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New York Announces $70 Million For Municipal Broadband Projects
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As states gear up to administer federal BEAD funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law, a handful of states are already making significant investments in municipal broadband using federal Rescue Plan dollars.
California, Maine, Vermont, and New York have each established grant programs that center municipal broadband projects (mostly fiber builds) – with New York being the most recent state to announce more than $70 million in grant awards through its ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program (MIP).
Courtesy of the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund, the awards are part of a $228 million initiative to bring high-quality Internet connectivity and consumer-friendly choice to New York communities long-stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.
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The endeavor is part of the state’s $1 billion ConnectALL Initiative – New York’s largest-ever investment in broadband access – “to close the state’s digital divide, transform digital infrastructure, and ensure that all New Yorkers have access to reliable and affordable high-speed broadband internet service.”
The first round of MIP awardees include municipal broadband projects in the Central New York, Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and North Country regions – projects the governor’s office says will offer “symmetric service options … at price points below local averages.”
The program, state officials note, is designed to fund new broadband infrastructure that is “owned by a public entity or (networks that are) publicly controlled … to provide New Yorkers with affordable, high quality service options.”
In making the announcement, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said the projects will deploy a total of more than 800 miles of public broadband infrastructure and offer service to more than 25,000 homes and businesses.
“These awards mark the next step in our billion-dollar effort to close New York’s digital divide,” Gov. Hochul said in a press statement. Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Hope Knight added:
“These awards through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program will connect tens of thousands of homes and businesses across Upstate New York and deliver reliable high-speed [I]nternet service to areas of the state that are unserved and underserved while addressing ConnectALL’s mandate to develop a robust, equitable broadband marketplace across New York State.”
The first round of awardees includes:
Syracuse
The city secured a $10.8 million grant to expand its existing Surge Link fixed wireless network, which we first reported on here.
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The network currently passes over 8,700 homes in three neighborhoods. The grant funds will allow the city to expand the network to cover 13,000 households in five additional neighborhoods (Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Near Northeast).
“In total, the expanded network will reach the area of the City that experiences the highest rates of poverty and unemployment and lowest educational attainment when compared across the city or county as a whole,” the governor’s office said.
The grant will pay for the city to deploy 20 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure feeding 10 fixed wireless hubs – an effort that will be done in partnership with the city-owned Community Broadband Networks Syracuse Municipal, LLC.
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Surge Link will offer a $15/month plan to low-income households as well as a plan with symmetric speeds of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) for $37/month. Subscribers will also benefit from a city partnership with the Syracuse Neighborhood Community Center Collaborative in launching a “Digital Empowerment Program,” which will offer digital skills training to area residents.
Livingston County
In the Finger Lakes region, Livingston County was awarded $26.5 million to beef up the county’s public-private partnership with Empire Access to bring fiber service to over 4,000 locations, funding the centerpiece of a county initiative that has been dubbed “Light Up Livingston.”
The grant will help county officials execute a contract with Hunt EAS to deploy 340 miles of fiber, 20% of which will be open-access, allowing private independent ISPs to offer service over the network.
The ConnectALL office says the project will cover every unserved location in the county “not already covered under other grant-funded projects.” The MIP grant will supplement a $1 million USDA ReConnect grant the county received last year to fund make-ready work and incidental construction costs.
Franklin County
In the North Country region of the state, Franklin County secured a $2.4 million MIP grant to build 36 miles of open access fiber in partnership with the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC), a state Development Authority created in 1985 by the New York State Legislature to develop and manage the infrastructure needs in the region.
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State officials say that project will reach more than 1,600 homes and businesses, “including many of the hardest to reach unserved locations in the County, navigating around natural wetlands, areas with no utility service, and areas that already have fiber optic infrastructure.”
SLICFiber, a private Internet service provider, has already been selected to connect subscribers, which state officials note will allow residents to better access telehealth services and to pursue remote work opportunities.
Southern Tier Network
In the Southern Tier region of the Empire State, a $18.2 MIP grant was awarded to the Southern Tier Network – a nonprofit, open access telecommunication company that operates and leases bandwidth on its middle mile and dark fiber network.
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The grant will pay for extending the 600+ mile open-access network an additional 223 miles. Upon completion, it will bring fiber service to over 4,200 homes and businesses across the towns of Steuben, Schuyler, Chemung, and Tioga, as well as locations in Tompkins Counties.
As noted by the governor’s office, “the project service area faces challenges of extreme rural poverty, vulnerable aging populations, (and) disproportionately high levels of households with a person with a disability. All the locations in the project service area will be receiving fiber optic connections and high-speed symmetric service options for the first time.”
The project will build on the success of the model followed under the MIP pilot project in the Town of Nichols: Southern Tier Network will partner with FiberSpark and other ISPs to deliver last mile service “at rates below the costs for service in the area, with the aim of increasing education, economic, and health outcomes and retaining population,” officials state.
Sherburne and Columbus
Also located in the Southern Tier region, the towns of Sherburne and Columbus were awarded a $6.9 million MIP grant in a two-town partnership that will bring fiber service to 500 locations across both towns.
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The plan calls for building an open-access network with Sherburne Connect – the town’s municipal utility.
The project will deploy 65 miles of new fiber infrastructure, with FiberSpark and FyberCom providing the retail service.
According to the governor’s office, “the municipal Internet service will help the towns address the economic, health, and educational needs of their residents.”
Dryden and Caroline
In another two-town partnership in the Southern Tier region, the towns of Dryden and Caroline were awarded an $8.9 million MIP grant to connect 2,600 locations to fiber service.
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Dryden, as we covered here and here, launched Dryden Fiber in 2023. With the new grant funds, Dryden Fiber will expand its existing network by deploying an additional 125 miles of fiber to reach underserved residents in the neighboring Town of Caroline.
Though both towns will own the network infrastructure in their respective towns, Dryden Fiber will handle network operations, maintenance, and be the Internet service provider for both towns.
Current Dryden Fiber subscribers can choose from three service tiers: a “Silver” symmetrical 400 Mbps package for $45/month; a “Gold” symmetrical 700 Mbps for $75/month; or the “Platinum” symmetrical gig speed service for $90/month.
Pilot Projects Soar Over Monopoly Moves
All of the projects funded by the Municipal Infrastructure Program were made possible by a successful $10 million pilot program the state established last year, “which demonstrated the transformative benefit of publicly-owned, open access fiber optic networks,” the governor’s office said.
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The pilot projects were launched in four upstate communities (Sherburne, Nichols, Diana, Pitcairn). All four of those projects have been completed, bringing affordable fiber service to over 3,000 households across those communities.
Despite that success, for a brief moment, the Municipal Infrastructure Program was under threat by a proposed budget amendment that would have limited MIP grants to projects that targeted “unserved and underserved locations only” – a restriction that, if passed, would have made municipal broadband projects in the state less likely to become financially viable.
Legislative sources told ILSR at the time the amendment was a Trojan horse pushed by lobbyists representing Charter Spectrum, the regional cable monopoly and 2nd largest cable company in the U.S. that was nearly kicked out of New York by state officials in 2018 for its abysmal service.
Thankfully for the communities who will now benefit from the program, that proposed budget amendment didn’t survive the reconciliation process, as ConnectALL officials say they will announce additional rounds of Municipal Infrastructure Program funding in the coming months.
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In addition to the MIP, the state’s ConnectALL office is also administering a $50 million digital equity initiative to support broadband adoption with a particular focus on digital literacy and digital job readiness skills as well as a $100 million dollar Affordable Housing Connectivity Program to build broadband infrastructure in affordable and public housing.
Additionally, the state has established a ConnectALL Deployment Program to fund new network construction with its forthcoming $664.6 million federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) allocation.
For more on New York's Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program, listen to the most recent episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast where host and CBN program director Christopher Mitchell talks with Joshua Breitbart, Senior VP of the ConnectALL Office, about New York's ambitious municipal broadband initiative.
Header image of Sen. Chuck Schumer speaking at Light Up Livingston event courtesy of Livingston County website
Inline image of Surge Link ribbon cutting collage courtesy of Surge Link website
Inline map of Southern Tier Network courtesy of Southern Tier Network website
Inline image of Dryden Fiber groundbreaking courtesy of Town of Dryden
Inline image of home fiber installation courtesy of ConnectALL website
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