The V.I. government has filed an application for millions in federal stimulus dollars to gather data for broadband Internet mapping and planning for the territory, Gov. John deJongh Jr. said Tuesday.
The administration met with all existing broadband providers in the territory and then created a broadband mapping team including the Public Services Commission, Bureau of Information Technology; Water and Power Authority and other government and private organizations to support the project. A company called Stratum Broadband will provide consulting expertise and overall project management.
“The data will be a part of our ongoing engineering process for the rollout of the new broadband facilities in the Virgin Islands as well as part of the support system for the ongoing operation of the new broadband capability,” deJongh said in a Government House statement.
The goals are to add to the National Broadband Map’s data layer input from the Virgin Islands and to gather information to plan for projects geared toward increasing the territory’s broadband capacity, reliability and security and developing a strategy to make it available in homes, public schools, community centers and the like.
“We will meet with stakeholders, assess capability needs, form a technology team to prepare a conceptual approach and prepare a business plan for initial review," deJongh said.
Between $1.8 million and $5.8 million may be available in mapping grants, which would be distributed through the V.I. Office of Economic Opportunity, which oversees all federal stimulus funds in the territory.
