[ad_1]
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam speaks at an event titled “Transforming Rail in Virginia” at the Amtrak-VRE Station on March 30, 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced Friday that the Commonwealth will invest $ 700 million in federal funds to provide universal broadband to its residents by 2024.
The plan is the most comprehensive and firm commitment of any state to achieve such a goal within that time frame, according to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Who spoke at a press conference announcing the ‘initiative. The 2024 target is four years earlier than Northam’s previous target.
According to a press release, the state expects to have commitments on the majority of connections in the next 18 months.
Jennifer Boysko, a Democratic state senator who chairs the broadband advisory board, demonstrated the scale of the commitment by saying that in 2016 they were only given a million dollars to spend on broadband throughout Virginia.
The funds come from the more than $ 4 billion allocated to Virginia as part of the US bailout package passed by Congress, according to Northam. During the press conference, he highlighted how the Covid pandemic demonstrated the urgent need for robust internet access statewide.
At the end of 2020, at the height of distance education induced by the pandemic, the Virginia State Council for Higher Education released a report finding that one in five students in Virginia from kindergarten to college lacked skills. High speed internet or home computer. Among Kindergarten to Grade 12 students in Virginia, 14% did not have high-speed internet service, and the same was true of 10% of students.
Broadband coverage tends to be sparse in rural areas, although the State Council report notes that nearly 40% of students without broadband in Virginia live in or around cities.
Northam drew a parallel between the current broadband situation and the increase in electricity in the United States in the early 1900s. He said that in 1936, 90% of rural Virginia did not have access to electricity. electricity until Congress passes a bill to finance the construction of the infrastructure.
Warner pitched the initiative as an opportunity for Virginia, recently ranked # 1 for business by CNBC, to attract more jobs to the state.
“If you don’t have high-speed broadband internet access in 2021, you won’t even get a glimpse of any business that wants to locate or create jobs here or, frankly, some of our own that want to stay here.” , Warner said. mentionned.
Other states have announced plans for extended or universal broadband access on different time frames. The governor of Connecticut, for example, has drawn up a plan to extend broadband coverage to all residents by 2027. A state broadband board in California released a long plan last year on how which it would encourage the accelerated deployment of broadband in the state with the goal of universal, affordable coverage.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
WATCH: The struggle on the Internet, under the sea
[ad_2]
Source link