STATE OF MAINE, CONNECTME AUTHORITY

Access to high speed internet is a necessity for doing business in a rural state like Maine. It encourages a level playing field and connects Maine to the worlds market place. Rural development initiatives, expanded educational opportunities, wind energy, smart grid and growth of Maines predominant small businesses are reliant on increasing broadband capacity. The ConnectME Authority has taken full advantage of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to expand broadband access to rural areas and to increase digital literacy. This funding will be used to identify broadband in unserved and underserved areas, plan broadband expansion throughout the state, build broadband capacity and increase digital literacy through technical assistance. Four project areas will be utilized to pursue this goal, mapping, planning, capacity building and technical assistance. The broadband mapping project will create the first comprehensive geographic inventory of high-speed Internet services statewide for use in identifying unserved and underserved areas and in planning expansion throughout the State. The broadband planning project will provide benchmarking of uses of broadband, the benefits, the drivers for greater adoption of broadband and the barriers to adoption focused on household and on business establishments in Maine. One particular focus, although not exclusive to the focus area, will be on the telemedicine industry sector. The broadband capacity building project will convene a broadband capacity building task force to manage the creation and implementation of a statewide plan to address broadband challenges. The state will integrate the broadband capacity building activities into existing state initiatives, including the states existing Quality of Place, Mobilize Maine, and Health Information Technology projects. The technical assistance project will expand the Maine Adult Regional Technology Initiative (MARTI), by providing intensive, ongoing training and mentoring in the use of technology in the classroom to 112 adult educators across the state. Given the limited broadband resources in many adult education centers in the state, limited funds will also be available to MARTI classrooms to improve access to broadband and technology tools.

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