The following email was received today from the NYS Department of Public Service. If anyone is interested in pre-registering for one of the hearings, please provide me with your email address and I will forward it directly to you with the dates and times to pre-register.
Best regards,
Kimberly Smith
Town Clerk
The Public Service Commission invites public comment regarding the Broadband Assessment Program to study the availability, affordability, and adoption of residential and commercial broadband internet access across New York State. The purpose of the study is to help determine what steps are needed to ensure that all of New York’s consumers have access to the internet, as needed.
To ensure full public participation, the Commission will hold a series of virtual public statement hearings from February 23 to March 3, 2022, to solicit input and comments from your community. Any participant not able to register or login to the hearing electronically may participate by phone. Any person wishing to provide a public statement at the hearings must pre-register by 5:00 p.m. the day before the hearing they wish to attend.
Topics for public comment include but are not limited to: broadband internet service locations that offer a speed of at least 25 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream while 1 Mbps upstream is not available; locations that provide an internet download speed of more than 25 Mbps but are less than 100 Mbps upstream; barriers to access of services such as high costs; locations where there is only one broadband internet service provider, and reasons why some consumers prefer to use wireless mobile service instead of the wired broadband service.
Additional details on how to participate at the public hearings and how to submit comments are available in the Notice of Public Statement Hearings. Information about the case can be found on the case page (21-02182) on www.dps.ny.gov website or at www.empirestatebroadband.com.