Tag: Broadband Expansion

WVDE Floats Plan To Collect Student Data To Address Broadband Disparities

The West Virginia Department of Education wants to gather data on K-12 students across the state, hoping to pinpoint where digital and broadband access is lacking. The hope is to use the data to highlight specific students’ needs when they are learning from home.

As more students must study online in the ongoing pandemic, such access is crucial and impacts families who live in areas without connectivity. The WVDE wants to assist this effort to find gaps and fix them.

“The broadband issues across the state, in regard to education, became glaringly aware to us in March when we had to go to remote learning,” said Tim Conzett, senior administrator with the Office of Data Management and Information Systems Directory at the state Department of Education.

West Virginia Board of Education members Wednesday heard an update on broadband in the state including on the new Kids Connect Initiative that created more than 1,000 WiFi hotspots statewide for K-12 and higher education students.

Officials discussed how they hope to expand this service as well as broadband as a whole. New technology, like high-flying balloons and satellites, and new partnerships, such as with Facebook, are coming, according to the agency. But officials also noted expanding is expensive and that point is exacerbated due to West Virginia’s geography.

“Most of our schools are fairly well suited for equity when they’re in the school,” Conzett said. “But it’s when they’re out of the schools that is the problem.”

Conzett told board members of a new proposal on data collection for digital equity. The proposal would collect data on all K-12 students in West Virginia to identify technology needs in homes and could guide future internet expansion in the state.

“One of the things that this could do for us is to help plot areas where we can see an impact and help perhaps direct some of the deployment of broadband moving in the future,” Conzett said.

This data would be tied to individual students, he explained, and would highlight which homes need more support – whether that’s with a device like an iPad or for broadband needs.

“If we have that kind of information, we can help in counties that are not yet quite to a one-to-one device situation that they provide for their students,” he said.

The data, according to Conzett, would be placed as dots on a map that would show where there are the greatest broadband challenges.

“If I’ve got students that don’t have internet access at home, and they show as dots, and that’s basically all it’s going to be is a dot, then I can see clusters, and where those clusters are, I can perhaps then provide that information to a provider to say, ‘hey, look, you’ve got 50 within X mile radius,’” Conzett said. “So, as far as equity is concerned, it’s more about the inequity that a student is seeing from a home use or a home perspective.”

One board member asked if the data collection could compromise individuals’ privacy.

“That is a good question,” Conzett answered. “Part of that has to be in the language and the communication that we provide. As far as the collection is concerned, again, it’s not a matter of ‘Student A does and Student B doesn’t,’ it’s a matter of being able to help provide guidance to provide the services for those students.”

Under the Student Data Accessibility Transparency and Accountability Act of 2014, the proposal is required to have a 60 day public comment period.

Residents can submit comments on the proposal on the West Virginia Department of Education’s website.

Facebook to Help Expand Broadband Internet Service in West Virginia

Facebook says it’s going to help expand broadband internet in West Virginia.

The social media company announced a plan Monday, March 4, to build a high-capacity fiber optic cable network in the state that internet providers will then be able to access.

“It’s almost like an interstate for the internet,” Kevin Salvadori, Facebook’s director of network investments, said of the cable system.

Work on the roughly 275-mile cable route is scheduled to start this year and is expected to take about 18 to 24 months to finish, according to the company. The idea is for the cable to start in the western part of the state, move through the Kanawha Valley, then turn northwest into the Appalachia region. Salvadori said the company is confident it will be able to install the cable through the state’s mountainous terrain.

West Virginia officials cheered the deal as a way to move the state’s economy forward.

“We absolutely have got something here that will open us up, will be the beginning of something that’s really, really significant,” said Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, said the move will give rural parts of the state better internet access.

“Today’s announcement with Facebook is an important step toward ensuring our state has the critical infrastructure to support broadband deployment, and I know it will help so many in our state, especially the rural communities that are unserved,” she said in a statement.

The Federal Communications Commission says 82 percent of West Virginians have access to fixed broadband internet speeds.

Justice: Broadband Route to Cross Through West Virginia

West Virginia’s governor says broadband network operator Zayo Group will build a fiber network crossing 200 miles of the state.

Gov. Jim Justice said Thursday that the broadband route will link Columbus, Ohio, with Ashburn, Virginia, which is near Dulles International Airport. New media outlets report that details of the agreement were not available.

Jack Waters, chief technology officer for the Colorado-based company, says construction of the network will begin early next year and will take two to three years to complete.

Justice says the state will be exchanging access to right-of-ways for a “significant amount of high-quality fiber.”

The governor announced in September that West Virginia would provide broadband developers with free access to state right-of-ways as a way to encourage construction of broadband networks in the state.

FCC Chief to Attend Ohio-West Virginia Broadband Summit

The commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission is slated to attend a broadband summit next month in Ohio.

The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reports that Mignon Clyburn will attend the Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit and Town Hall on July 18 in Marietta.

The commissioner is attending as part of a nationwide listening tour about limited Internet access in rural areas.

The event targets broadband access in southeast Ohio and northern West Virginia.

The town hall with Clyburn will take place at Marietta High School and will be open to the public. Guests must register to attend.

The summit’s workshop will take place at Washington State Community College.

Broadband Expansion Passes in House

Thirty percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband services as defined by federal law, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

When you look at just the rural parts of West Virginia, that percent increases to 48.

House Bill 3093 aims to change that.

One of the biggest parts of the bill is it allows communities to form ‘internet co-opts.” These ‘co-opts,’ or cooperatives, would work together with a service provider to become their community’s own provider – thus reaching areas that may not have access to broadband.

Republican Delegate Roger Hanshaw of Clay County is the bill’s lead sponsor. While the bill has seen wide bi-partisan support, those who have voiced some concerns over the bill have mainly been internet service providers, which Hanshaw addressed in his floor speech.

“This is a bill that’s intended to promote competition, there’s no doubt about that,” Hanshaw noted, “but it’s a bill intended to do so in places where competition doesn’t exist. The formation of cooperatives; the formation of cooperatives is intended to happen and will happen in places where there is not service. People who are receiving service now have no motivation to avail themselves of this process and are unlikely to do so.”

Only one other delegate spoke to the bill on the floor today. It passed 97 to 2 and now heads to the Senate for further consideration.

House Bill Creates Broadband 'Co-Opts' in W.Va. Communities

In the House Friday, the House Judiciary Committee took its first look at a bill to expand broadband internet access in the state. The bill’s goal is for all West Virginians to have access by 2020.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, 30 percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband services as defined by federal law. When you look at just the rural parts of the state that percentage increases to 48.

House Bill 3093, which was taken up in the chamber’s Judiciary Committee Friday morning, seeks to expand access to underserved areas in the state.

The bill itself is 33 pages long. It allows communities to form “internet co-opts,” which lead sponsor of the bill Delegate Roger Hanshaw explains are groups of citizens who live in certain geographic areas. The groups can work together to become their own internet service provider.

“If a provider isn’t coming into their area with service that’s of high enough quality to suit their needs,” Hanshaw said, “they can get together to work with the provider and become their own provider there in that small community.”

Hanshaw, who is from rural Clay County, says this was one of the biggest barriers he and his colleagues found as they began working on this bill a year ago. He says the bill also addresses some smaller barriers, too, like dealing with micro-trenching, which is the official term for a simple process—the laying of pipes with internet fibers inside them alongside any new highway construction in the state.

Hanshaw says the bill is comprehensive but with a straightforward approach.

“It’s just simply meant to remove barriers to service,” he explained, “So our objective in adopting this bill, if we ultimately get it passed both houses is just to remove several barriers all at once to expansion of service, and in doing so, hopefully remove that great big barrier.”

Hanshaw says the bill wouldn’t use any state dollars, and it gives communities the authority to get it started.

“There’s nothing compulsory about this bill,” he noted, “This is all a permissive bill; it lets people do things; that’s the objective. So this is a revenue neutral bill. This bill doesn’t require any expenditure of state funds. So how quickly the bill causes service to expand is largely going to be driven by how quickly people want it to happen.”

The bill also creates a Broadband Enhancement Council, which is made up of thirteen voting members including the Secretary of Commerce and the State Superintendent of Schools. The council is housed in  the Department of Commerce and is tasked with providing administrative, personnel, and technical support services to the communities that seek broadband expansion on their own.

The bill also establishes a Broadband Enhancement Fund, which will hold  any donations or appropriations the Council receives for their projects.

Hanshaw says this bill is an important frontier for West Virginia.

“The interstate highway system, when it was built, after President Eisenhower’s term opened up the country to an entirely new form of commerce. The broadband – access to adequate broadband service, is this generation’s equivalent to the interstate highway system.”

After an hour of questions and discussion in committee, House Judiciary passed House Bill 3093 without debate. It now heads to the full chamber and will likely see a vote next week.

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