With time running out to participate, Centre County’s Board of Commissioners is urging residents to provide their input for a National Broadband Map that will help determine federal funding for high-speed internet infrastructure in future years.
The Federal Communications Commission’s map of internet availability is open, for now at least, through the end of Friday for residents to file individual challenges. Residents can go to broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home and enter their home address, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner for setting selections and choose a minimum internet speed of at least 25/3 Mbps or greater and all wired and licensed fixed wireless technology options to filter results.
In most searches, according to a statement from the commissioners office, the map will display an address as being adequately served with internet service, even when that isn’t the case.
“I can tell you… through our research and our study, there are certain providers who will claim that they service your house who in all honesty don’t,” Centre County community planner Peter Butler said during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting. “It’s aspirational, perhaps. They may very well have plans, but those plans could be so far out it does not solve your problem any time soon.”
An instructional video and step-by-step guide are available through the county website.
Centre County commissioners also joined bipartisan local, state and federal legislators nationwide who are calling on the FCC to extend the deadline for providing input for the map.
The FCC launched the National Broadband Map and opened it to citizen input in November, making it already a tight window to provide feedback. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and FCC will use the map to allocate funds from the $42.5 billion for broadband in the infrastructure law passed in 2022.
Centre County officials said they have thousands of addresses they know are not adequately served, but technical issues with the map website prevent them from being uploaded in bulk and would have to be done one by one.
“We’ve just had a lot of difficulty challenging a lot of locations in Centre County,” Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Higgins said.
The commissioners approved sending letters to the FCC and NTIA to extend the deadline to mid-March, as well as letters to Pennsylvania’s two U.S. senators and Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard Township, to advocate for the extension.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he is doing so.
“We all want to be responsive because the opportunity we have on deployment of high-speed internet, broadband, that opportunity has never been more pregnant with possibility because of all the new funding that’s going to be available through the infrastructure legislation,” Casey said while visiting Centre Volunteers in Medicine on Tuesday. “Not only that, but that’s going to present opportunities we haven’t had before. As we’re investing the dollars and getting those dollars out the door, we want to be mindful of what the commissioners are telling us and communities are telling us. It won’t be my decision but of course we want to respond to those concerns.”
Higgins noted that the county has undertaken several initiatives to expand broadband to underserved areas, including a public-private partnership offering service to portions of Penns Valley, Georges Valley and Nittany Valley; working with state legislators to secure broadband grants for six areas of the county; and working with SEDA-COG and the Appalachian Regional Commission to add a fiber optic line “roughly from Wingate into downtown Snow Shoe and then as far towardClarence as we can before the money runs out.”
“Whatever happens Centre County government, Centre County planning, the municipalities, the school districts, we’ll all work together and do our best to get as much funding and availability as we can for Centre County residents,” Higgins said.
