Broadband planning complete

Lincoln County Commissioners now know a lot more about their telecommunication infrastructure, thanks to the County’s Local Technology Planning Team grant. The grant’s one-year timeframe came to an end on June 30, and in July Commissioners were presented with a draft final report. Monica Babine, WSU Extension Program for Digital Initiatives, and Margie Hall, director of Lincoln County Economic Development Council, presented the draft grant summary and provided Commissioners with suggestions for next steps. Now that the report has been finalized and accepted by the state, it is available online for all to access.

The broadband planning grant was pursued after NoaNet installed $5 million worth of ARRA-funded, high-speed broadband fiber in Lincoln County but shared no plans to do anything with it. The county decided to begin planning themselves and applied for a planning grant through the Washington State Broadband Office. The intent of the planning grant, which took two years to secure, was to assess current and future broadband use by businesses, anchor institutions and residents; to inventory telecommunication infrastructure and services; and to evaluate the Lincoln County Public Utility District (PUD) as a middle mile service provider.

The process resulted in some interesting information. A sample of what was learned includes the fact that only seven of the 19 anchor institutions that received connections to NoaNet fiber were actually using them; that there were twice as many service providers working within Lincoln County than grant writers had originally estimated; that T-Mobile had been awarded a FCC Mobility Fund grant back in 2012 that will soon result in five new telecommunication towers within the county; and that our local businesses feel high-speed Internet access is extremely important to the success of their business in the next five years.

You are encouraged to go online and read the complete report, available at http://www.LincolnEDC.org/businessresources/broadband, or call the EDC office at 725-1170 for a paper copy. Then watch your local newspaper for potential future broadband efforts in Lincoln County.