News

December 11, 2009

By Andy Vuong
The Denver Post

Rate lower in rural areas

High-speed Internet service is available to 97.5 percent of Colorado households, but access in rural communities falls far below that mark, according to a new state-commissioned report.

While almost every household in metro Denver can subscribe to broadband service, 15 mostly rural counties have availability of less than 80 percent, the report states. Custer County, a community of roughly 4,000 residents about 50 miles west of Pueblo, has the lowest rate at 56 percent.

"The (statewide) percentage is greater than we would've expected," said Dara Hessee, chief of staff for Gov. Bill Ritter's Office of Information Technology. "It's clearly driven by the urban centers of the state."

The Colorado legislature commissioned the state's first-ever broadband-mapping project to understand service availability and help officials determine steps to increase high- speed Internet adoption.

"Gov. Ritter feels that everyone should have broadband availability — it's sort of considered the electricity of the 21st century," Hessee said.

Funded with $300,000 in public and private donations, the report considered download speeds of at least 768 kilobits per second as high-speed Internet service. That's about half as fast as the 1.5 megabits-per-second service available to most Qwest customers in the metro area. Comcast subscribers in metro Denver, for the most part, receive speeds of 12 megabits per second. The report used 2000 census data for household figures and based service availability on information collected from Internet providers such as Qwest and Comcast.

Chuck Ippolito, information-technology director for Custer County, said the county's ranking wasn't a surprise, given the area's mountainous terrain and limited population.

"There are still areas that don't have telephone lines," Ippolito said. "Unless (service providers) know they're going to have a bunch of customers in that area, it's just not cost-effective."

AT&T state president Bill Soards said one step Colorado could take to increase availability would be to eliminate a tax on broadband equipment.

"In Colorado, companies could be paying upward of 6 percent on broadband equipment, between state sales tax, municipal sales tax and local county sales tax," Soards said. "And when 24 other states don't charge that tax, it just puts Colorado at a competitive disadvantage."

Still, high-speed Internet is more widely available in Colorado than it is in other states that completed mapping projects this year with the same vendor, Connected Nation. Tennessee is at 90.5 percent availability; Minnesota, 92 percent; and Ohio, 95 percent.

The Colorado project didn't collect data on broadband adoption. It includes a website, connectcolorado.org, that residents can use to find out about services that are available in their area.

Colorado recently received $2.1 million in federal stimulus grants to further its broadband studies. A two-year, $1.6 million grant will be used for additional data collection and verification and mapping activities. A five-year, $500,000 award will go toward community outreach and identifying barriers to broadband adoption in select areas.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_13973229#ixzz0ZOqdMh0x

December 2, 2009

by The Associated Press
KDVR-TV

DENVER (AP) — A new study estimates about 97 percent of Colorado households have high-speed Internet service available without an extraordinary commitment of resources, but access is significantly less in rural areas.

The Governor's Office of Information Technology and a subsidiary of the broadband advocacy group Connected Nation have been mapping broadband availability across Colorado, before working to expand access to it.

They said Wednesday that while nearly all Denver households have broadband access, at least 20 percent of households in 15 more rural counties like Crowley and Saguache can't get it.

The state is receiving $2.1 million in federal stimulus money to help gather more data and to map priority areas for broadband deployment.

Link to story here.

December 3, 2009

Filed by Ethan Axelrod
The Huffington Post

DENVER - About 97 percent of Colorado households have some high-speed Internet service available without an extraordinary commitment of resources, but access is far less in rural areas, according to a new report.

The Governor's Office of Information Technology and a subsidiary of the broadband advocacy group Connected Nation have been mapping broadband availability across Colorado, before working to expand access.

They said in a report released Wednesday that nearly all Denver households have access to broadband service of at least 768 kilobits per second downstream and at least 200 kbps upstream, but at least 20 percent of households in 15 more rural counties like Crowley and Saguache can't get it.

The report also noted that even those speeds might not be fast enough for some users.

The maps focused on cable, fiber, DSL and wireless platforms for Internet access. The maps didn't show availability of service via satellite, but the report said it's available throughout the state.

Colorado's rugged mountains, the number of second and vacation homes in resort towns, and a lack of infrastructure in sparsely populated areas can pose barriers for some Internet service providers to expand access to high-speed service.

The state is receiving $2.1 million in federal stimulus money to help gather more data and to map priority areas for broadband deployment.

Link to article here.

September 10, 2009
Colorado Springs Business Journal
by Amy Gillentine

Visitors to http://www.connectcolorado.org/ can test the speed of their connections, comment about how broadband has affected their lives and provide consumer feedback. Visitors without broadband access can add their name and address to a database of households that would subscribe if broadband were available.

The state will then try to determine how to deliver broadband access to all residents.

Colorado is one of several states working with Connected Nation to determine availability and support of expansion of broadband Internet access.

Investing in broadband infrastructure can stimulate the local economy and lead to job growth.

Link to article here.

September 10, 2009
Denver Business Journal
By Greg Avery

Colorado will use a website gathering public input to help map where in the state high-speed Internet is available and at what speeds.

The http://www.connectcolorado.org/ website, a joint effort of the state government and the nonprofit group Connected Nation, has launched to help with the broadband mapping project the state first started organizing two years ago.

The website is meant to help verify speeds and augment information about broadband access that the state once hoped to get from telecom and cable TV companies.

Colorado wants the information to eventually determine how to get broadband access — and the economic benefits that flow from it — to areas that lack high-speed Internet.

Michael Locatis, chief information officer of Colorado, in a written statement urged state residents to log in because wiring more of the state with broadband is a financial boost.

“Colorado’s economy depends on a strong technology infrastructure in every region of our state, and this website offers Colorado citizens the opportunity to be an essential part of the data collection process,” he wrote.

Such mapping efforts in other states have slowed when company information lacks the detail to truly know what neighborhoods have high-speed Internet access and which don’t. Connected Nation’s website is supposed to help fill in the gaps in coverage information.

Connected Nation has helped broadband mapping and infrastructure planning efforts in at least nine states.

The nonprofit features players from some of telecom’s biggest companies, lobbying groups and industry associations on its board of directors, and it has raised money from the nonprofit arms of AT&T and power utilities. That has led to questions about the nonprofit’s mapping assistance because it’s collecting data about broadband access that telecom providers already should know.

The federal government’s $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program set aside $350 million to help states pay for broadband mapping projects. It’s not clear whether Colorado intends to seek any of that money.

Link to article here.

September 11, 2009
Denver Daily News

The Governor’s Office of Information Technology has partnered with Connected Nation, a national 501(c)3, to launch a Web site for its comprehensive broadband mapping initiative titled Connect Colorado. The site is designed to assess current broadband availability across the state, highlighting those areas that are presently unserved by a broadband provider. The Web site (http://www.connectcolorado.org/) allows for consumer feedback and broadband validation.

Link to article here.

News about Connect Colorado coming soon!