Rank: 29
Code: Yellow
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)
Lake County: ARRA award may have been bumpy, but they are well served
Lake County ranks 29 (up 7 points) for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 88.5 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and They have 819 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $7.6 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.
| County | Residential Location Density | number of residential locations | ≥ 100 Mbps Download/20 Mbps Upload Speeds | unserved households | Cost to close gap |
| Lake | 3.1 | 7,161 | 88.56 | 819 | 7616700 |
Lake County received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) award in 2010 to build Fiber to the Home (FTTH). That grant came with a lot of bumps in the road, but got them to 90 percent of the very remote county has access to 100/20 Mbps broadband. It started as a public network; it’s now privately owned but many people are well served. They are one of five counties that has not yet received border to border funding.
Lake had hovered around 93 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up from 2017-2021 but it dipped to 84 percent in 2022. The dip is likely the result of increased granularity of reporting. They have bumped up a little since then.
They seem to be gaining traction; that’s a good thing but not enough proof in the traction to bump them from yellow to green ranking.
Broadband Access:
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 100/20 (2026 goal) | 88.56 | 84.15 | 93.32 | 93.39 | 93.4 | 94.3 | 94.32 |
| 25/3 (2022 goal) | 88.59 | 84.2 | 93.34 | 93.85 | 93.86 | 94.3 | 94.32 |
Grants:
- In 2010, Lake County received an ARRA award of $66.3 million to improve broadband access in their area; about $10 million of the award was an outright grant; the rest was a low-interest loan. There were bumps along the road to getting fiber to the community but now they are well served.
Checklist:
- Find more articles on broadband in Lake County (http://tinyurl.com/j7pu3le)
I am doing the annual look at broadband in each county – based on maps from the Office of Broadband Development and news gathered from the last year. I’m looking at progress toward the 2022 (25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) and 2026 (100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up) and will code each:
- Red (yikes)
- Yellow (warning)
- Green (good shape)
The maps below on the left comes from the Office of Broadband Development interactive map, reflecting data updated on Oct 31, 2023. Red dots represent locations unserved with wireline broadband; the Orange dots represent underserved locations. The map on the right comes from the FCC National Broadband map showing access to wired and licensed fixed wireless access, the darker the color, the greater percentage of broadband coverage.
