About

In April 2016, Erie 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 an infrastructure inventory and BAAT program.

The inventory project included a field inventory of the County’s existing broadband infrastructure, namely the fiber optic, coaxial cable, and tower infrastructure. In addition, ECC’s OSP team drove the roads of the County and to the extent possible, physically identified and documented the County’s existing broadband infrastructure. This was all mapped in a GIS format.

The BAAT is a web-based application that allowed for the documentation of demand for broadband services within Erie County, with a marketing component, data, and mapped responses all captured in one portal.

Outcome

The inventory revealed several areas within the County that still lack access to viable broadband. In addition, the BAAT program revealed that 7% of respondents lacked broadband access and 55% of those did not access and 27% said it was too expensive. There were several other key indicators; including, 71% saying they were not satisfied with their service, 28% had download speeds of less than 25mbps, 31% had speeds between 25mpbs and 50mbps, and only 13% had speeds greater than 50mbps.

Armed with this information and data, several options were presented to fix the remaining broadband issues. These options included creating a County broadband committee, community collaboration, implementing a dig once policy, create targeted broadband infrastructure projects, and development of an open access network.