlying causes, and solve those problems rather than just throw more money at it, more public money at it.”

Goodell saying he’s hoping there will be more details in a project proposal book released by Hochul, while Borrello added he has hope about the state moving forward.

Hochul said correctly gauging the prevalence and reach of broadband service has been a challenge not just in New York, but nationally. The federal government is also engaged in a similar study, but the timeline for its completion remains unclear.

As called for in the Executive Budget passed earlier this year, the state Public Service Commission will study the availability, reliability, and cost of high-speed internet and broadband services across the state.
The Commission will publish a map online that will include download and upload speeds advertised and experienced; the consistency and reliability of download and upload speeds including latency; the types of internet service and technologies available; the number of internet service providers available, the price of internet service available; and any other factors the commission may deem relevant.

Unlike previous federal maps, which have been sharply criticized for their lack of specificity and accuracy, New York’s interactive map will focus on the status of broadband service at the address level.
The Commission will publicly issue its report and recommendations by May 2022.

The broadband mapping survey and speed test can be found at: www.empirestatebroadband.com.

The Commission also will hold two public hearings to solicit input from the public and other stakeholders. Hearing dates and locations have yet to be announced.

View the full County ARP project list

The largest of the proposed projects is $8.3 million for Phase 2 of the South & Center Chautauqua Lake Sewer District project. The County broke ground last week on Phase 1 of that project to supply sewer for 450 homes in the town of North Harmony. South & Center Chautauqua Lake Sewer District Director Tom Walsh said this project has been put under the second traunch of ARP funding in hopes that it can be funded by the Federal Infrastructure Bill that’s still pending in Congress.

Another year two project is $2.5 million to provide broadband high speed internet to underserved or unserved communities. Chautauqua County IDA CEO Mark Geise said they found how important internet is during COVID. He said the County would issue a request for proposal to internet service providers where an ISP would spend 50% of the cost to expand broadband to leverage the other 50% of funding from the county, “We might do it county wide or we might do it in segments because you have different providers that have more infrastructure in different areas. And evaluate it based on the cost per household served and see how many households they can serve with that funding.”

Under economic development, $1.5 million proposed to acquire shovel ready sites and $1.4 million to bring water and sewer infrastructure to those shovel ready sites is proposed. Geise said a study done by Newmark Frank of the nine county Western New York region found Chautauqua County was last in the region for shovel ready sites. He said the County has worked with Clark Patterson Lee to identify three sites in the north county to purchase, “You know, we’re negotiating right now with those land owners. So we need this funding. You know, the sites are going for anywhere between $10,000 per acre on a very low side, and I don’t think we’ll find any of that that are suitable, but certainly $20 to $30,000 an acre or more.”

The County is also looking at using $1.1 million to rehabilitate the Frank A. Bratt Ag Center building on Airport Hill. Public Facilities Director Brad Bentley said the building, which is owned by the county, is currently unused, “The building has good bones, but is in serious needs of repairs, some upgrades, and modernizations. It’s a large space for those who have been in there. It’s prime use for us would be as office space and I think it could actually be a good spot for a number of county organizations to land in once it’s improved and repairs are made.”

Bentley said there are county departments or offices that would be ready to move into the space after it’s renovated which could have a possible $200 to $300-thousand dollars savings in lease costs to the county.

Other large item proposals include $800,000 to bolster the Occupancy Tax Fund which was depleted due to lack of occupancy tax collected in 2020 because of the pandemic. $700,000 for the Healthy Homes Program is also proposed to be used to remove hazardous lead in 140 homes at a cost of $5,000 per home.

The County Legislature Committees will now review and make any needed changes at their meetings next week. The full Legislature is expected to vote on the package at its September 22nd meeting.

Senator Borrello said the bill will ease the cost and operational obstacles faced by broadband service providers seeking to build out infrastructure in rural and underserved areas of the state.

The bill would allow broadband providers seeking to install internet service via utility poles in a given area to obtain one contract for all the poles in that city, town or village, rather than having to get a contract for each individual pole, as is currently the case.

The bill also prohibits the practice of requiring broadband providers to pay for the cost of replacing aging utility poles. It establishes that providers requesting space on a pole will only be liable for a small portion of any replacement costs.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist says the city is working with a firm to conduct the survey to determine the market needs and if people want broadband. He said the city is also working with EntryPoint Networks on a feasibility study for municipal broadband, “One of our main goals is to address digital divides that have occurred in the city. Given the pandemic, we’ve noticed that many of our kids have not been able to even access the internet because we’ve had large commercial providers that if you had any back due payment at all, were refusing to turn on even the free service for kids, so we’re trying to address those issues going forward.”

The survey can be found at jamestownfiber.com.