To the Editor:

The Knox Broadband Committee has been working for the past four years to eliminate the digital inequity that exists for 20 percent of the households in Knox.

Digital inequity means that over 200 households in the town of Knox do not have access to broadband and therefore are unable to access the internet to conduct commerce, access online healthcare, take online classes, facilitate banking transactions, maintain social connections, set up security cameras, or have reliable phone service.

In good faith, the Knox Broadband Committee has been working collaboratively with Albany County, New York state, and federal government representatives by facilitating outreach meetings, collecting community feedback, and attempting to resolve data inaccuracies.

Local officials held an event on Oct. 24 to celebrate the announcement of the Albany County rural broadband expansion project. We would like to point out that recent news stories have been inaccurately reporting that this project will bring broadband to the last of the unserved in Albany County.

Unfortunately, the town of Knox was not invited to this event because we were told that we would have to wait for federal funding, which is not guaranteed, and, if approved, would not be completed for several years.

This means, the town of Knox will remain an island with over 20 percent of its households unserved by broadband access, yet all of Knox’s neighboring towns in Albany, Schoharie, and Schenectady counties are already served, or have committed projects in place to connect their unserved households with broadband in the near future.

The Knox Broadband Committee would like to know why, despite all the town’s efforts, Albany County appears to have excluded the town of Knox from its broadband expansion project and does not have a plan to resolve this issue in the foreseeable future.

Thank you for listening,

Laura Murphy

Beth van Bladel

Tom Wolfe

Members

Town of Knox

Broadband Committee

Editor’s note: See related story.