CHARLESTON, W.Va. — What’s coming next in the Mountain State’s journey of progress and expansion of broadband internet following the recently awarded $1.2 billion for that growth– that’s the subject everyone is talking about.
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito was among the leaders within that arena speaking Tuesday at the 2024 West Virginia Broadband Summit in Charleston.
Capito told MetroNews after speaking at the summit Tuesday that the progress toward the deployment and expansion of broadband internet in West Virginia is finally starting to come to fruition.
“I think that schools, education, tourism, business, healthcare, these critical delivery systems, are finally going to get there,” Capito said.
She said on Thursday, congress will be passing another milestone in getting the over $1.2 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD), a bill she voted on and helped formulate for broadband deployment across the state from its very beginnings last year.
Director of the West Virginia Office of Broadband Kelly Workman said the milestone goes along with this year’s theme of the broadband summit, “Where West Virginia Connects.” She said it’s focused on all of the ways the state’s broadband enables West Virginians to connect.
Workman said with that, there’s even more work needed to be addressed to ensure everyone in the state is efficiently connected.
“The main topic today is how do we reach the most underserved areas of West Virginia, those that lack broadband connectivity, they are our highest priority, and we’re focusing on the work that has been accomplished today,” Workman told MetroNews.
Workman said the state has already executed many broadband projects through the American Rescue Plan Act, with 42 of them currently underway in 41counties. She said those projects are in various stages of completion, everything from permitting to design to construction, and some have already been completed.
This means, Workman said, that more and more West Virginians are getting better connected everyday across the grid. However, she went onto to say, the focus now lies in what’s coming next.
Workman said with the $1.2 billion in federal funding that has already been allocated to the state, broadband leaders are focusing on ways the state is executing that funding, and thus far, we seem to be quite ahead of the curve.
“West Virginia is actually the third state in the nation to open up its application for the BEAD funding, we were very successful in getting ahead of other states in the nation in securing the necessary approvals to do that from the U.S. Department of Commerce,” she said.
Capito, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation said progress on this funding cannot come quickly enough, however.
“My frustration is that it has been three years since we’ve passed this bill and government bureaucracy has not moved, but you know, we have to accept where we are, our broadband office has done a great job and Governor Justice has been a big part of that,” Capito said.
In 2022, Capito signed the bipartisan infrastructure bill that would bring hundreds of millions of dollars for broadband deployment in the state.
She has worked to not only advocate for the creation of this IIJA BEAD program, but has also worked to ensure accurate broadband mapping data, such as raising concerns with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the past inaccuracies in their broadband maps.
Capito said the BEAD bill they are currently making progress on should go toward helping to resolve the connectivity issues the state still continues to see in some of its most rural areas.
“We have probably some of the least connected communities, because, there’s not many people there, there’s affordability issues, there’s terrain issues, but this bill actually helps with terrain issues, you get a little bit more for tough terrain areas, hard to reach areas, and so I think this is going to be the key to solving all of those problems,” Capito said.
She said one reason she has been so adamant of a supporter of broadband expansion in the state is that it’s an easily resolvable issue.
“So many of what we deal with in Washington, they’re difficult problems and you’re not sure where the solutions are, but this one has a real solution, and this conference and the one and the $1.2 billion dollars that are coming from the infrastructure bill that I voted for are going to solve these problems,” said Capito.
Workman said since 2019, West Virginia has seen a 300% increase in the number of fiber connections available within the state, according to data from the FCC.
She said broadband is the economic infrastructure of the future that will lead to more job creation, enable businesses already here to continue to grow, and overall, create more opportunities for West Virginians.
“New projects are going on throughout the state daily, we know we have a lot of work to do remaining to serve all of the underserved locations of our state, but know that we’re working hard to reach those most rural areas and invest in funding where it’s needed most,” Workman said.
“Broadband is now essential to West Virginia’s future.”