Major changes in scope, funding of central Pa. broadband projects over past year
“Broadband” became the political buzzword of 2019, as politicians and leaders sought to make good on their promises to bring parts of the country into the 21st century with high-speed internet.
Eight months ago, the Centre Daily Times published its multipart series “Rural Disconnect,” which detailed how decades of disinvestment, red tape and poor data collection on broadband connectivity in rural Pennsylvania led to reduced educational outcomes for students, “brain drain,” agricultural issues and economic slowdowns for the area. In the time since, we looked at what’s changed for the outlook of broadband in Centre County and beyond.
Centre WISP Venture, a wireless internet service provider based in State College, won a bid in November 2018 to lease three broadband towers from the county — one located on Centre Hall mountain, one behind the Willowbank Building and one in Woodward in Haines Township.
The company installed equipment on the Centre Hall mountain tower in July and, after that, installed equipment on a Tussey Mountain tower and Woodward Mountain tower. They also acquired Flashpoint ISP’s customer base along the Route 45 corridor in Millheim, Aaronsburg and Spring Mills.
“In terms of meeting our goals this year, we’ve exceeded what I was hoping to do and we’ve succeeded in serving people from Centre Hall to Woodward,” said David Gibbons, Centre WISP owner.
Additionally, Atlantic Broadband is interested in serving the area, but the agreement hinges on the buy-in of six Penns Valley area governments.
Previously, the Penns Valley area was served by one wireless internet provider and a few satellite internet providers.
“I’m very excited about the growth of our subscriber base over the past year. We’re serving hundreds of residents and businesses from east of Rebersburg to the Colyer Lake area, and everywhere in-between. Most of these customers had no access to broadband before this year,” Gibbons said. “Reliable broadband internet access has been a game changer for local farmers, children attending cyber school, and telecommuting residents. Playing a role in that kind of transformative change is very cool.”
In Huntingdon County, the Rural Broadband Cooperative erected a cell tower in Mill Creek in April to provide broadband access to hundreds of people along the State Route 655 corridor.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is currently pitching his $4.5 billion infrastructure program Restore PA as a possible solution to expanding broadband in rural areas.
More grants are going to Pennsylvania’s rural areas to fund broadband expansions and improvements. In October, the Appalachian Regional Commission awarded $2.5 million to the Northern Pennsylvania Broadband Connectivity Project. That award enables Tioga County, in partnership with Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative, to construct 175 miles of fiber and bring reliable broadband to 60 businesses and 581 households in Tioga, Potter and Lycoming counties.
That same month, the Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development Commission was awarded a $50,000 grant to identify and map broadband needs in eight southwestern Pennsylvania counties, including Blair and Huntingdon counties.
The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Department of Rural Agriculture are also taking steps to collect better data on rural broadband in order to understand the scope of the problem.
A Penn State study sponsored by the Center for Rural PA, released in June, found “staggering” discrepancies between internet speed numbers provided by the federal government and self-reported speed tests. Data from the study, which comes from 11 million broadband speed tests run across Pennsylvania, indicated lack of broadband connectivity in Pennsylvania was much vaster than originally thought.
This month, the House passed H.R 4229 or the Broadband DATA Act, which will help the Federal Communications Commission determine where rural broadband is needed through data collection on service availability, putting strict parameters on how and what data is collected and a mechanism to challenge coverage area maps made by the FCC. It also passed H.R. 4227 or the MAPS Act, which makes it unlawful to knowingly or intentionally submit inaccurate broadband service coverage data.
“Expanding broadband data service coverage throughout Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District is one of the most crucial infrastructure projects we are working to achieve,” said Congressman Fred Keller, R-Kreamer, who co-sponsored the bills. “Having robust broadband data service coverage throughout our rural district will allow us to achieve our full economic potential and help our region become the driving force it is primed to be.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Major changes in scope, funding of central Pa. broadband projects over past year."
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