Hudson Valley Wireless

New York Announces Another $140 Million in Municipal Broadband Grants
2024-12-03 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
By

Sean Gonsalves

on
Tuesday December 3, 2024

New York’s Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) continues to provide grant funds to build municipal broadband networks across the state, as state broadband officials recently announced the program’s largest round of funding to date.
As we reported in June, the MIP program – specifically designed to fund municipally-owned networks as part of the Empire State’s $1 billion ConnectALL initiative – awarded $70 million to a half dozen projects earlier this summer.
Then, earlier this month, another $140 million in grant awards were announced for an additional six projects, promising to deliver “more than 1,200 miles of publicly-owned fiber optic infrastructure and wireless hubs, connecting (passing) over 60,000 homes and businesses with affordable, symmetric service – offering equal download and upload speeds at rates below regional averages.”

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The funding will be used to expand broadband infrastructure (and seed competition) in the Central New York, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Mid-Hudson and Western New York regions.
In a prepared press statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul characterized the grants as “a transformative step forward in our mission to connect every New Yorker to affordable, high-speed Internet.”
“By investing over $140 million in public broadband infrastructure across six regions, we’re not just laying fiber optic cables – we’re building bridges to education, health care, economic opportunity and prosperity.”
With the latest round of MIP funding, the program has awarded nearly $215 million of its $228 million in available funding, the Governor’s office noted.
In making the announcement, Hochul also unveiled the state’s new interactive dashboard that allows users to track the progress of projects funded through the ConnectALL office, which is administering the state’s broadband grants.
Municipal Fiber and Wireless Networks From the Finger Lakes to North Country Region
The recipients of the latest round of MIP funding are:
The Broadband for Schoharie County Project in Mohawk Valley was awarded $30 million to deploy 298 miles of fiber that will pass 4,000 locations. The project encompasses “substantially all of the unserved locations in the county (reaching) the most rural and hard to reach areas of the county,” according to the announcement.

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The county is partnering with MIDTEL, a New York-based independent ISP, to build and operate what will be an open-access network.
The plan includes construction of interconnection points at MIDTEL’s central office in Middleburgh and two additional aggregation points distributed across the county to lay the groundwork for other ISPs to use the network to offer retail service in the region.
The Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board was awarded $26 Million to build CNYNET, a regional open-access fiber network that once construction is complete will serve 6,671 locations across Cayuga and Cortland Counties.
That project comes on the heels of a 2021 Broadband Infrastructure Study, in which a survey found that 81 percent of Cayuga respondents said that having a choice in providers was either “very important” or “important.”
CNYNET will be established as a non profit local development corporation and will own and manage the network. However, Empire Access – a fiber provider in New York and Pennsylvania – will operate the network and also serve as a retail provider for residential service.
Franklin County in the North Country was awarded $13.1 Million to offer fiber and fixed wireless connectivity to unserved locations in the region. For this project, the county is partnering with Airosmith Development and LayerEight for the design, construction, and operation of 144 mile fiber network, as well as the installation of four poles to support wireless coverage.

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According to the announcement, the county will own and operate one part of the new infrastructure with Hudson Valley Wireless, who will be the Internet service provider on one part of the region.
In another part of the region, near the St. Regis Mohawk territory, the county will transfer the infrastructure to the tribally-owned ISP Mohawk Networks. In total, the entire project will connect 1,567 locations, which includes 46 Community Anchor Institutions.
The City of Jamestown in Western New York was awarded $29.9 Million to partner with EntryPoint Networks and Quanta Telecommunication Services to build an open-access fiber network. When the network is complete, it will pass all 14,447 homes and businesses currently being served by the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities.
The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities will own and operate the network – with EntryPoint Networks providing the telecom equipment and software and Quanta managing network design and construction.

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Orleans County in the Finger Lakes region was awarded $11 million to extend the county’s existing wireless network to enable it to serve more than 11,000 locations with 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) symmetrical service.
“This project will build on a successful wireless internet project the county launched in 2020 with RTO Wireless, by installing 14 wireless hubs on existing and new towers,” according to the Governor’s office.
The Medina, NY-based North Shore Networks will design, construct, and operate the network, though the County will own the finished network. And although this will be a wireless network, it will operate like an open access network in which access to the towers will be leased to ISPs who will provide retail service for subscribers spread out across a rural region with a low population density of about 103 people per square mile.
In addition to building the network, the county will also partner with the United Way to provide digital literacy training and embark on a community outreach initiative targeted at low-income households in the region.
Sullivan County in the Mid-Hudson region received $29.9 Million. For this project, Sullivan County is partnering with Archtop Fiber to deploy 253 miles of fiber that will pass 22,000 homes and businesses. As with the other projects, the county will own the infrastructure.
Archtop Fiber will serve as the fiber ISP in the region while Hudson Valley Wireless will leverage the 11 existing communications towers the county owns to provide wireless coverage in the rural mountainous parts of the region.
Rescue Plan Funds to the Rescue As BEAD Uncertainty Looms
Meanwhile, the state of New York is poised to receive $664.6 million in federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) funds. However, given the outcome of the election – with GOP leaders pushing for major changes to the BEAD program, including Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst publicly calling for it to be scrapped altogether – the future of BEAD appears increasingly uncertain.

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Fortunately, for community broadband advocates in New York, the source of its MIP grant funds comes primarily from federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars (via the Capital Projects Fund), which is already in state coffers and provides states with much more flexibility in how those funds are spent on broadband than the strings Congress attached to BEAD funded projects.
Hindsight is 20/20 but now it seems the decision of broadband offices in states like New York, California, Maine, and Vermont to use an earlier, less restrictive infusion of federal dollars to fund municipal broadband projects was down right prescient.
Header image of aerial fiber deployment in bucket truck courtesy of the ConnectALL website
Inline image of home installation courtesy of ConnectALL website
Inline image of Mohawk Networks truck courtesy of Sean Gonsalves
Inline image of wireless network tower courtesy of Sean Gonsalves

Governor Hochul, Majority Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand Award Over $140 Million for ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grants to Bring Affordable High-Speed Broadband to More Than 60,000 Homes and Businesses
2024-11-15 08:00 - 17:00
Franklin County (North Country) – $13.1 Million: Franklin County will connect unserved locations using Fiber-to-Home and Next Generation Fixed-Wireless solutions. The county is partnering with Airosmith Development for design and LayerEight for construction and operation, building 144 miles of fiber and installing four poles for wireless links and coverage. The county will own and operate one part of the new infrastructure with Hudson Valley Wireless serving as the internet service provider. In Area 2 adjacent to the St. Regis Mohawk territory, the county will transfer the infrastructure to Mohawk Networks acting on behalf of the Tribal Council after substantial network completion and Mohawk Networks will be the service provider in that area. In total, this project will connect 1567 locations, including 46 Community Anchor Institutions.
Sullivan County (Mid-Hudson) – $29.9 Million: Sullivan County is partnering with Archtop Fiber LLC to serve over 22,000 homes and businesses, leveraging the county’s existing towers and Archtop’s capabilities in fiber optic construction. Sullivan County will own the infrastructure, while Archtop Fiber and Hudson Valley Wireless will serve as internet service providers. The county will build 253 miles of fiber and one new communication tower, in addition to 11 towers it already owns, extending broadband service to unserved and underserved locations. Sullivan County faces unique challenges due to its rural, mountainous terrain, low population density and status, as the most distressed of the seven counties represented by the Hudson Valley Regional Council that have long deterred broadband deployment in the county. This initiative reverses that trend for many of the unserved homes in the county and creates new opportunities in health, education and economic well-being.

Sullivan County receives $29.9 million broadband grant
2024-11-14 08:00 - 17:00
Sullivan County is partnering with Archtop Fiber LLC to serve over 22,000 homes and businesses, leveraging the county’s existing towers and Archtop’s capabilities in fiber optic construction. Sullivan County will own the infrastructure, while Archtop Fiber and Hudson Valley Wireless will serve as internet service providers. The county will build 253 miles of fiber and one new communication tower, in addition to 11 towers it already owns, extending broadband service to unserved and underserved locations

https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/catskills/article/sullivan-county-broadband-state-grant-19915797.php
2024-11-14 08:00 - 17:00
Sullivan County faces unique challenges with connectivity due to its rural, mountainous terrain and low population density. Last year, the county signed a memorandum of agreement with Archtop Fiber to jointly develop a plan to extend multi-gig fiber across the county to serve approximately 22,000 homes and businesses. Sullivan County will own the infrastructure, while Archtop Fiber and Hudson Valley Wireless will serve as internet service providers, according to a county news release. The county will build 253 miles of fiber-optic cable and one new communication tower, in addition to 11 towers it already owns, extending broadband service to unserved and underserved locations.

SCHUMER, HOCHUL ANNOUNCE MAJOR $140+ MILLION FOR UPSTATE NY COMMUNITIES TO EXPAND HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AND BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE TO HELP CLOSE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
2024-11-14 08:00 - 17:00
Schumer And Hochul Say Funding Will Help Connect Over 60,000 Homes & Businesses In Chautauqua, Orleans, Schoharie, Cayuga, Cortland, Franklin & Sullivan Counties To Build Stronger Broadband Infrastructure
Funding For ConnectAll Grants Will Build 1,200+ Miles Of New Public Broadband Infrastructure – Funded Through American Rescue Plan Which Schumer Led To Passage In The Senate
Schumer: Fed $$ Is On The Way To Help Close NY’s Digital Divide!
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Governor Hochul today announced $140+ million to expand access to high-speed internet to over 60,000 homes and businesses throughout Upstate NY.
“Access to high-speed internet is not luxury, but a necessity, a utility as vital as electricity for everyday life. Today, Upstate NY takes a major step towards closing the digital divide. I’m proud to deliver a whopping $140+ million to help expand broadband infrastructure to boost affordable, high-quality internet access for 60,000 homes and businesses across Upstate NY,” said Senator Schumer. “This will help communities in every corner of Upstate NY from the City of Jamestown to rural parts of Schoharie, Orleans and Sullivan County. It will help families stay connected to education, to healthcare, economic opportunity, and each other. When I led the American Rescue Plan and Bipartisan Infrastructure & Jobs Law to passage, I made sure there was funding for long term investments like this that would create good paying jobs helping build the 21st century infrastructure needed to make high-speed internet reach every corner of the state regardless of zip code. I’m grateful for Governor Hochul’s work putting these federal dollars to work to ensure all New Yorkers get the equitable access to the internet that they deserve.”
“Today marks a transformative step forward in our mission to connect every New Yorker to affordable, high-speed internet,” Governor Hochul said. “By investing over 140 million dollars in public broadband infrastructure across six regions, we’re not just laying fiber optic cables – we’re building bridges to education, healthcare, economic opportunity, and prosperity. With our new interactive dashboard, New Yorkers can now track our progress as we work to ensure that no community is left behind in our digital future.”
Schumer and Hochul explained these grants are funded primarily through the U.S. Department of the Treasury Capital Projects Fund funded via the American Rescue Plan which Schumer led to passage in the Senate. Broadband infrastructure boosted through this program will be either owned by a public entity or publicly controlled. These six new grants – for Orleans County, Schoharie County, the Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board, Franklin County, Sullivan County, and the City of Jamestown – build on previous awards, bringing the program’s total to $214.7 million. NY’s ConnectAll program now supports over 2,000 miles of broadband infrastructure and reaches more than 87,000 homes and businesses statewide.

Sullivan County Receives $29.9 Million Broadband Grant
2024-11-14
Sullivan County has been awarded a $29.9 million grant through the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program.

Governor Hochul, Majority Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand Award Over $140 Million for ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grants to Bring Affordable High-Speed Broadband to More Than 60,000 Homes and Businesses
2024-11-14
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-majority-leader-schumer-and-senator-gillibrand-award-over-140-million

County to fund broadband projects — one way or another
2024-10-17 08:00 - 17:00
ALBANY COUNTY — Broadband will be expanded in Albany County, but to what extent remains to be seen.
The Albany County Legislature has authorized the broadband plans the county has devised for two different funding scenarios: one where the county receives state aid, and one where it uses only its own funding.
If the county does not receive funding through New York State’s ConnectALL county partnership program, it will still provide $2.9 million to State Tel and Mid-Hudson Cable to bring broadband service to an estimated 591 homes in Coeymans and Rensselaerville. The funding is from federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, for pandemic relief.
If the county does receive state assistance, it will provide over $7 million to those same companies, along with Charter Spectrum and Archtop, bringing broadband to 1,142 homes in Coeymans, Berne, Westerlo, Rensselaerville, Knox, New Scotland, and Bethlehem.
The funding allows companies to ignore the cost-effectiveness of installing broadband infrastructure on their own dime, which has been one of the largest obstacles to broadband access in rural areas.
Hudson Valley Wireless General Manager Jason Guzzo told The Enterprise in 2020 that “many of the rural communities would already have broadband access if it were profitable for a provider to deploy service. Rural communities are typically high-cost and low-density.”
He explained that the last 1 or 2 percent of homes could require 80 percent of the cost of the whole network.
For the projects selected for the no-state-funding scenario, “cost-effectiveness was probably the biggest differentiator,” according to Economic Development and Sustainability Coordinator Lucas Rogers who communicated with The Enterprise through the county spokeswoman.

Rural areas anxiously await high-speed internet expansion
2016-09-06 08:00 - 17:00
Rural areas anxiously await high-speed internet expansion
ALBANY — A goal of stretching high-speed internet connections to all New Yorkers by 2018 has hit speed bumps – to the growing frustration of smaller communities.
“We’re not just disadvantaged, we’re discriminated against, just because we choose to live in a rural area,” said Niagara County Legislator David Godfrey, R-Wilson.
Godfrey’s been working with Orleans County Legislator Lynne Johnson, R-Yates, for the past five years to lobby state officials to get broadband extended to their region.

The state has announced recent strides in an sweeping plan to make those connections, including a deal with Charter Communications to extend broadband to 145,000 households.
But the state has given Charter four years to do the work, and the final 37,000 households aren’t scheduled to come online until 2020. That’s two years later than the state’s original target to expand broadband.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration insists that it has made significant steps in getting broadband to 2.5 million unserved households.
On Aug. 3, the state announced $54.7 million in grants to broadband installers to hurry along connections. That’s about 11 percent of the $500 million that Cuomo has said will be made available for the expansion.
Jeffrey Nordhaus, vice president of broadband and innovation for Empire State Development, a state authority controlled by Cuomo, said the plan so far has been a “tremendous success.”
“These broadband projects are removing long-standing barriers to growth, creating jobs and economic opportunity in every corner of the state,” he said.
For many, they cannot come fast enough.
Local leaders say they hear almost daily complaints about lack of internet access or slow speeds. Children in rural schools are hampered in doing their homework assignments, local officials report, and businesses are loathe to expand into areas without robust internet bandwidth.
Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, R-Plattsburgh, said students in rural areas often miss out playing on sports teams because they have to devote afterschool hours to going to a local library, which often is the only source of internet connectivity in their community.
“It’s become an incredibly difficult situation for many families,” said Duprey. “We have dozens of these pockets without service here in the North Country. Having high-speed internet is no longer a luxury.”
Cuomo originally announced the state’s goal of extending broadband to all households in October 2014. He highlighted the effort in his State of the State speech the following January, and brought it up again in his address this year.
To drive the plan, the state is making available $500 million from legal settlements to pay telecommunications companies to run fiber optic cable or install wireless transmission towers in places lacking the service.
Glenn Faulkner and Jason Guzzo, two telecommunications executives who serve on the state’s Broadband Availability Task Force, said an initial round of applications for grants was greatly restricted.
State officials narrowed areas where money could be spent in the first round.
If just one household in a given Census tract had broadband, the area was ruled out for funding. Only those areas with no broadband were considered eligible.

Meanwhile, the state isolated areas served by Time Warner due to uncertainty about the company’s plans in light of its purchase by Charter.
The state program requires broadband providers to make matching investments in order to get the money. But would-be bidders said they first need to crunch numbers to determine the financial risk.
“The business models are pretty thin when you get down to the very rural areas,” said Faulkner, who is general manager of Margaretville Telephone Co.
Building a network might cost $30,000 or $35,000 per mile to deliver broadband speeds, for example. Each mile might only connect six or eight homes, Faulkner said.
Getting grants to cover 50 or 60 percent of the initial cost is “great,” he said. “But you still need to get the financing for the company’s investment.”
Cuomo’s goal is to deliver internet speeds of at least 100 megabits per second, though the state will make grants to operations with speeds of as low as 25 mbps in the state’s most unserved regions.
The Federal Communications Commission currently defines broadband as having download speeds of at least 25 mbps.
Guzzo, general manager of Hudson Valley Wireless, said his company is eyeing areas that could have fast download speeds through wireless connectivity, with signals beamed from towers.
He said speeds could rival those of fiber optic connections.
Companies also need to figure out maintenance costs before pushing into an unserved area, said Jim Becker, president of the Middleburgh Telephone Co.
“Equipment becomes obsolete in 7 to 10 years, so you have to have enough money to reinvest in the network,” he said.
State officials said the next round of awards will expand areas eligible for grants. Officials said they expect to ladle out more money after reviewing the next round of applications, due Nov. 30.
The third and final rounds of grants are slated to be allocated next year.
Getting broadband to all New York households can’t come soon enough, said Brian Napoli, supervisor for the Niagara County town of Ridgeway.
He said he was deeply disappointed his region was left out of the first round of state awards, even though thousands of households in the county can’t get broadband.
“What your internet speeds are is one of the big questions companies will ask before they go to a town,” said Napoli, who has been clamoring for increasing internet availability for severn years. “If you don’t have broadband, you’ll never hear from them again.”
Joe Mahoney covers the New York Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jmahoney@cnhi.com
