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Gov. Cuomo, visiting SUNY Potsdam, promises high-speed broadband statewide by 2018

Posted 8/3/16

Updated at 5:16 p.m. By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to SUNY Potsdam today to highlight progress made in his Broadband for All initiative. The initiative, which was announced in …

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Gov. Cuomo, visiting SUNY Potsdam, promises high-speed broadband statewide by 2018

Posted


Updated at 5:16 p.m.

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to SUNY Potsdam today to highlight progress made in his Broadband for All initiative.

The initiative, which was announced in March, holds out promise of access by all New Yorkers to internet speeds of 100 megabits per second. That will put New York State at the front of all states for broadband access, the governor said.

A press release from his office at the same time as his address in Potsdam announced that Citizens Telephone Company of Hammond would be receiving $3,316,810, and $9,393,753 would be going to TDS Telecom, the seventh largest local exchange telephone company in the U.S., with operations in 14 New York communities, including Edwards and Hermon, to build out broadband service.

Cuomo called broadband access “fundamental connectivity” without which a population is “disadvantaged at every level.”

He also spoke about the 7.9 million private sector jobs in the state, “more than ever,” and the drop in unemployment by half since the end of the “Great Recession,” citing that as evidence of economic progress in the state and of his new emphasis on evening the playing field between upstate and downstate.

He also spoke about how companies in the broadband business began by tapping areas “in the highest concentrations of people and businesses,” which would give them the highest return on their investment – not the best policy for broad-based broadband development of upstate.

“So the places that were doing well got the broadband, and those that weren’t fell behind,” he said.

Speaking of rural communities without broadband, he said “So we put a 30-pound pack on their backs and said ‘run the race.’”

Sen. Patty Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, released a statement praising Cuomo's promise within hours of the announcement.

“For a long time now, people in our region have been calling for increased broadband internet access. I am excited about these major steps forward, which will help our businesses, hospitals, schools and other entities operate more efficiently and better connect local people with the rest of the world.”

He said the goals of his program – most notably “100 megabits per second, 100 percent coverage in two years” – were a way to attempt to address the upstate/downstate imbalance by equalizing the opportunity that broadband holds for business and education.

And he said broadband offered people the opportunity to take advantage of the “splendor,” “peace,” and “beauty” of the North Country to do here the kind of work that might have been possible only in a center of more population before now.