DANC/Jefferson County Broadband Study

July 18, 2022 ECC Technologies

ISSUE

In November of 2020, Jefferson County needed to address their broadband infrastructure needs. They realized that improvements were required to facilitate County growth and provide solutions for residents.

SOLUTION

The project involved the implementation and execution of a Broadband infrastructure inventory and BAAT program.

The inventory portion of the project included an on-site field-level inventory of the County’s existing broadband infrastructure. This primarily focused on fiber optic, coaxial cable, and tower/wireless infrastructure. The data captured was mapped in a GIS format and used to identify the availability of Broadband infrastructure to the address level.

The Broadband Availability and Adoption Tool (BAAT) is an interactive web-based application that allowed the residents and businesses to document issues such as but not limited to; availability, socioeconomic, reliability, service, speed, and in general other adoption issues from a personal perspective. All data was captured and aligned in GIS.

OUTCOME

The inventory revealed that several areas within the County lacked access to viable broadband infrastructure. Understanding where infrastructure was needed allowed the project team to develop effective budgets needed to fill the gaps. The BAAT program revealed that 21.6% of respondents lacked broadband access and almost 40% of those who had access were paying over $75 per month. The lack of broadband access could be due to a lack of awareness or cost. There were several other key indicators; including, of those working from home 65% reported having trouble completing work, and of those with school-age children 59.4% reported issues related to schoolwork.

Armed with this information and data, several options were presented to fix the remaining broadband issues. These options included County-funded buildouts through additional grants and a public-private partnership agreements with a provider. In either scenario, solutions were presented to target the areas of need.