Ask Dan Corbin how badly northern Wisconsin needs broadband internet, and he’ll tell you some residents in his town are still using dial-up.
“You got to stop and think,” he said. “What are their options after that?”
The chairman for the Town of Summit said CenturyLink is the main provider of high-speed internet for many residents throughout the region. However, he and other northern Wisconsin leaders say residents have yet to see the expansion of broadband service to rural areas of Douglas County and the City of Superior.
CenturyLink is among providers AT&T and Frontier that received $572 million in federal subsidies under the Connect America Fund through the Federal Communications Commission. The program aims to provide high-speed internet to mostly rural areas with download speeds of at least 10 Megabits per second and upload speeds of 1 mbps.
Providers are set to expand broadband to 95 percent of 230,451 eligible homes and businesses in Wisconsin by 2020. CenturyLink has accepted the largest share of CAF funding with around $332 million set to go toward expanding high-speed internet to more than 129,000 addresses statewide. Read the full story here.
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