The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I think we’re as well positioned as we can be”
Gunnison County and the rest of Region 10 landed a $100,000 grant from the state Office of Information Technology (OIT) to continue planning for improvements to the broadband infrastructure in six Western Slope counties.
The money will allow the technology planning teams from Gunnison, Montrose, Delta, San Miguel, Ouray and Hinsdale counties to hire a consultant to steer all of the gathered information on broadband infrastructure into one document for the OIF to review.
Local technology planning team member David Clayton says, “The governor’s OIT felt that was a needed step to be able to quantify for potential future funding what the regional needs are.”
The first step is to discuss the criteria for hiring a consultant before sending out a request for proposals. Clayton said there are already a few firms waiting in the wings for the criteria to be established.
The grant requires a 20 percent local match, which the members of Region 10 have already collected. Clayton said those counties with planned projects will have the best chance of being a top priority.
Gunnison County Commissioner Phil Chamberland, who also sits on the technology planning team, says, “This regional planning process is going to have multiple parts to it and everyone’s part will look different. But the bottom line is that as a region, if we can have four or five areas that have projects that meet the state’s needs and we have a good regional plan in place, we’ll be in a better position down the road.”
The state legislature passed House Bill 1328 that would repurpose the High Cost Fund formerly used for costly telephone infrastructure and would begin to make that money available for broadband projects in unserved areas of the state.
Now that the general need for better broadband infrastructure has been acknowledged by the legislature, the technology planning team wants to be ready for what comes next.
“I think we’re as well positioned as we can be,” Clayton says.
Chamberland says a redundant Internet connection over Monarch is high on the priority list and getting better access to Crested Butte is also on that list, adding, “We have a lot of ideas we’ve thrown around. But what the group will think to go after in that plan remains to be seen. We’ll stick with what’s our highest priority.”
