By JOHN WHITTAKER

jwhittaker@post-journal.com

Work to improve broadband internet in Warren County is continuing even though it seems as if the project is moving at dial-up speeds.

Michael Lyon, Warren County planning director, told Warren County Commissioners during a recent meeting that the Northwest Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission, of which Warren County is a member, was awarded around $90 million in federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment) program funds. The federal program had $42.45 billion available to states for broadband deployment, mapping and adoption projects, with Pennsylvania receiving $1.16 billion of that total. The Northwest Commission received $90 million of the state’s total.

Potential broadband project areas include nearly every municipality in Warren County, which means Warren County’s share of the BEAD funding won’t cover the entire county. The total cost of broadband buildout for the 10-county area the Northwest Commission encompasses is $396 million, so additional funding will be required to meet the broadband needs of the 10-county region.

“So once that’s finalized, they’re in the process right now of working with the 10 member counties to come up with a build schedule,” Lyon told the commissioners.”That’s going to be a challenge because with broadband, everybody wants to be first, but it’s not going to work out that way.”

See BROADBAND/ A3

BROADBAND

The build plan, once funding is fully realized, will be based on need, cost and community demand, according to 2CoreConnect, the project that received BEAD funding. It aims to expand coverage to an estimated nearly 20,000 households in the region. Counties that are part of the effort along with Warren include Cameron, Crawford, Clarion, Elk, Erie, Forest, Lawrence, Mercer and Venango. The project will also seek non-profit grant funding, likely use revenue bonds and other grants to help pay for the network to be built.

“While that sounds like an enormous amount of money, when you’re putting up fiber, it doesn’t go very far,” Lyon said. “That’s for 10 counties. That project, if I remember, started with maybe seven counties and it grew to 10. And they’re all adjacent communities that are very similar to Warren County. So, they’re all in the same boat when it comes to uh fighting for broadband.”

According to CoreConnect, an open access network is similar to how airports operate where an airport authority builds and maintains the terminal, runways and gates but multiple airlines can use the facilities. Their proposal is to build a network that allows multiple internet service providers to utilize the same fiber optics, promoting both competition and customer choice.

“When I first took office, that was one of the things that was a priority as it relates to bringing more broadband and affordable broadband in the county,” said commissioner Tricia Durbin. “And so we realized that the best road to walk down was partnering with other counties, working together to utilize that grant money across all 10 counties,

but then using that as a feeder for additional progress and not waiting on third party providers to continue to build out the fiber network. So by moving it into this direction, the counties, through that consortium, have a much better ability to manage their future because they’re not waiting for a Verizon or Breezeline or what have you. They’re nonprofit. So they’re not offering services that are going to put revenue in somebody’s pocket or profit somebody’s pocket. So, it’s our hope that what will occur is that we can actually manage our own future footprint for broadband and move at the pace in which we can instead of waiting for others to come in and build in our community.”

In 2024, Verizon was awarded a $4.7 million Broadband Infrastructure Program grant toward a $9.9 million dollar project that will bring high-speed broadband services over Verizon’s fiber-optic network to an estimated 1,220 homes in Warren County. The awarded project would include municipalities such as Warren, Russell, Clarendon, Ludlow, Spring Creek, Irvine, Pittsfield, and Youngsville.That project is expected to be completed by December.