Colorado’s efforts to end its rural digital divide could finally happen with the $1 trillion U.S. infrastructure bill, currently awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature. At least $100 million for broadband infrastructure will end up in Colorado, but it could be much more, said Tony Neal-Graves, chief information officer and executive director of the Colorado Office […]
Colorado Office of Broadband
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Students disappeared from classes when they lost internet. A rural Colorado school district’s creativity got them back online.
Marsha Cody calls it a “Christmas miracle.” Two days before Christmas, she got a call from Ciello, one of the local internet providers in the San Luis Valley. As the interim superintendent of the Alamosa School District, Cody was stumped about what to do as several students seemed to disappear each week. They no longer […]
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Can companies like SpaceX finally bring broadband to thousands of rural Coloradans?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is coming to Colorado. Sort of. The California aerospace firm was among the winners in the $9.2 billion federal broadband auction aimed at ending the digital divide in rural America. SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., received a $39.7 million piece of Colorado’s allotment to serve more than 19,000 households or […]
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Northwest Colorado gets a gigabit broadband boost from U.S. Department of Agriculture
The Yampa Valley Electric Association became the first Colorado-based entity to receive a federal ReConnect grant to build better broadband service in rural communities. The rural electric co-op, which currently offers its Luminate Fiber broadband service in Craig and Hayden, received a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture program. It will use […]
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Gigabit internet coming to more rural southwestern Colorado communities
Bit by bit, southwestern Colorado is cobbling together fiber-fast broadband service to get its residents up to speed, or at least to 2015 internet standards, when the Federal Communications Commission updated its benchmark to 25 megabits down and 3 Mbps up. The latest bit came this week as three Colorado counties learned that Utah-based Emery […]
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Colorado will miss its goal to hit 92% broadband coverage in rural areas by June
The state’s goal to get 92% of rural Colorado connected to decent broadband by June will miss the mark. No single factor was to blame — and it had nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic. But an overall reason is that determining the figure is a crapshoot. “There’s no place for us to go […]