ALBANY COUNTY — With the recent announcement of broadband coming to unserved areas of Albany County, some left-out residents are asking: What about us?

In letters to the Enterprise editor this week, Knox resident Catherine Klatt and, separately, members of the Knox Broadband Committee write that the paper’s recent article headlined “$3.2M to bring broadband to last of unserved in Albany County,” wasn’t accurate. 

“Knox is not included,” Klatt wrote.

Asked why that was, Mary Rozak, spokeswoman for the Albany County Executive’s Office, told The Enterprise, “Knox along with a number of other municipalities in the northern half of the county were originally part of our community partnership program.” 

But, Rozak said, Empire State Development determined it would rather use the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program to cover the top half of the county and removed those municipalities, including Knox, from the county’s application.

Rozak pointed The Enterprise to the state’s ConnectALL Deployment Program, which is still a draft proposal that has to be approved by the federal National Telecommunications and Information Administration but would supply broadband access to nearly 500 Albany County addresses — 354 by fiber and 141 by satellite.

A late September announcement from Governor Kathy Hochul’s office said that the deployment would “address nearly 100 percent” of the state’s “documented unserved and underserved locations.”

As for when or if the deployment will be approved, neither the governor’s office nor the NTIA responded to requests from The Enterprise for comment. 

Residents may currently go to https://mapmybroadband.dps.ny.gov/ and enter their address to determine if their home is considered “underserved” or “unserved.”  The site will then provide a list of available satellite providers even for addresses currently determined to be unserved.