More than 40,000 locations in 42 Pennsylvania counties will be getting speedy online access as soon as the end of the year, following the approval Thursday of $204.1 million in federal grants for broadband infrastructure and line extensions.
The Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority board unanimously endorsed grants ranging up to $10 million each to a dozen internet service providers for 53 projects in areas across the state that have inadequate broadband service. The work is required to be done by December 2026, but some projects will finish this year.
The grant funding will leverage an additional $200 million in private investment from internet service providers, making the total impact of the program more than $400 million.
“This is a monumental day,” Broadband Authority board member Todd Eachus said. “Now it’s time to get the work done in getting these homes served.”
But Karen Lightman, executive director of Metro21 Smart Cities Institute, a Carnegie Mellon University research group focusing on technology and community life, wondered whether the 1 gigabyte download and upload speeds required for funded projects was enough.
The minimum required speed could be outdated in as little as two years, she said.
“It’s going to be obsolete,” Ms. Lightman said. “We don’t know where AI is going, but we do know it’s going to take a lot of computing power. If we’re talking about transformative telecommunications, a gig is not enough.”
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission raised its definition of high-speed broadband service to 100 megabytes from 25 megabytes, both per second download speeds. One hundred megabytes is one-tenth of 1 gigabyte.
Funding criteria included areas of the state that were most poorly served by internet providers as indicated by FCC maps, which show some 288,000 locations statewide are without good connections.
Applicants had sought in excess of $1 billion in the competitively awarded grants, so the state’s Broadband Infrastructure Program was oversubscribed by fivefold.
“A lot of need out there,” Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority Executive Director Brandon Carson said.
Among the successful bidders in Western Pennsylvania was the Washington County Authority and its internet service provider partner Comcast, which received $9.4 million. The funding will bring service to 2,700 unserved homes and businesses across 400 miles.
Butler County was also a big winner, with two grants worth $16.6 million awarded to Armstrong Telecommunications Inc.
Projects in Beaver, Butler and Westmoreland counties were also funded, but none in rural Greene or Fayette counties, where internet access is often spotty. Urban Allegheny and Philadelphia counties were also left out of the awards.
Fayette County Commissioners were disappointed.
“We did everything we could to be in a position to get maximum funding and we got nothing,” Commissioner Vince Vicites said in a prepared statement Thursday.
Commissioners Chairman Scott Dunn also expressed disappointment, saying in a statement that the county’s application “focused on the authority’s guidelines, especially for broadband equity in underserved, unserved and distressed counties.”
An early analysis by Penn State University’s X-Lab found that internet service provider giants Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. received two-thirds of the grant money.
Funding for the grants came from the federal Capital Projects Fund, which is administered by the U.S. Treasury.
Still to be disbursed to get every home and business in the state online is $1.16 billion from the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, which is anticipated in 2025.
Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com
First Published: April 18, 2024, 4:28 p.m.
Updated: April 18, 2024, 7:13 p.m.
