From the New York State Dept. of Public Service Broadband Project:

I am sure we are all aware of the increasing importance of broadband. The Covid-19 pandemic has required us to deal with everyday life issues in different ways – virtual school – work from home – increased use of online shopping – telemedicine visit with physicians.

We have been working as a team to identify areas of our county that lack the access to broadband that allows families to connect with school, work, and services.   Working with us is ECC Technologies, a firm that has an extensive history of working with counties, municipalities, and cooperatives to identify and help solve broadband access.

Part of their work with our County is their creation of an Internet site that allows us to collect data about broadband access. Called the Broadband Availability and Adoption Toolset (BAAT), this is a combined effort between ECC and the County to reach all residents. 

The data we obtain from this survey will help us identify those areas most in need.  We are then empowered to meet with the local cable and telephone companies, other potential providers, and even apply for certain state and federal grants to help close these gaps.

You can help! As a County resident, we encourage you to participate by visiting www.CattaraugusBroadband.com and completing the assessment.   In addition, we invite you to forward this link to your family and friends and ask them to participate.  You can also find a link to the BAAT program on our Internet site, our Facebook site and on our Twitter homepage.

The more responses we obtain, the better positioned we are as a County to move forward.  

Thank you for your help in this. Please contact the Department of Economic Development, Planning & Tourism offices if you have any questions about this initiative.