Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Broadband topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Nevada County broadband committee maps gaps, cites BEAD awards and service ‘impaired’ locations
Summary
Danny Stewart of the Nevada County Broadband Office told the quorum court the county identified roughly 700–710 locations needing service; federal program awards assigned different providers to many of those sites, and the committee flagged about 10 locations as likely permanently impaired.
Danny Stewart, co‑facilitator of the Nevada County Broadband Office, told the Nevada County quorum court on March 10 that county mapping and federal grant awards have left a mix of served, ‘‘underserved’’ and unserved locations across the county.
"A substantial amount of the county has broadband right now," Stewart said, but added that "there's some areas in the county that still have nothing. There's a lot of areas that are underserved and unserved." He said the county identified about "700–710 locations" that required evaluation under recent federal broadband programs and that a national rollout allowed multiple technologies to compete for the same locations.
The committee's review, as presented by Stewart, attributed many of the identified locations to three types of outcomes: providers funded to build fiber or fixed infrastructure, locations likely to be served by satellite programs, and a small set judged 'impaired' because no current provider plan appears feasible. In the presentation Stewart summarized provider awards reported to the committee: "SpaceX and Starlink was awarded 64 locations in the county; Amazon Kuiper was awarded 3; Brightspeed was awarded 644" (transcript spellings and firm names vary in the packet).
Why it matters: federal programs such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and related broadband funding streams use block‑level mapping to allocate money. Stewart told the court the county's work aimed to ensure accurate mapping so grant dollars reach unserved locations rather than being split by census‑block anomalies.
Stewart detailed three outcome groups the committee uses: roughly 10 locations the county considers likely to be "permanently impaired," 51 locations judged likely to be served by near‑neighbor builds, and others that are in play depending on provider defaults or second‑round funding. He noted defaults by providers on ARPA/BEAD‑related awards nationwide and said the county is awaiting possible second‑round funding to pick up those locations.
County officials asked procedural questions about the state broadband office map and the committee's public materials; Stewart pointed citizens and members to the county broadband web page and the state map link in the packet for interactive lookups.
Next steps: Stewart and the broadband committee plan continued monitoring of provider builds, follow up on defaulted awards, and public outreach so residents can confirm their status on the state broadband map. The court did not take a formal vote on policy after the presentation.
Ending: The committee chair thanked Stewart for the report and encouraged members to attend a regional "State of the Southwest" event presenting broadband and economic development topics.
