New York leveraging state-owned fiber for first 'ConnectAll' build

Rural residents in upstate New York will soon benefit from a municipal open access fiber network, courtesy of the state's new $1 billion ConnectAll grant program and many years of advanced planning by local county officials.

Back in May, New York Governor Kathy Hochul's office announced a $10 million pilot project as the first to be funded through ConnectAll. The initial pilot would target fiber builds in the village of Sherburne in Chenango County, the town of Nichols in Tioga County, the town of Diana in Lewis County and the town of Pitcairn in St. Lawrence County.

As the governor's office explained in a press release: "New York's new ConnectALL program is investing $10 million to target areas where existing state-owned fiber can create a fiber bridge between large data centers (first mile) and individual homes (last mile), primarily in rural areas that are not serviced by private broadband providers."

As part of the pilot, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) will manage initial fiber deployments in each county by leveraging state-owned fiber networks. In the Village of Sherburne, for example, the NYPA will work with the municipal electric provider Sherburne Electric "to use NYPA's existing transmission system cable fiber for the 'middle mile,' and assist the village and municipality in the design, engineering and build-out of fiber networks to the village's 1,800 homes and businesses," according to the press release.

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Speaking on a webinar hosted by the Fiber Broadband Association on Wednesday, Bill Acee, mayor of Sherburne since 2001, shared a bit more background on the project's origins and timeline, and how a lot of advanced planning on the broadband front got them to this point.

Acee, who was also a founding member of the New York Association of Public Power, said the village recognized the need for broadband early on and built out a local area network (LAN) for internal use several years ago. "So we were able to log in and manage our water system. Keep our sewer system online. But at the same time looking forward to developing broadband for the whole community," he said.

While the village of Sherburne was denied federal funding for broadband in 2009, things started to shift in 2018 when the area's largest local incumbent filed for bankruptcy, prompting the town to work on designing and delivering its fiber network through its municipal utility provider Sherburne Electric, said the mayor.

"It became apparent that it was going to be on us to try to do this if we were to have any kind of competitive Internet available to our customers," he said.

While they were first planning for a four-year build with low-interest financing, things changed yet again in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic put the need for rural broadband in the spotlight and opened up funding opportunities for regions like Sherburne.

Now, with the state's first ConnectAll grant in hand, officials are trying to complete their open access fiber build by the end of 2022. But that speed may depend on available supplies.

"We're still chasing down items that we need to finish our build out. We have much of our fiber-to-the-home. We're still looking for certain electronic components," said Acee. "That's probably one of the things that keeps me up at night, you know, hoping that we can meet certain deadlines."

New York State recently released a broadband map developed by ECC Technologies. The map shows that while over 97% of the state is considered served by broadband, deep disparities still exist at the county level and in lower-income communities. According to the state's broadband map, the pilot project counties of Chenango, Tioga, Lewis and St. Lawrence are considered "served" by broadband at rates ranging from 73% to 93%.

"One hundred years ago community members in Sherburne came together to build an electric grid, which has served the community for decades. Just as electricity brought new, and in many cases, unforeseen comforts and possibilities to this community and other municipal co-ops across the state, so too will fiber infrastructure," said Acee at a press event about the project in June.

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— Nicole Ferraro, editor, Light Reading, and host of "​​The Divide" podcast.