The state Senate is moving a bill that would raise the state’s minimum acceptable download speed to 6 megabits despite concerns from Frontier Communications.
The Senate Transportation Committee passed the bill Wednesday after discussing it for more than an hour.
The state Broadband Deployment Council supports the bill. The council says it can’t get internet providers interested in expanding service in areas because the state’s current internet speed requirement is just a little more than dial-up speed.
Broadband Deployment Council Chairman Jim Martin told the committee the nation is moving toward much faster internet service.
“Today in the U.S. 90 percent of American homes have access to 10 meg or higher, in West Virginia our average speeds are 1 to 2 meg,” Martin, who is the president and CEO of CityNet, told the committee.
Frontier Communications President Dana Waldo has argued increasing the speed requirement will help residents who already have internet not those who don’t. Waldo says there are currently 85,000 households in the Mountain State that don’t have broadband service.
The transportation committee did add an amendment to keep the unserved areas of the state the top priority for expansion. An amendment to increase the speed to 4 megabits was defeated.
Frontier consultant Billy Jack Gregg warned the committee the bill may hurt many residents.
“We could have the unintended consequence of leaving all of these unserved areas in all these counties unserved as they are today,” Gregg said.
Frontier released the following statement to MetroNews Wednesday afternoon:
“We are seeing support among legislators for residents who have no service, and we continue to support focusing on areas that have no service.
We will continue to monitor the legislation because we are concerned about the possible unintended consequences of a complicated bill.”
The bill next goes to the Senate’s Government Organization Committee.