Internet Access Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Putnam County Gets Low Scores In National Analysis Of Broadband Expansion

Putnam County received an overall low score, only six out of 20 points, on the Communication Workers of America’s “Report Card for Broadband Projects Funded by the American Rescue Plan”

One West Virginia county is being used as a case study in a report on broadband deployment across the country.

Putnam County received an overall low score, only six out of 20 points, on the Communications Workers of America’s (CWA) “Report Card for Broadband Projects Funded by the American Rescue Plan” (ARPA).

The county entered a contract in February 2023 with Mountain State Fiber to deploy a 57-mile fiber-optic network that will serve as a middle mile backbone available for lease to internet service providers. As of June 2024, the Putnam County broadband director confirmed to CWA that the project is approximately 15 percent complete and is targeted to be finished by the end of 2024.

Ceilidh Gao, strategic research associate for CWA, said that as ARPA funds for broadband are spent, it gives communities an idea of how incoming funds from the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act will be spent.

“You know, the ARPA dollars really provide an educational example for us of what are best practices,” she said. “We all have an interest in seeing that this money fulfills its promise, connects all Americans, and also does so in a way that creates good jobs, in a way that’s publicly transparent and accountable and in a way that creates quality, long lasting infrastructure, which is really going to stand the test of time, and make sure that these funds are a good use of our public dollars.”

The report card evaluated fourteen county-level broadband projects on how well they incorporated transparency, equity, and labor standards within their selection process. Putnam County scored well for investing in fiber optics, for high wages and hiring local workers, but missed out on points for transparency and affordability.

“When things are publicly disclosed, or when contracts are made publicly available, the public and stakeholders can play a part in giving feedback on how a program runs and also holding companies accountable to the promises that they make,” Gao said. “So to us, we see transparency as a pretty key part of a program that functions well.”

Putnam County received no points in the CWA’s transparency category. The report states the contract was not available to the public, reducing possible public participation, and information on funding for the project was only available in an audio recording of a meeting. There was also no map or timeline of the project.

On affordability, Gao said that as a middle-mile project Putnam’s network build has not committed to participation in the Affordable Connectivity Program. (ACP)

“ACP renewal is a big priority for CWA, and finding a path to have low income families have a broadband subsidy, because one of the big issues is, once the network is built, that’s great, but are the people in the area able to afford that service?” she said.

State Broadband Plan Approved

According to the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, more than a third of all West Virginians do not have access to high-speed internet.

West Virginia has taken another step to improving broadband access for all.

West Virginia is one of four states, as well as Puerto Rico, to have its Digital Equity Plan accepted by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Acceptance of the plan will allow the states to access the $1.44 billion Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program when it launches in the coming months.

According to the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, more than a third of all West Virginians do not have access to high-speed internet, and many of those with access cannot afford the price of a connection or face other barriers to effectively use the internet.

The Digital Equity Plan proposes to realize affordable connectivity for all West Virginians, secure device access and affordability as well as improve the population’s digital skills.

Hurdles To Broadband Connectivity On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, to have broadband connectivity for all of West Virginia within five years, there are progress and time markers that must be met. We talk with a lawmaker and stakeholder about meeting those markers.

On this West Virginia Morning, to have broadband connectivity for all of West Virginia within five years, there are progress and time markers that must be met to get all of the $1.2 billion federal dollars to complete the work.

In a recent episode of The Legislature Today, Randy Yohe sat down with House Technology and Infrastructure Committee Chair Del. Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, and Broadband Consultant Charlie Dennie to discuss meeting those markers.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Eric Douglas is our news director and producer.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

More Than 127,000 W.Va. Households Could Lose Internet Access Unless Congress Allocates Funding

Officials with the Federal Communications Commission warn that a lack of congressional funding for a program that provides low-income households internet access could halt broadband services for more than 127,000 West Virginia households.

Without further funding from the United States Congress, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials warn that more than 127,000 West Virginia households could lose internet access.

The users at risk are those served by the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides discounted broadband internet to low-income households nationwide. Across the country, roughly 23 million households depend on the program.

“The Affordable Connectivity Program is connecting millions and millions of households across the country,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a Thursday press release. The FCC oversees the ACP and works with its users nationwide.

“The bipartisan infrastructure law created this program, our largest-ever effort to make broadband affordable nationwide, but we now are on the brink of letting that success slip away,” Rosenworcel said.

Congress has only approved enough ACP funding to last with full support through April, and with partial support through May. Without additional funding, the program will be unable to accept new applicants in just one week, according to the press release.

Last month, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would allocate a new $7 billion to the ACP.

Until any additional funding is secured, program officials said they must continue with closure protocols to ensure users are aware of the risk ahead.

“Disconnecting millions of families from their jobs, schools, markets and information is not the solution,” Rosenworcel said. “We have come too far with the ACP to turn back.”

Online Academic Resources Now Available For Southern W.Va. Students

Students in some southern counties will soon have access to online academic help.

Students and their families from Mercer, Monroe, Summers, Raleigh and Wyoming counties currently enrolled in 7th or 8th grade can now access 24/7 academic support via Tutor.com. Students and parents can connect with a live tutor during sessions, drop off writing samples or assignments to get direct feedback on assignments, prepare for tests and more.

The online resources are made available to students via a partnership between Tutor.com and GEAR UP Southern West Virginia (SWV).

Program Director Kristen O’Sullivan, said GEAR UP is a national Department of Education program to help young people in economically challenged areas to reach post-secondary education.

“GEAR UP Southern West Virginia is a grant that, through Concord University, we just received in 2022-2023,” she said. “We work with a cohort of students that started with the sixth and seventh grade last year, and now they’re in seventh and eighth grade. We will follow them all the way through until their first year of post-secondary education, whether that be a four-year school, a two-year degree, the military, and we just do everything possible with them to help them be prepared and to believe that they belong and have a plan for the future.”

Tutor.com is also a resource to help parents gain confidence while helping students with schoolwork. As a native of southern West Virginia, O’Sullivan said she would have loved this kind of support when raising her own children.

“I can just remember those nights when they were struggling with something in math or struggling with certain pieces of papers they were working on, where I didn’t feel I had the capacity to be able to help them much,” she said. “Parents will no longer have to worry about that, they will have those experts right there at all times to be able to help.”

O’Sullivan said that teachers will also benefit with access to the same resources, as well as reports on what the students have been getting tutoring on.

“A teacher, let’s say in a math class, may want to be able to look back and see what are the areas the students are continuing to have questions about, so that they can then address them again in the classroom,” she said.

O’Sullivan acknowledged that internet access continues to be an issue in southern West Virginia and across the state, but implementation of COVID-19 era strategies can help to bridge the gap.

“I can tell you that Tutor.com is fully accessible from cell phones as well as from computers,” she said. “I know a lot of families, that is their internet is using their cell phone, they don’t have internet services in their homes. There’s also the things that we have learned through COVID to help people in our rural communities. They can access internet in our community libraries, in the schools, a lot of times this program will be used not just at home, but will be used in after school programming, lunchtime programming sometimes before school.”

Students younger than 13 must submit a signed permission slip before accessing the online resources.

$1.2 Billion Coming To Connect Every West Virginia Household To Internet

The funding was allocated based on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) broadband coverage maps. New maps out this past May show that West Virginia has the least connectivity of any state in the country after Alaska.

The just over $1.2 billion announced for West Virginia Monday comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Both of West Virginia’s U.S. senators, Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, announced the $1,210,800,969.85 in federal funding to the Mountain State through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

In a Zoom press conference, Manchin and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said new mapping uncovered more than 86,000 underserved or unserved West Virginia state locations – including 300,000 households.

Manchin compared this broadband development era to hearing his grandparents talk about the rural electrification of West Virginia back in the 1930s.

“Maybe 10 or 15 percent of West Virginia have electricity, because we’re so rural,” Manchin said. “With that rural electrification, it changed people’s lives, it really did. The same thing is going to happen with this.”

Raimondo said the funding will help overcome all topographic obstacles.

The reason that hasn’t happened is because it’s very expensive to lay the fiber in a rural area, or in a mountainous area,” she said. “The internet providers haven’t done it because it doesn’t make economic sense for them.”

Raimondo said federal measures will ensure every home has access to affordable, high speed internet.

“This is plenty of money to get to everyone,” Raimondo said. “We mean the small farm or family at the end of the long road in rural West Virginia, because we’re going to subsidize the companies to make that infrastructure investment. Then we’re going to hold them accountable to provide the internet at a price that, that family can afford.”

Raimondo said the money won’t go out until the state is able to show how they’re going to implement the BEAD program. Manchin said his staff and state offices, working with internet providers, have been coordinating the coverage plan.

“We’ve been looking at our underserved areas for what, seven, eight years, so we pretty much know where they are,” Manchin said. “We’ve been in contact for quite some time with the State Economic Development Department and all the different development offices around the state, trying to make sure they have a plan. We’re pretty far down the road, I think.”

An announcement from the Biden administration Monday detailed that every U.S. state, territory and protectorate received a share of more than $42 billion to improve broadband connectivity.

Neighboring Ohio, for example, will receive $793,688,107.63 to deploy affordable, reliable high-speed internet service. More than 183,700 homes and small businesses in Ohio lack access to a high-speed Internet connection.