NY Gov. Cuomo Reveals State Broadband Grants
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) unveiled $54.2 million in state broadband grants and issued a request for proposals for the second round of the New NY Broadband Program, his office said in a Wednesday news release. The second round…
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will target the most remote areas of the state, and includes a portion of the areas where Verizon declined Connect America Fund money from the FCC, the governor’s office said. Also, Cuomo announced round-one awards, expected to connect 34,000 new homes with high-speed broadband. Together with a Charter Communications/Time Warner Cable transaction commitment to connect 145,000 unserved households in upstate New York over four years (see 1606150056), the actions are expected to connect 97 percent of New Yorkers, Cuomo’s office said. Also, Charter plans to make 100 Mbps speeds available to more than 2 million upstate New York homes and businesses by early 2017, two years earlier than required by the New York Public Service Commission, it said. The New York state grants in round one are expected to drive $75.8 million in total investment in broadband deployment projects, including $54.2 million to be funded by the state and $21.6 million to come from the private sector, the governor’s office said. More than 80 percent of the funding went to projects in unserved areas upstate, it said. The grants will fund nearly 18,000 miles of broadband infrastructure, with 24 awarded projects providing fiber to the home and cable DOCSIS technologies, it said. The biggest awards went to TDS Telecom ($9.4 million), State Telephone ($8.7 million) and Middleburgh Telephone ($5.6 million). The state said it plans a third phase of its broadband program commencing early 2017. “These actions are a major step forward in creating the most robust broadband infrastructure network in the nation, and ensuring that reliable, high-speed internet is available to all New Yorkers,” said Cuomo.