As states get ready for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, Delaware seems to be moving along with its universal broadband efforts.
Governor John Carney announced Thursday the state has leveraged federal funding to connect nearly 6,000 locations to high-speed broadband in the past year – putting Delaware on track to become the first fully-connected state in the country.
Delaware funded that expansion using $33 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Comcast, Mediacom and Verizon are among the providers that have undertaken ARPA-funded builds in the state.
According to the state government, 372 locations still need to be installed with ARPA funding, and those will be reached over the next few months.
“Our goal is to have Delaware be the first state in the country to connect every home and business to high-speed internet within the next few years,” said Carney in a statement. “If there is any state that can connect every home and business, it ought to be Delaware.”
For Verizon’s part, the operator on Thursday revealed it completed its Delaware ARPA build six months ahead of schedule, connecting 2,000 locations to fiber across five cities.
While Mediacom used around $11 million in grants to build fiber to 1,600 Delaware homes and businesses, SVP Tom Larsen told Fierce.
As for Comcast, which last year scored a $33 million grant from Delaware, finished its ARPA project in “less than 12 months,” said Kevin Broadhurst, Comcast’s VP of government and regulatory affairs.
Speaking at Delaware’s Innovation Technology Exploration Center, Broadhurst said the state was actually the pilot for Internet Essentials, the operator’s low-cost broadband plan.
“We started this back in 2011, and then connected cumulatively over 124,000 low-income Delawareans to broadband services,” he said.
Once the ARPA locations are built, Delaware plans to use its $107.7 million BEAD allocation to connect its remaining unserved and underserved communities.
In an interview with Fierce earlier this year, Delaware broadband chief Roddy Flynn said the state is currently striving to get 100/100 Mbps service, but that may change in long term, as more demands are put on internet infrastructure.
He also talked about the importance of digital equity, as “we could have the best, most advanced fiber technology in the world, but if folks can’t afford it…then it really isn’t worth anything.”