New NY Broadband Program Audit

Broadband access is increasingly necessary for everyday activities and especially vital for businesses, remote workers, online education and health care appointments, but Empire State Development’s (ESD) New NY Broadband Program has fallen short of its mission to bring universal broadband access to New Yorkers, according to an audit by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The program was created in 2015 to make high-speed (100 megabits per second or Mbps) broadband service “universal” in all but the most remote areas of the state by 2018. ESD’s Broadband Program Office (BPO) manages the program, which was funded with $735 million in mostly state funds, but also included private and federal matching dollars. The money was targeted to bring access to 255,994 unserved and underserved households. Due to delays, as of March 2021, not all of those households had received access to service. Further, nearly one-third of the households that were connected to broadband — 78,690 households in remote areas — were given broadband access using satellite technology, which has a maximum download speed of 25 Mbps and whose signal can be weakened by rain or snow. Although many households were connected, many still were not by the announced 2018 completion deadline, with more than half of the program’s 126 projects delayed by as long as 48 months. The audit contains further key findings and recommendations regarding the program and can be found here.