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Jackson County committee authorizes letters of support for BEAD broadband applications
Summary
The General Government Committee voted unanimously to authorize letters of support for multiple broadband providers pursuing BEAD funding to expand high-speed service to nearly 13,000 eligible locations in Jackson County.
Jackson County’s General Government Committee on March 10 voted unanimously to authorize letters of support for multiple internet providers applying for federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) grant funding.
The action clears the way for Comcast, 123-Net, Midwest Energy & Communications (MEC), Frontier and other vendors to include county support as they finalize BEAD applications due April 9. IT staff said the combined proposals would address almost all of the county’s roughly 13,000 eligible locations.
Committee members said backing multiple applicants was intentional. “We’re actually looking at multiples,” IT staff member Ben Sherritt told the committee, adding that overlapping proposals reduce the risk of coverage gaps if a single vendor’s engineering does not reach all areas. Sherritt said one proposal would include nearly 1,100 miles of fiber within the county.
Why it matters: BEAD is a federal program that allocates funds to expand high-speed broadband; county letters count toward state scoring of grant applications. Committee members said the letters are for applicants’ intentions to seek funding, not approval of final engineering plans.
Committee action and next steps: The committee approved the staff recommendation to add a fourth vendor (Frontier) to the list of supported applicants and to provide county letters of support. The application window closes April 9; the state will score and decide which projects receive awards.
County officials and committee members discussed the possibility that multiple vendors could be chosen to serve different areas. “Some of them will have an extension of where their existing networks are, and other ones will go into the areas where no one is present,” Sherritt said. Commissioner Plosky said he would notify townships about the vendor names so residents can follow developments.
The committee’s motion passed unanimously. The county will not be endorsing final plans at this stage, only permitting letters that support the vendors’ BEAD applications.
