Bourne Will Be Satellite Location For Broadband Session
Bourne residents will have the opportunity to share their concerns and experiences with the area’s broadband services next week. The Massachusetts Broadband Institute has expanded its scheduled Internet For All listening session next week to include a satellite location in Buzzards Bay.
The listening session will take place on Thursday, September 28, from 3 to 5 PM and is a chance for Cape Codders to inform state leaders as to how federal funding should be used to advance digital equity and improve broadband internet services across the commonwealth. The confirmation of an additional satellite location in Bourne was shared after the town’s Cable, Internet & Telecommunications Advisory Committee met yesterday morningon Thursday morning, September 21.
Members of the CITAC committee voiced concerns earlier this month regarding the initial plan for the listening session, which was to hold one session for the entire Cape region in Barnstable. Both the location and late afternoon time frame were criticized by committee members for being inaccessible and inconvenient. Over the past few weeks, the committee has worked closely with both MBI and state Representative Steven G. Xiarhos (R-5th District) to establish an alternative option for Upper Cape residents.
The main in-person session will be held at Barnstable Town Hall as planned, and there will be two additional in-person satellite locations: Bourne Veterans Memorial Community Center in Buzzards Bay and the Oak Bluffs Public Library on Martha’s Vineyard. Residents also have the option to attend online via Zoom.
Registration is required for all attendees, both online and in person. To register for the session, visit broadband.masstech.org.
In June the broadband institute announced its Internet for All Listening Tour, which consists of a series of regional meetings and focus groups that will serve as the basis for developing a plan for how federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds will be expended to achieve universal access and digital equity across Massachusetts. The sessions, which kicked off at the beginning of September in Brockton, allow community members to provide feedback to state leaders to identify digital equity gaps, the reliability of internet access, internet affordability, digital literacy, the need for skills training and making devices available for residents statewide.
The broadband institute will use the feedback to develop statewide broadband plans to create data-driven roadmaps to achieve universal access and digital equity across the state. The efforts will be supported by $147 million in federal funding that Massachusetts received through President R. Joseph Biden Jr.’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which is providing a total of $42 billion across the country with the goal of providing high-speed, affordable broadband to all Americans by 2030.
“These are once-in-a-lifetime funds that can be transformative to Cape Cod, which sorely needs increased investment in its digital infrastructure,” said Steve Smith, Cape Cod Technology Council executive director, in a press release. “I encourage the public to attend the Broadband Institute’s listening session at the end of this month to provide feedback, which will be critical to how the state allocates these funds.”
The Massachusetts Broadband Institute is a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative that works to extend high-speed internet access and availability to communities across the commonwealth.