Broadband Network to Stretch Across Maryland

Speaking in a warehouse filled with orange cables, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, likened Maryland’s newest infrastructure to the B&O Railroad.

The project “has the same power and the same impact as when the great B&O Railroad began …. They began to lay it one rail, one track at a time. From west Baltimore, it headed west. It took the hopes and dreams of the American people,” said Mikulski.

Likewise, the 1,300 miles of cables that will be installed across every county in Maryland, one strand at a time, have a lot riding on them in creating what Gov. Martin O’Malley called a “new economy” through the broadband network. 

O’Malley, Mikulski and other elected officials showed off the photo-op ready spools of cable at an Elkridge warehouse where project materials are stored to kick off the Inter-County Broadband Network. The network was funded by $115 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to ensure that every Maryland jurisdiction is wired with high-speed cables by September 2013.

“In all, we’re going to connect 475 schools, 248 police and emergency centers, 52 libraries, 60 community colleges, six universities and countless numbers of businesses,” said O’Malley.

The governor said the technology is needed to spur the economy.

“We require a new type of infrastructure for the new economy,” he told the crowd of approximately 100. “There is no government program as important as a job, and this infrastructure allows our businesses to be competitive, to open up opportunities abroad and at home, and to create jobs here in Maryland.”

Rep. John Sarbanes, D-MD, said the broadband network represented not only human capital infrastructure by connecting people but also civic infrastructure.

“The way to rebuild America is by investing in infrastructure,” he said.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman—whose office applied for the grant that got the project rolling—offered an example.

“If our 9-1-1 center went down, right now our folks get in their cars and scramble down to our backup center while police officers answer calls,” said Ulman. “In the meantime, we could snap our fingers and Anne Arundel County dispatch could answer: ‘Howard County 9-1-1, how can I help you?’ That’s the power of this …. In emergencies, it’s absolutely critical.”

Ulman added that the project will save a minimum of $28 million statewide because  counties won’t need to lease lines for communication; all cables that are part of the broadband network will be county-owned.

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who said his jurisdiction has already made headway installing cables, noted that the benefit will be evident in his area within months. “It will save us millions of dollars a year,” said Kamenetz.

“We think it’s an example of government spending done right,” said Lawrence Strickling of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the agency overseeing the federal grant. “It’s the only one of our grants that covers every county in a state—an amazing accomplishment.”

The project will take two years, or the funds expire after September 2013.

Construction began in Howard County last month with a groundbreaking in Columbia.

Harford County Executive David Craig said that his county already had much of the broadband network laid out but the new cables will expand its reach and enable different lines to connect. In some areas on the Eastern Shore and in western Maryland, broadband access is nonexistent.

Track the project on http://www.mdbroadbandmap.org/map/.