Syracuse, NY officials say the city’s community-owned broadband network Surge Link continues to dramatically expand two years after the network first launched, bringing affordable broadband access to the city of 145,000 – with a particular eye on helping the city’s disadvantaged.

A recent update from the city states that the network now serves more than 9,200 households in Syracuse, located in central upstate New York. The latest expansion brought the service into the city’s Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Prospect Hill and Hawley-Green neighborhoods in early July.

The Surge Link initiative is part of a broader $15 million investment into fixed-wireless access broadband infrastructure into a city traditionally left underserved by giant regional telecoms.

A lack of competition between dominant regional monopolies Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon has resulted in spotty access, high prices, and slow speeds.

Image

The lion’s share of Surge Link’s latest expansion was made possible by a $10.8 million grant from the New York State ConnectALL initiative, a multi-layered billion-dollar project to dramatically boost high speed Internet access across the state leveraging a series of new grant programs, education initiatives, broadband mapping improvements, and digital equity proposals.

Syracuse, NY officials say the city’s community-owned broadband network Surge Link continues to dramatically expand two years after the network first launched, bringing affordable broadband access to the city of 145,000 – with a particular eye on helping the city’s disadvantaged.

A recent update from the city states that the network now serves more than 9,200 households in Syracuse, located in central upstate New York. The latest expansion brought the service into the city’s Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Prospect Hill and Hawley-Green neighborhoods in early July.

The Surge Link initiative is part of a broader $15 million investment into fixed-wireless access broadband infrastructure into a city traditionally left underserved by giant regional telecoms.

A lack of competition between dominant regional monopolies Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon has resulted in spotty access, high prices, and slow speeds.

Image

The lion’s share of Surge Link’s latest expansion was made possible by a $10.8 million grant from the New York State ConnectALL initiative, a multi-layered billion-dollar project to dramatically boost high speed Internet access across the state leveraging a series of new grant programs, education initiatives, broadband mapping improvements, and digital equity proposals.

Syracuse, NY officials say the city’s community-owned broadband network Surge Link continues to dramatically expand two years after the network first launched, bringing affordable broadband access to the city of 145,000 – with a particular eye on helping the city’s disadvantaged.

A recent update from the city states that the network now serves more than 9,200 households in Syracuse, located in central upstate New York. The latest expansion brought the service into the city’s Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Prospect Hill and Hawley-Green neighborhoods in early July.

The Surge Link initiative is part of a broader $15 million investment into fixed-wireless access broadband infrastructure into a city traditionally left underserved by giant regional telecoms.

A lack of competition between dominant regional monopolies Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon has resulted in spotty access, high prices, and slow speeds.

Image

The lion’s share of Surge Link’s latest expansion was made possible by a $10.8 million grant from the New York State ConnectALL initiative, a multi-layered billion-dollar project to dramatically boost high speed Internet access across the state leveraging a series of new grant programs, education initiatives, broadband mapping improvements, and digital equity proposals.

Syracuse, NY officials say the city’s community-owned broadband network Surge Link continues to dramatically expand two years after the network first launched, bringing affordable broadband access to the city of 145,000 – with a particular eye on helping the city’s disadvantaged.

A recent update from the city states that the network now serves more than 9,200 households in Syracuse, located in central upstate New York. The latest expansion brought the service into the city’s Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Prospect Hill and Hawley-Green neighborhoods in early July.

The Surge Link initiative is part of a broader $15 million investment into fixed-wireless access broadband infrastructure into a city traditionally left underserved by giant regional telecoms.

A lack of competition between dominant regional monopolies Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon has resulted in spotty access, high prices, and slow speeds.

Image

The lion’s share of Surge Link’s latest expansion was made possible by a $10.8 million grant from the New York State ConnectALL initiative, a multi-layered billion-dollar project to dramatically boost high speed Internet access across the state leveraging a series of new grant programs, education initiatives, broadband mapping improvements, and digital equity proposals.

Syracuse, NY officials say the city’s community-owned broadband network Surge Link continues to dramatically expand two years after the network first launched, bringing affordable broadband access to the city of 145,000 – with a particular eye on helping the city’s disadvantaged.

A recent update from the city states that the network now serves more than 9,200 households in Syracuse, located in central upstate New York. The latest expansion brought the service into the city’s Valley, Skunk City, Washington Square, Northside, Prospect Hill and Hawley-Green neighborhoods in early July.

The Surge Link initiative is part of a broader $15 million investment into fixed-wireless access broadband infrastructure into a city traditionally left underserved by giant regional telecoms.

A lack of competition between dominant regional monopolies Charter (Spectrum) and Verizon has resulted in spotty access, high prices, and slow speeds.

Image

The lion’s share of Surge Link’s latest expansion was made possible by a $10.8 million grant from the New York State ConnectALL initiative, a multi-layered billion-dollar project to dramatically boost high speed Internet access across the state leveraging a series of new grant programs, education initiatives, broadband mapping improvements, and digital equity proposals.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.

Recent Trump administration changes to a massive federal broadband grant program are lowering standards for broadband access, shifting the focus away from affordability and equity, and potentially redirecting billions of dollars away from future-proof fiber networks toward slower, more expensive satellite options that don’t seem likely to fix U.S. broadband woes.

But states, worried about losing an historic round of broadband grants, may be too intimidated to be up front about the potential downside of changes the Trump administration calls “the benefit of the bargain.”  

That’s the early story coming out of states like Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas, where state leaders are being forced to dramatically revamp billions of dollars in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant planning.

In all three states the changes have introduced new delays and lowered last mile quality control standards. But an early look at the revamped bidding process in all three states shows that billions of dollars are likely being redirected away from locally-owned fiber networks to billionaire-owned low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options insufficient to the task.