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The County conducted a broadband study in the Winter of 2008.
- Consisted of focus groups, a citizen survey randomly mailed to 3,000 residents, review of existing providers, and infrastructure and asset review.
- The study provided additional evidence regarding availability of broadband, dissatisfaction with connection speeds, and other citizen opinions; 914 of the surveys were returned which corresponds to a 30% response rate.
- Overall the study has been useful to the County in conveying our message about broadband in Goochland whether it is to current or prospective providers.
- The County issued a request for information (RFI), in the fall of 2008, to broadband providers asking them to propose solutions to the County’s broadband problem.
- Two vendors responded but only one furnished the information requested and no options were pursued.
- The County continues to encourage providers to either locate or expand coverage in Goochland including locating on WZEZ’s tower. The County submitted a response in late 2008/winter 2009 to a questionnaire about potential broadband projects that could benefit from the pending economic stimulus that was issued by the Director of the Commonwealth’s Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance and Deputy Secretary for Technology.
- The response was issued prior to the infamous American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) [economic stimulus] being passed by Congress.
- The County’s submitted response did not move further as the Commonwealth was not given funds to use for broadband instead the economic stimulus gave funds to two federal agencies the Department of Agriculture – Rural Utility Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce – National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) to use for broadband projects. The County reviewed the requirements/guidelines for applying for and funding a broadband project through both the RUS and NTIA but determined that we did not meet the requirements/guidelines.
- Applications were required to have a significant amount of detail, such as detailed deployment plans and information certified by a professional engineer, etc.
- Both the NTIA & RUS administrators strongly emphasized the importance of submitting complete applications with all required information and documentation otherwise they would be automatically rejected. The County, at the request of Virginia Broadband (VABB), provided support documents and information for the application they submitted for the 1st round of stimulus funding availability.
- VABB submitted an application to expand broadband into Goochland and 16 other localities, but their application for wireless broadband network extensions was not successful.
- Even though they were not successful with stimulus funding VABB is planning to reconfigure their growth plans that were based on stimulus funding, which may lead to collaboration with the County in the future to address unserved areas. The County pursued Google’s Fiber for Communities initiative that was unveiled on February 10, 2010.
- This initiative by Google is a desire to build an experimental, ultra-high speed fiber network which would provide internet speeds 100 times faster than most Americans have access to today.
- As part of the initiative they put out a request for information (RFI) which required localities with an interest in the experimental network to respond to questions including what assets, providers, and important industries existed in the locality.
- Goochland was one of the 1,100 communities (governments) that responded, in addition numerous nominations from our citizens made up a portion of the 194,000 nominations from individuals.
- In late August Comcast announced, Internet Essentials, a new comprehensive and ambitious broadband adoption initiative to address the broadband and digital divide for low-income families.
- The Internet Essentials initiative aims to provide low cost internet service to families located where Comcast offers Internet Service, that have at least one child receiving free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program, have not subscribed to Comcast Internet Service within the last 90 days, and does not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment.
- The County has partnered with Accelerate Virginia, an Internet speed testing campaign, to identify areas through participation of residents and business that are in need of better access to high-speed internet services.
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