Washington County New York Broadband Inventory

About

In March of 2021, Washington County Economic Development and Planning in partnership with the Lake Champlain - Lake George Regional Planning Board (LC-LG RPB) commissioned a study to accurately identify areas of the County that are lacking in broadband infrastructure. In addition, the data collected from this effort will be able to be used in the next steps to develop a technological solution to address the lack of broadband in unserved and underserved areas of the County, and obtain partners and funding to address these issues.

Scope

ECC Technologies, Inc. (ECC) performed the broadband study by conducting an inventory of existing fiber optic, coaxial assets, and other broadband-supporting infrastructure within Washington County, New York. In addition, ECC, in conjunction with Washington County Economic Development and Planning and LC-LG RPB, conducted a survey of residents and businesses to evaluate broadband adoption in the County.

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

ECC did not drive city, village, and designated census areas within the County. However, ECC focused on collecting broadband infrastructure data, to the extent possible, in the rural areas of the County. The ECC team with the gathered field data created an ESRI GIS database of the infrastructure from which maps of the County’s infrastructure were created and included in the report.

ECC created maps documenting, to the extent possible, the fiber, coax, and tower infrastructure in the County. These maps consist of the following information, and will serve as the foundation to overlay future County Initiatives:

1.         Fiber optic cabling

2.         Coaxial cabling

3.         Central Office and remote terminals

4.         Wireline boundaries

5.         Wireless tower and water tower sites