Governor Hochul Awards More Than $70 Million Through ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program to Connect More Than 25,000 Homes and Businesses to High-Speed Broadband

 

Awards in Central New York, Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and North Country Regions Will Fund Construction of More Than 800 Miles of Public Broadband Infrastructure

Part of $228 Million Federal Investment To Build Last-Mile Broadband Infrastructure Across New York State

Builds on Governor Hochul’s $1 Billion ConnectALL Program to Expand Affordable, Reliable Broadband Access for All New Yorkers

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced more than $70 million in awards through ConnectALL’s Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program as part of a $228 million federal investment to help connect New Yorkers to high-speed broadband internet. The projects include multimillion-dollar commitments to transform public broadband infrastructure in the Central New York, Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and North Country regions, offering symmetric service options – where the download and upload speeds are the same – at price points below local averages. Together, the projects will result in the construction of more than 800 miles of public broadband infrastructure and connect more than 25,000 homes and businesses.

“These awards mark the next step in our billion-dollar effort to close New York’s digital divide,” Governor Hochul said. “Thanks to our historic ConnectALL initiative and support from the Biden administration and New York’s congressional delegation, we are funding projects from Syracuse to Franklin County to strengthen our broadband infrastructure and bring affordable, reliable, high-speed internet to more than 25,000 New York families.”

Funding for ConnectALL’s Municipal Infrastructure Program has been awarded through the U.S. Department of the Treasury under the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Projects Fund. Broadband infrastructure in the Municipal Infrastructure Program will be owned by a public entity or publicly controlled and Internet Service Providers will use the new broadband infrastructure to provide New Yorkers with affordable, high quality service options.

The first round of awardees includes:

• City of Syracuse (Central New York) – $10.8 million: The City of Syracuse is expanding its award-winning Surge Link internet service network to over 13,000 locations in five city neighborhoods - Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Near Northeast. The fixed wireless municipal broadband solution currently serves over 8,700 homes in three neighborhoods. In total, the expanded network will reach the area of the City that experiences the highest rates of poverty and unemployment and lowest educational attainment when compared across the city or county as a whole. The city will build, own, operate, and maintain 20 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure serving 10 fixed wireless hubs, and partner with the Community Broadband Networks Syracuse Municipal, LLC to install, operate, and maintain the fixed wireless network, connect customers, and provide 24/7 customer support. Under the ConnectALL program, Surge Link will offer broadband service for $14.99 per month to low-income households and symmetric 100 Mbps service for $36.99. The city has also worked with the Syracuse Neighborhood Community Center Collaborative to launch the “Digital Empowerment Program” to support residents in the area.
• Livingston County (Finger Lakes) – $26.5 million: Livingston County will build on its existing public-private partnership with Empire Access to serve over 4,000 locations with high-speed service. This project will reach all known unserved locations in the County that are not already covered under other grant-funded projects, marking a major milestone for “Light Up Livingston,” the County’s initiative to provide access to high-speed, fiber-optic internet to every address in the county. Under the ConnectALL program, Livingston County will contract with Hunt EAS to construct an estimated 340 miles of fiber, 20% of which will be reserved for open-access use by other internet service providers.
• Franklin County and DANC (North Country) – $2.4 million: The Franklin County project will reach more than 1,600 homes and businesses, including many of the hardest to reach unserved locations in the County, navigating around natural wetlands, areas with no utility service, and areas that already have fiber optic infrastructure. Franklin County will work with the Development Authority of the North Country, which has two decades of experience managing public fiber optic infrastructure, to build 36 miles of open access fiber to the utility poles along the locations to be served. SLICFiber, a private internet service provider, will connect the homes and businesses and there is capacity in the network to support additional providers. The project will allow remote residents to access telehealth services and engage in remote work.
• Southern Tier Network (Southern Tier) – $18.2 million: Southern Tier Network will build out 223 miles, own and operate open-access fiber-to-the-home networks connecting over 4,200 homes and businesses in eight towns across Steuben, Schuyler, Chemung, Tioga and Tompkins Counties. Southern Tier Network, a nonprofit governed by the counties in the Southern Tier Central Region, will add 223 miles of fiber optic infrastructure through the investment. The project service area faces challenges of extreme rural poverty, vulnerable aging populations, disproportionately high levels of households with a person with a disability. All the locations in the project service area will be receiving fiber optic connections and high-speed symmetric service options for the first time through the project. Following the model of the ConnectALL municipal infrastructure pilot project in the Town of Nichols, Southern Tier Network will partner with FiberSpark and other internet service providers on the network to deliver internet service at rates below the costs for service in the area, with the aim of increasing education, economic, and health outcomes and retaining population.
• Village and Town of Sherburne and Town of Columbus (Southern Tier) – $6.9 million:The Village of Sherburne, in partnership with the Village of Sherburne and Columbus, will connect over 500 locations across the two towns with an advanced, software-defined network that allows residents to choose among multiple internet service options. Building on its ConnectALL pilot project – Sherburne Connect and its longstanding capabilities as a municipal electric utility, the Village will connect the homes with a fiber optic line and the equipment and FiberSpark and FyberCom will provide the internet service, with more service providers able to add service on the network at no additional cost to the project or subscribers. The 65 miles of new fiber will increase the resilience and sustainability of the pilot network. The municipal internet service will help the towns address the economic, health, and educational needs of their residents.
• Towns of Dryden and Caroline (Southern Tier) – $8.9 million: The Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline in Tompkins County are partnering to bring new public broadband service to over 2,600 locations. The Town of Dryden launched Dryden Fiber in 2023 and, under the ConnectALL program, Dryden Fiber will build and expand the network with 125 miles of fiber optic infrastructure to reach the underserved rural residents in the neighboring Town of Caroline. Both the Town of Caroline and the Town of Dryden will own the proposed infrastructure in their respective towns; Dryden Fiber will provide operations and maintenance of the network and provide internet service to homes and businesses for both towns.

The Municipal Infrastructure Program was based on ConnectALL’s Municipal Infrastructure pilot projects, which demonstrated the transformative benefit of publicly-owned, open access fiber optic networks. Open access networks can be used by multiple service providers, bringing consumer choice to underserved areas, and public ownership means broadband infrastructure is a basic utility available to all households in these communities. The pilot projects leveraged an initial $10 million investment from ConnectALL to fund municipal broadband projects in four upstate communities – the Village of Sherburne in Chenango County, the Town of Nichols in Tioga County, the Town of Diana in Lewis County, and the Town of Pitcairn in St. Lawrence County. All four projects have been completed, connecting more than 3,000 households to high-speed internet at prices below the regional average.

ConnectALL will announce additional rounds of Municipal Infrastructure Program funding in the coming months. For more information, visit the Municipal Infrastructure Program on the ConnectALL website.

Governor Hochul’s ConnectALL Initiative

Governor Hochul established the $1 billion ConnectALL Initiative – New York’s largest-ever investment in broadband access – to close the state’s digital divide, transform digital infrastructure, and ensure that all New Yorkers have access to reliable and affordable high-speed broadband internet service. To date, ConnectALL has overseen the successful launch and implementation of several programs to advance broadband access, including:

• The Digital Equity Program will invest $50 million to implement the New York State Digital Equity Plan to close the digital divide. The Plan outlines New York’s statewide strategy to increase its capacity to improve digital literacy and digital job readiness skills, facilitate access to affordable internet and devices, enhance digital privacy and safety, and make government services more accessible through the internet. The Plan and more about the Program is available here.
• The Affordable Housing Connectivity Program to bring new broadband infrastructure to homes in affordable and public housing leveraging a $100 million federal investment from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Capital Projects Fund. The program is currently accepting applications from internet service providers and expressions of interest from housing owners and public housing authorities.
• The ConnectALL Deployment Program to fund internet service providers to reach unserved and underserved locations, drawing on an allocation of $664.6 million in federal funding from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, as described in the ConnectALL Broadband Deployment Initial Proposal and Five-Year Action Plan. ConnectALL conducted the challenge process to determine which locations in the state are eligible for this program.