BELLEFONTE — Broadband internet access for rural areas in Centre County continues to be an uphill battle.
During Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting, the commissioners received an update from Liz Lose, the county’s assistant director of planning and community development.
“We have about 4,300 underserved addresses. What that means is that internet speeds to these homes are well below the threshold of what is considered to be reliable,” Lose explained. “We have about 3,600 addresses that are receiving service, but it’s not at a level of attainment. … So, we have approximately 7,900 addresses throughout the county that are either unserved or underserved by broadband internet.”
The study is significant because Centre County could be in line to get some federal funding, as Chair Mark Higgins pointed out.
“There’s about $42 billion that’s about ready to rain down on the states to help build out broadband throughout the nation. Thankfully, Centre County is one of the leaders for this across the state,” Higgins said.
In January, the Federal Communications Commission completed a nationwide survey which asked residents to weigh in on their broadband internet experiences.
Now that the survey has concluded, Centre County is ready for what’s next, according to Lose.
“In the meantime, we are in preparation for the next steps … the applications and the funding,” Lose said.
Broadband internet access is critical for business and education in the county. As for the underserved areas, Lose said providers can use the data to address those locations in dire need of improvement.
“This is really a roadmap for both Centre County as well as a roadmap to providers who would be willing to work with us,” Lose said.
During her presentation, Lose used a map of Centre County to show exactly where the pockets of underserved areas are.
Getting the data, Lose said, has been a work in progress.
“It’s just been a multitude of different collection processes,” Lose said.
The next step for the county will be to secure some of the federal funding in an effort to take on the problematic areas.
“Getting down to how that state application is going to look is really the next step,” Lose said. “We’re really going to need the providers as partners with this. We’re not in position to own and operate internet infrastructure. It’s not what we do.”
Commissioner Steve Dershem knows it will be an uphill battle.
“One of the challenges that we’re going to be facing is trying to incentivize some of these internet providers to come in to some of these underserved areas that maybe don’t make the best or most economic sense. We still have to incentivize them in some way … to serve some of these areas that otherwise probably wouldn’t see service for a very long time. We have to take advantage of these federal and state programs and leverage those against what resources we have here locally,” Dershem said.
The report is available on Centre County Government’s website.
There is no Board of Commissioners meeting on March 7. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be at 10 a.m. on March 14 at the Willowbank Building. The meeting is open to the public and will be streamed live by C-NET.
