No, the Livingston County Board of Supervisors decided that it would be best to support public-private partnerships to expand broadband service offerings.

Empire State Development’s ConnectALL grant program called the Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) awarded funding for an open access network in Livingston County. The County will own the physical infrastructure for the broadband network fibers and internet service providers utilize these fibers to offer services to consumers.

The MIP project is designed to build off of Empire’s existing fiber backbone that traverses the entire County. Empire will participate in the initial deployment, assume responsibility for the customer installations, outage response and repair of the network, billing and collections and customer service. Livingston County will ensure the Service Level Agreements (SLA) for network performance such as uptime, speed, latency, packet delivery, jitter and other material network performance metrics.

The best way to find out progress on a particular project is to Click this link to check availability.

Livingston County solicited a request for proposals and partnership on the USDA ReConnect grant application. Empire Access was the selected internet service provider for this partnership. Livingston County has provided match and seed capital for the effort.

As part of the public-private partnership, Empire Access will own and operate hundreds of miles of a fiber optic network that will offer reliable, high-speed internet access to the County’s most underserved and unserved areas. Upon completion, household, farm, business and school addresses on the network will have access to 1 gigabit-level internet service. The fiber-to-the-premises network will be capable of high-speed internet services depending on the need of the customer.

The Light up Livingston initiative has constructed a fiber network across Livingston County through multiple phases. The first phase utilized the New York State Broadband Program to construct a network owned and maintained by Armstrong Telecommunications. The second phase built a fiber network with Reconnect grant funding which is owned and maintained by Empire Access. The third phase is funded by the Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) and will fund the construction of an open access fiber network owned by Livingston County.

The MIP fiber infrastructure will be "open-access", meaning it can be used by multiple ISPs to deliver internet service over the County's fiber lines, rather than being closed off for use by only one company. This model will promote competition and choice for residents, allowing multiple ISPs to offer service over the same public fiber infrastructure. The completed infrastructure will connect to Southern Tier Network and enable a connection with existing fiber lines along the New York State Thruway to help provide future proof network technology, resilience and sustainability.

Fiber optic technology uses strands of pure glass to transmit data via light waves. Fiber is the best choice for digital communications, such as high-speed internet and digital TV, and capable of much greater bandwidth than other technologies. Fiber to the home is a solution for the future of technology.

The Light Up Livingston initiative is a phased approach where the county is leveraging grant opportunities as they become available. Local county funds were used as a required match to the USDA ReConnect grant. The Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) grant did not have any local match funding requirements.

Light Up Livingston has several phases and each goes through design, permitting, and construction before service can be available to residents. Please use the Check Availability Page for more details.

Armstrong Telecommunications has nearly completed installation for the New York State Broadband Program in the Towns of Nunda, Ossian, Portage, and West Sparta. For more information visit: http://armstrongny.com/Home/Map

Empire Access and Livingston County partnered on the ReConnect grant program, for an update on their schedule, locations and pricing visit: www.empireaccess.com/livingston-county

Typically, after expressing interest in signing up for service customer service representatives will get in touch with you to finalize your sign up and schedule your installation date. Next, construction technicians will run the outside fiber line to your home or business before your scheduled installation date. Finally, on the scheduled installation date, a technician will arrive at your home or business to install equipment inside.

For more information on the Light Up Livingston Initiative, please fill out or contact form with as much detail as possible on the home page.