Wireless

Clarke County Wireless

The Clarke County Wireless Committee has been working for the last 3 three years to develop and implement a program in Clarke County to deliver affordable Internet service to all citizens of the County.  We hired a company to do an extensive county-wide assessment and we now have the completed report.   This report showed us that we would need approximately $5 million to complete the project.  With this money we would be able to offer Internet services to almost 100% of the County's residents.  We began to search for funding opportunities.

In recent months, we partnered with the Southwest Alabama Community Foundation, along with several other counties, to apply for a stimulus grant.  We were not one of the projects chosen to receive money through the first round but we will continue to apply.

Recently we were asked to join the Connecting Alabama Initiative. This initiative was started in 2008 by Governor Riley and has since been moved to the ADECA office.  Danny D'Andrea and Sharon Jones have been invited to join the Initiative through a Regional Broadband Team consisting of members from 10 counties.  The first meeting will be held in late October.

The purpose of the Connecting Alabama Initiative is to establish a plan to create a public and private partnership to promote affordable high-speed Internet services to all Alabamians.  The goals are to identify the Internet demand and locate suppliers.  During the initial meeting, there will be a discussion of the needs within each county and priorities for each region will be determined.  After the priorities have been determined, a customized plan will be produced.  This plan will be used to request public and private funds to implement the program.

Even though we have been unsuccessful in obtaining funds for this project, we continue to move forward and continue to advocate for the needs of Clarke County.