$4.9 Million Will Expand Texas High-Speed Internet with Tech Support and Regional Planning

Austin, TX – $4.9 million in new federal grant money is getting ready to make a huge impact on the quality of life in countless Texas towns. Texas is receiving the money to expand and improve high-speed Internet service across the state. The grant money comes to the Connected Texas initiative as part of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) State Broadband Data and Development (SBDD) grant program.

The newly awarded SBDD grant will support Connected Texas in four important areas of work including continuing collection of imperative broadband market data, centralizing and streamlining efforts to build new broadband capacity across the state, offering technical assistance to communities and providers that are expanding broadband services, and helping organize regional technology planning teams.

The ultimate goal is to help small towns like Chiren that need, but currently lack, broadband service. See: San Antonio Express-News. All Texas residents are encouraged to visit the Connected Texas website to join in this important initiative and offer feedback.

Related Links:
Commissioner Staples Releases Statewide Map to Identify Broadband Needs Across Texas

Connected Nation Receives ARRA Grant for Connected Texas Initiative

Texas Department of Agriculture: Texas Receives $3 Million for Broadband Mapping and Planning

Connected Tennesee's Computers 4 Kids, Vision Perry Celebrate a Year of Success

In June, Connected Tennessee’s Computers 4 Kids program celebrated its Perry County: One Year Later milestone event, where the spotlight was on the impressive progress Perry County has made since partnering with Connected Tennessee and AT&T one year ago to bring increased technology and opportunity to Perry County.

Working with AT&T, Computers 4 Kids proudly donated 20 computers, four printers and two scanners to Perry County’s “Vision Perry” Summer Youth Employment Program. Since the donation of the computers one year ago, the unemployment rate in Perry County has dropped from highest in the state and second highest in the nation at 27.4% to a remarkable 16%. To learn more about this event, please click here.

CN’s Tom Ferree Makes Louisville’s Forty Under 40

Connected Nation Chief Operating Officer Tom Ferree has been named to the Forty Under 40 list of Louisville’s outstanding young business leaders.

For the last decade, Business First of Louisville has compiled the list to “identify and introduce to our readers the Louisville area business community's next generation of leaders,” according to the Business First website.

More than 1,000 local businesspeople have been nominated for consideration over the past 10 years, according to the publication, which covers all aspects of the business community in Louisville.

Each year, a group of judges from the business community narrows down the list of nominees to 40 honorees.

Ferree and the other honorees this year were recognized today at an awards luncheon at the Galt House East in Louisville, KY.

Congratulations Tom!

Broadband Map Launched in Puerto Rico

San Juan, PR — Puerto Rico launched its first island-wide broadband availability map. The web-based map gives a preliminary view of the broadband landscape in Puerto Rico. Through an application called BroadbandStat, the map is fully interactive and puts powerful tools and information directly into the hands of anyone interested in knowing what services are available and where the opportunities for expansion exist.

Puerto Rico Chief Information Officer Juan Rodríguez says his aim is to achieve 60% broadband adoption by 2012. “As the broadband highway continues to be built, we need to foster broadband adoption to create demand,” he says in an exclusive interview with Caribbean Business magazine. But first, he says, “…we need to know where we are in terms of infrastructure availability, and then we can reach out to the citizens who don’t see the value of the Internet…”(Caribbean Business, Gina M. Hernandez, 09/16/2010)

The goal for the initiative is to increase broadband availability and adoption across the island and link every community in Puerto Rico to economic opportunity.

The Connect Puerto Rico website featuring BroadbandStat is available in both Spanish and English versions at http://www.connectpr.org/ (English) and http://es.connectpr.org/ (Spanish).


Related Link:
Caribbean Business Editorial

CN’s Data-Rich Broadband Maps Helping Shape National Policy

Reliable broadband data is critical to building a faster, more connected nation. Yesterday, CN filed comments with the FCC detailing how the broadband data it has collected is helping answer many of the important broadband policy challenges that face America.

Comments were submitted to the FCC’s Seventh Broadband Deployment Notice of Inquiry that serves as a progress report for the status of broadband deployment in the nation. Key to this regulatory oversight is an assessment of whether “advanced telecommunications services” are being deployed to all Americans in a timely manner. This year the FCC assessment will count for the first time comprehensive, granular data collected across the nation through the State Broadband Data and Development (SBDD) mapping initiative. Connected Nation is the largest mapping partner under this program working in the states of Alaska, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and the Territory of Puerto Rico. These states and territories account for 34% of the U.S. population and 42% of the land mass of the U.S.

The data collected through the SBDD program is available to the FCC and other federal agencies. These data will be instrumental for policy making at the FCC and state level. For example, using these data, Connected Nation released last month an Iowa Broadband report analyzing the broadband inventory data in order to address policy concerns such as the penetration of broadband deployment at multiple speed tiers ranging from 786 Kbps to 1 Giga, Universal Service Fund reform, measuring the adoption gap across the state, and more. Connected Nation is in the process of providing similar analyses for other jurisdictions.