Cuomo’s $500m broadband push to start in January

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo’s $500 million broadband expansion program is set to get underway after his 2015 State of the State address, said David Salway, director of the New York State Broadband Program office.

The expansion, announced Oct. 8, would create a “NY Broadband Fund” that would offer grants to any broadband company that offers to match public funding to expand and improve existing infrastructure.

The program will aim to accelerate economic development, according to the press release accompanying the announcement, which cited “the growth of the technology sector, education’s shift toward digital learning, and and the increase in consumer demand for greater internet connectivity at home” as the spurs for its development.

Salway will oversee development of the proposal’s blueprint and timeline.

In a Wednesday interview with Capital, he said the broadband fund will follow the same guidelines established by Cuomo’s 2012 “Connect NY Fund,” which initially offered $25 million in grants for largely the same purpose. That program operated as a public-private partnership, in which the state worked with vendors and companies to implement upgrades and expand services.

Salway said the broadband program office aims to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2018, and said this “unprecedented” effort has made Cuomo a “national leader” in expanding broadband services.

According to the broadband fund announcement from Cuomo’s office, despite the state’s investment of $70 million in broadband upgrades—touted in the release as higher than any other state’s—1.1 million New Yorkers still can’t purchase internet service that meets the state’s minimum requirement of at least 6.5 Mbps in download speed.

The release also said that 113,000 businesses cannot access 100 Mbps internet services, which is “the minimum speed economic experts say is needed for real economic growth.”

Salway said the initiative was coordinated with Regional Economic Development Councils—entities that were appointed by Cuomo in 2011 to determine priorities for economic development projects across the state, and hand out roughly $750 million in funding for different programs annually. Each council developed a five-year strategy for how to handle their region’s specific needs.

Salway said the councils will play a critical role in determining which areas get how much funding for broadband expansions, and determining the “sustainability” of given projects.

“In some of these areas, there’s just not a business case for these [service] providers to build out," Salway said. "The cost far exceeds what the revenue might be for that area."

The fund’s awards will also take providers’ competition into consideration. Salway said that encouraging competition between service providers would be key to helping make high-speed broadband affordable, and to giving consumers options.

“We want to make sure there’s choices out there, as well,” Salway said, but clarified that he meant “technological choices,” not specifically a choice between different providers.

The clarification came after a question of whether Salway believes the proposed merger of Time Warner and Comcast might impede affordable internet access in the state. He declined to give an opinion on the merger, which the Public Service Commission is expected to decide by Dec. 31. Salway did say, however, that he doesn’t believe [the merger] “would reduce [access] as much as further our goal” for expansion.

Salway said guidelines for the beginning of the expanson will be released shortly after Cuomo’s State of the State next month and that he expects projects to be underway by roughly mid-summer.

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