Farm Director, KC Sheperd, is visiting with Oklahoma State University’s Brian Whitacre, about an update on broadband in Oklahoma. Whitacre is on the state’s Broadband Expansion Council, which provides recommendations to the newly formed Oklahoma Broadband Office.
Whitacre said the state recently received some additional broadband funding through the USDA ReConnect Program.
“That went to a couple of cooperatives, really all across the state, but I think the bigger news is that there is a big chunk of money coming late this year into early 2024, and our State Oklahoma Broadband Office just released a map of what they are calling the unserved and underserved locations- the places that really need that broadband infrastructure,” Whitacre said.
Almost 400 million dollars should be released by the end of this year through the Oklahoma broadband office, Whitacre said, and another 800 million is expected to be available in 2024.
“We really are hopeful that all these places without good broadband are going to get them in the coming three to five years,” Whitacre said. “If you look at the actual data on this, it shows that we have about 1.6 million buildings, either residential or business buildings across Oklahoma, and of those, the data shows there are about 150,000 that have no official broadband provider at all, and another 150,000 where the maximum speed is something like 30 megabits per second or 50 megabits per second which is officially ‘broadband,’ but not as good as the 100 megabits per second that we are targeting.”
Overall, Whitacre said the broadband office is targeting about 300,000 buildings over the next five years.
The new broadband map is interactive, so Whitacre said Oklahomans can find their location and see what service looks like in their area. Whitacre urges individuals who see unserved or underserved locations in their county on the broadband map to reach out to their local provider or local electric cooperative to inform them.
“Let them know this money is coming up, so they don’t have to put in the money themselves,” Whitacre said. “The state broadband office is going to be able to fund millions of dollars of broadband infrastructure, and those providers will be the ones to apply for it.”
Whitacre said the biggest obstacle, according to service providers across the state, is going to be the workforce and inflation.
“We already have relatively low unemployment across the state, and now we are going to need to hire all these people not just to go out and actually lay wires and things like that, but to do some of the technical aspects, you know, talking about mapping and all of the planning that goes into this kind of infrastructure,” Whitacre said. “So, the workforce is going to be a big challenge. We think that is going to increase the cost of some of our projects.”
Whitacre said he is positive about what is ahead and is looking forward to opportunities to hire recent graduates and bring more jobs into the state.
