JEFFERSON COUNTY - When it comes to internet speeds, the whole of Jefferson County is considered unserved by the Nebraska Broadband Office – bogged down by internet download speeds lower than 25 megabytes per second. 

But that could change over the next couple of years now that Nebraska’s statewide BEAD initiative begins its deployment phase at the start of this calendar year. BEAD stands for Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment, and this statewide program could help bring more reliable internet to unserved areas across Nebraska. 

Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock reported at the county board’s weekly meeting this week that he was one of about 50 county board chairs from across the state that attended the latest NACO chair conference in Kearney, where the group was given a presentation by Patrick Haggerty, the state’s broadband director.  

Haggerty gave the group a BEAD progress report, which has defined 133 “Project Areas” in need of expanded service across the state. There are nearly 800 thousand Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs) across the state, and close to 30 thousand of those can be refitted with more stable internet through BEAD. Many of those BSLs are in Southeast Nebraska, nearly all of which is considered unserved by the NBO, meaning internet download speeds are consistently under 25 megabytes per second and upload speeds below three mbps – that's the group’s lowest classification. 

“After they actually go through the deployment from this round of BEAD, we should be close to if not at 100 percent of service to all of these Broadband Serviceable Locations,” Schoenrock said this week. 

There are identified BSLs at addresses across Jefferson County – Daykin, Jansen, Steele City, Gilead, Alexandria, and all throughout Fairbury – all areas eligible for a total of more than 400 million dollars of federal money ticketed for the state’s initiative. 

And that money would be used to help unserved and underserved areas across Nebraska literally get up to speed with their better-equipped counterparts, which unsurprisingly are concentrated around the state’s more urban areas.  

“It for sure won’t all be high-speed fiber, there’s going to be some people that will rely on either satellite or wireless technology, but the good news is that those technologies have increased dramatically in their ability to provide those speeds,” Schoenrock said. “So even though not everybody will have fiber, they should still be able to attain the projected speeds.” 

Areas to the west of Jefferson County like Hebron and to the east like Beatrice are considered underserved by the Nebraska Broadband Office, meaning their internet speeds are a bit faster and more reliable but not as fast as they are in other areas – to be classified as fully served by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, download speeds need to consistently chart at 100 mbps and upload speeds at 20. 

The NBO’s stated goal is “to utilize the federal funding to connect both unserved and underserved locations.” After two years of planning and preparation, the NBO officially began its deployment phase at the start of the calendar year, and plans to continue to roll out this service over the course of the next few years and into 2029.