‘Connectivity is the new mobility’: Allies for Children has joined with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and Carnegie Mellon University to draft a plan for future broadband investments in the region.

By Ashlee Green

Photo: Agriculture, which is a huge asset to Pennsylvania’s economy, is becoming increasingly reliant on the internet. Courtesy of Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 License.

It’s no secret that southwestern Pennsylvania’s infrastructure is crumbling: The Fern Hollow Bridge collapse on Friday, Jan. 28—the very same day President Biden came to town to promote his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—made this point loud and clear.

But Pittsburgh’s bridges aren’t the only problem. There’s another infrastructure issue in these parts, too—and one that’s less obvious to the naked eye. It’s a lack of equitable, high-speed broadband internet. 

This is why the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) has joined with Northside-based Allies for Children and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to form a consortium called Southwestern Pennsylvania (SWPA) Connected. The goal is to address the gaps in broadband service in the region by developing a “Connectivity Improvement Plan” and, also, to make a statement:

“Connectivity is the new mobility,” Shannon O’Connell, director of SPC’s Office of Communications and Public Engagement, said in an interview last December.

O’Connell spoke with The Northside Chronicle along with Laura Stephany, health policy manager from Allies for Children, and Mara Kelosky, former research and operations manager from Allies for Children, about the present and possible future of broadband investments in the region.

O’Connell’s organization is in charge of creating the region’s long-range (20 to 25 years in the future) plan, which is updated every four years and anticipates the whole region’s needs for transportation and connectivity. SPC’s work, she said, was already heading in the direction of a broadband focus, but the COVID-19 pandemic took the topic’s urgency to a whole new level. Most people, O’Connell said, believe that access to the internet is a right. 

“To participate in today’s world, you have to have [broadband] access. It’s a right, just like clean drinking water, electricity,” O’Connell said. So, until the federal government declares internet connectivity a utility that can be regulated, O’Connell’s organization—and the work of its partners—will focus on identifying internet “dead zones” and cost barriers, then on creating strategies and allocating funding to remedy them.

“We believe it is the first of its kind in the nation to use the existing funding model that we use for traditional ‘boots on the ground’ infrastructure to allocate and direct both state and federal funding to go out and actually build these projects,” O’Connell said.

Specific Projects

What do these projects look like? Sometimes it’s more cell towers in an area. Other times, and especially in urban areas, it’s all about affordability. But over the pandemic, the gaps that the lack of broadband connectivity highlighted were primarily access to education and health care, because both in-person classes and doctor’s visits went remote.

“You don’t want to have a pregnant mom go into a WIC clinic, where she could possibly have been getting exposed to a virus, when she’s already at a risk because of her state,” said Stephany.

O’Connell also brought up agriculture. It’s a sector, she said, that people often don’t think about when they’re discussing high-speed internet. But outside of its urban areas, southwestern Pennsylvania is a heavily agricultural region; farming is a huge asset to the whole state’s economy.

“Agriculture is becoming increasingly automated,” O’Connell said. “The application of robotics and artificial intelligence in the agriculture industry is just booming…To be able to compete in a modern agricultural market, you need to have… connectivity too.”

Where It Stands Now

Aside from Allegheny County, SWPA Connected has conducted research in Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties to try to make sure when the investment in broadband happens, according to Kelosky, “it happens where it actually needs to happen and it really meets the needs of the community.” 

Right now, SWPA Connected is organizing the data they’ve collected from a public survey as well as from various town hall meeting style “community conversations” they held at public libraries, community centers, and even the 4-H building at the Greene County Fairgrounds.

Residents in the above-mentioned counties are urged to talk to their representatives about their internet issues and visit the SWPA Connected website at swpaconnectedhub.org, where they can view interactive maps that show the kind of connectivity that’s available in their area. Feedback can also help to keep big internet providers accountable if people note that the internet is not actually available in an area where providers claim to provide it. 

“We’re always looking for anecdotal information because it helps tell the story around the data,” O’Connell said. “We work in a data-heavy world, but data doesn’t mean anything unless it has context.”

The Bottom Line

Things are rolling now: On Feb. 14, Governor Tom Wolf announced the support for several broadband projects as part of the state’s nearly $14.2 million Community Development Block Grant-CARES Act (CDBG-CV) funding.

“It’ll probably be 8, 10 months, possibly even a year before we’re actually putting any projects down on the ground, but that’s one of the reasons why we are moving very fast,” O’Connell explained. “We knew that this was coming and we want to be ready for when they say ‘OK, now.’

“We are going at a rapid pace right now and we’re operating on multiple fronts at the same time trying to get this thing done.”

The bottom line is this, Kelosky stressed: Internet connectivity opens up opportunities. 

“It really is a matter of equity for children and adults; of education; of information; job opportunities; connecting with loved ones.”