Comptroller Glenn Hegar Releases Texas Broadband Plan

Provided by Texas Comptroller

(AUSTIN) — Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar these days launched his agency’s Texas Broadband Prepare to guidance the growth of broadband entry for underserved and unserved Texans. The Comptroller’s Broadband Growth Place of work (BDO) crafted the system creating upon the opinions that Hegar and BDO personnel gathered from Texans through 12 public town halls, 60 virtual regional roundtable conversations and extra than 16,000 survey responses.

“We compiled lessons realized from a dozen town corridor visits via my Texas Broadband Listening Tour, study responses, examination of benefits and team recommendations to make this original Texas Broadband Plan,” Hegar wrote in a letter to Texas lawmakers. “An critical, recurring concept has been the reminder that though large-velocity internet may possibly once have been a luxurious, it is now a necessity. Texans need to have responsible, higher-pace connectivity for a huge assortment of prospective purposes which includes public well being, safety, schooling and modern agriculture.

“We made this prepare to be helpful, insightful and audio as a street map for advancement. This is a monumental job, and we ought to operate jointly to attain it. Expanding broadband accessibility will have to have collaboration and partnerships between area governments and personal entities, throughout counties and between people.”

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U.S. Census Bureau details show practically 2.8 million Texas homes, together with 7 million folks, absence broadband obtain. 20-a few percent of Texans have constrained capability to go to digital courses, see a well being treatment service provider from their living space, fill out a task application on the web, commence a business or obtain online marketplaces from their kitchen area table. This difficulty disproportionately influences rural communities, communities of color and very low-earnings people.

Gov. Greg Abbott prioritized growing broadband access as 1 of 5 emergency items for the 87th Legislature in his State of the State deal with on Feb. 1, 2021. The BDO was recognized shortly afterward to award grants, very low-interest financial loans and other economical incentives to grow entry to broadband services across the condition.

The Legislature appropriated $5 million to the Comptroller to administer the system. Also, the American Rescue System Act enacted by the federal government has allotted $500.5 million to Texas for broadband growth, when the Infrastructure Financial investment and Work opportunities Act will allocate at the very least $100 million. It should be mentioned that uncertainty continues to be concerning policies and limitations governing these federal bucks. Texas and other states will need flexibility from the federal govt to best make the most of the assets out there to bridge the digital divide.

Because potential federal funding and added state funding are but to be determined, this first statewide prepare is based on several guiding rules that will make the basis for people upcoming resources.

The approach will become more outlined above time as federal organizations finalize application advice and funding allocations. In addition, additional depth will be included if the Texas Legislature appropriates further condition funding for new packages for broadband growth. Finally, as the BDO results in a much more granular handle-amount broadband availability map, all those facts will enable quantify the electronic divide in ways that are difficult at the drafting of this preliminary approach and will let the BDO to run with better precision moving into the potential.

Following measures are organized into three regions of concentration aimed at maximizing offered funding, supplying for transparency and accountability, and knowledge and overcoming barriers. By early next calendar year, the BDO will:

Build a broadband-focused, federally compliant grant method.

Publish a broadband availability map.

Take care of recurring coordination and communication options throughout stakeholder groups.

“Texas faces a large problem: Connecting over 1 million households to higher-speed broadband, increasing connectivity for around 5.6 million households, bettering affordability of broadband for 3.6 million households and helping 3.8 million Texans with electronic literacy worries,” Hegar stated. “This strategy is a foundation on which the Texas Legislature, the BDO and other stakeholders can make actionable courses.”

For far more details about the Texas Broadband Strategy, go to BroadbandForTexas.com.

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