New York State is investing slightly over $670M in expanding access to high-speed broadband through the New New York Broadband Program. The State is defining high speed as 100 Mbps or better with a minimum of 25 Mbps or better in some of the more rural areas.  All of the funding has been granted to providers with network build-outs to be completed by the end of 2019 and customer installations using the grant funds to be completed by the end of 2021. In order to meet its goal of universal access to high-speed broadband, the state approved the use of HughesNet to connect roughly 72,000 households in the state with satellite service. 

In conjunction with the announcement of the New NY Broadband Program in January, 2016, the PSC approved the merger of Time Warner/Charter. One of the conditions of the merger required Spectrum to expand its network to an additional 145,000 households by May, 2020. In July, 2018, the PSC revoked its approval of the merger, charging that by claiming customer connects in cities, Spectrum was not meeting its build-out targets for the rural parts of the state. The PSC is currently ‘negotiating’ with Spectrum and assuming that the PSC allows Spectrum to remain in the state, we’ll have to see if Spectrum agrees to include more rural households in its build-out plans.