Committee pushes to finalize citywide broadband access; staff reports progress on fiber grants

Committee members discussed closing Wildwood’s broadband gap and directed staff to include a firm performance expectation in the community-services element of the master plan.

Staff reported roughly 395 households remain unserved after earlier phases of the city’s broadband program and that negotiations and a state broadband funding program (described in the meeting as a BEAD-like round) appear likely to bring fiber to many of those addresses. A planning staff member said the provider under consideration expects to reduce the unserved rate to less than 1% if state approval is obtained.

Why it matters: Committee members framed Internet access as an essential service tied to emergency response, economic development and civic participation. They asked the planning department to include a clear minimum-service expectation in the plan language — for example meeting the then-current FCC broadband benchmark — rather than vague language about “improving” service.

A staff member summarized recent progress: “We were at about 15% without high-speed Internet; that number should shrink down to less than 1% if what I'm seeing from this provider gets approved by the state,” the staff member said. The committee agreed to add a policy that the city’s goal is to ensure citywide broadband meeting FCC guidelines and to consider 100 Mbps down / 25 Mbps up as a baseline in plan language that can be updated with FCC standards.

Members also discussed practical implementation: staff noted many new subdivisions already require fiber-to-the-premises as part of site-specific approvals; committee members asked staff to confirm that new large developments will be required to install fiber and that the plan should explicitly reference minimum broadband performance rather than general phrasing.

Closing: Staff will draft recommended plan language that (1) states the city’s objective for citywide broadband meeting FCC guidelines (and a suggested baseline speed), (2) references fiber-to-the-premises as an expectation in new development, and (3) summarizes current BEAD/state-application status for the committee’s review.