CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WBOY) — $1.2 billion in federal funding has been allocated to West Virginia to help bring reliable broadband to underserved and unserved areas based on newly updated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadband coverage maps.
“When the first version of the FCC’s national broadband map came out in November 2022, West Virginia’s underserved and unserved data was far off,” according to a release from the office of Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV.).
In response to this inaccurate data, the West Virginia public was encouraged to submit their own data to paint a more accurate picture of the state’s broadband coverage. With data from more than 86,000 new unserved locations and more than 2,400 speedtests, the Broadband DATA Act of 2020 authorized the FCC to update its coverage map, according to a release from the office of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, West Virginia also got the “largest amount of broadband funding awarded to the state to date,” Capito said, $1,210,800,969.85 to be exact.
“Today, not only are we announcing more than $1.2 billion to finally ensure every home in West Virginia is connected to reliable broadband. The maps now show what we knew all along – that West Virginia is one of the least-served states in the country,” Manchin said.
The updated map showed that more than 271,000 serviceable locations in West Virginia do not have broadband access.