Allen County Commissioners have tentatively agreed to sign off on letters of support for two area broadband companies. Representatives from Cox Communications and Pinnacle Broadband spoke with the commission Tuesday morning about a promising federal grant for broadband expansion.
Megan Bottenberg, Kansas Director of Government Affairs with Cox, said the company has expanded to 11 communities in rural Kansas. She noted that Cox Communications has provided internet service to the Allen County region for the past 25 years. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Ga., the company has nearly 1,000 employees in Kansas.
“In the past three years, we have expanded to more rural areas,” said Bottenberg. “We are very committed to broadband expansion, upgrading our infrastructure on a regular basis, and making sure it is affordable.”
Bottenberg said she is seeking a letter of support from Allen County in applying for a federal grant that aims to expand broadband to unserved or underserved areas in the county and throughout the state. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program provides $42.45 billion nationally to expand high-speed internet access. Kansas was awarded $451 million from that pool of funds to connect all Kansans and address the digital divide.
Funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, this federal grant program’s goal is to provide universal internet by funding the construction of new infrastructure and adoption of high-speed internet.
The grant is administered, statewide, by the Kansas Office of Broadband Development and it is this department that determines which part of the state is unserved or underserved.
“Then, as internet service providers, we are able to bid on those areas demonstrating that we can serve those areas and it is a full application process with scoring criteria,” said Bottenberg.
PART OF the scoring criteria is a letter of support, Bottenberg said.
“We are asking for a very simple and general in nature letter of support so that if another provider asks for similar support, you can also do the same for them. No matter which provider and no matter who serves these communities, we all have the same goal — broadband to unserved and underserved residents and businesses in your county.”
Bottenberg noted that since the grant application process is currently open, they are in a “blackout” period.
“I cannot give any specifics about the application or where we are bidding,” she said. “All the information pertaining to what areas are available to bid on can be found online on the Kansas Office of Broadband Development’s website, but I cannot provide any other detail other than that.”
However, she did note that areas they are bidding on would include parts of Allen County.
“With the communities that we have just built, we gave them several months to experience high-speed internet and broadband services they previously did not have,” said Bottenberg. “In these communities, 86% said the service improved their lives. I think in the past four or five years, we’ve really seen how important broadband is.”
The BEAD Program prioritizes unserved locations that have no internet access and underserved locations that only have access under 100/20 Mbps, Bottenberg added.
Internet Service Providers across the state are applying for the BEAD grant money, including Pinnacle Broadband.
