In 2022, Arlington County, Virginia contracted the Televate team to conduct a broadband study that focused on assessing the current landscape of broadband services, documenting broadband needs throughout the County, evaluating broadband implementation models to select appropriate solutions to address the County’s needs, and developing strategic recommendations and proposed actions and policies to ensure adequate and affordable broadband access.
Project Tasks
As part of the study, the team performed the following tasks:
- Broadband Resource Evaluation and Needs Assessment (The report is publicly available at https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/departments/documents/arlington-county-resource-evaluation-and-needs-assessment.pdf)
- Conducted interviews with approximately 70 stakeholders representing government agencies, building landlords and developers, broadband industry practitioners, business organizations, public schools, safety net organizations and other non-profit organizations, and community advocates
- Conducted resident and business surveys to assess broadband utilization, experiences, needs and gaps
- Assessed current and future broadband bandwidth needs
- Conducted interviews with all major internet service providers operating in the County regarding their broadband network and service offerings
- Documented broadband plans, speeds, and pricing available within the County
- Mapped broadband service availability throughout the County
- Identified gaps in service, including unserved locations, underserved locations and locations that lacked competition
- Reviewed broadband policies and regulations
- Comparative Internet Service Model Evaluation(The report is publicly available at https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/departments/documents/arlington-county-internet-model-evaluation-report.pdf)
- Analyzed infrastructure and cost subsidy models (government owned and operated ISP, county-ISP private-public partnership, providing access to County fiber and conduit) for their ability to improve broadband internet service access for underserved locations
- Identified rough order of magnitude deployment costs, risks, benefits, and implementation considerations for each model
- Broadband Strategic Recommendations (The report is publicly available at https://www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/projects/documents/technology/arlington-strategic-recommendations-final.pdf)
- Developed strategic broadband and digital inclusion recommendations and supporting actions to guide the delivery of reliable, high-speed, and affordable broadband services to underserved communities and to further the County’s digital equity goals
- Documented actionable steps the County could undertake to encourage ISPs to serve the remaining unserved and underserved households, to enhance broadband policies including establishing a broadband equity coordinator, and to integrate the individual County department broadband activities and local CAI into a cohesive effort guided by the coordinator
- Offered a variety of broadband inclusion activities, programs, and next steps to address digital literacy, focused on expanding digital equity to all residents
- Identified budgetary considerations for achieving the County’s broadband objectives, including rough order of magnitude costs based on the current market and best practices
- Highlighted examples of other jurisdictions’ successful broadband infrastructure and digital equity initiatives, and how those strategies could be applicable to the County