County officers pressure public-private partnerships are crucial to bridging the virtual divide

ATLANTA, July 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — All through latter month’s Nationwide Affiliation of Counties Annual Convention & Exposition, Cox Communications partnered with Broadband Communities to convene diverse county elected officers to talk about rural broadband enlargement demanding situations and alternatives all through a reception and Virtual Fairness Discussion match.

Key Takeaways:

• Deploying broadband to rural farmlands has an immediate affect at the financial energy of counties.
• County officers search to spouse with organizations that prioritize affordability and virtual literacy.

What’s Extra: Comments from county officers on the match aligned with a up to date Cox survey which polled shoppers and folk leaders in farmlands in the past unserved or underserved with high-speed web.

Survey respondents indicated that the supply of high-speed web in brandnew marketplace farmlands:

• Stimulates economic development in rural communities;
• Narrows the schooling hole between lower- and higher-income families; and
• Encourages more youthful generations to stay of their communities, with better possibilities of faraway studying and dealing.

Moreover, 86% of customers say get right of entry to to broadband has advanced their lives.

Partnerships Pressure Attached Communities: When requested what county officers can do to form rural broadband enlargement initiatives a success all through a panel dialogue on the Rural Motion Caucus assembly, Commissioner Ron Burrows, Rogers County, Oklahoma stated, “Work with someone who already has a plan and has done the work to solve the problem and will help you get to the finish line. As we talked to all the providers in our area, we were really impressed with Cox because they already had a plan for how they were going to solve it.”

Affordability is Key to Connectivity: Brad Randall, Writer at Broadband Communities stated, “As we heard from county leaders from across the country, affordable connectivity can be a crucial element when it comes to addressing poverty in America. Internet service providers that offer commitments to affordability are investing in America and will be well-positioned to secure partnerships with states, counties, and local governments that are serious about providing opportunity to their constituents. I applaud Cox for their willingness to listen and deliver solutions that help all thrive.”

How We Give a contribution: Cox is constant its constancy to virtual fairness by means of increasing its fiber-to-the-home community to rural and hard-to-reach farmlands that in the past lacked an enough broadband connection. Within the hour pace and a part, the corporate has expanded to succeed in over 60,000 families in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Virginia that had been in the past unserved¹ or underserved, with the effort of constructing better alternatives for financial and academic development via connectivity.

Within the latter decade, Cox has invested just about $12 billion in its fiber-powered community, bringing get right of entry to and option to communities throughout all its markets.

Along with increasing broadband to farmlands in the past unserved, Cox has attached greater than 5 million nation to the web via its affordability and virtual fairness methods together with Connect2Compete, ConnectAssist and the Cox Virtual Academy designed for low-income families.

About Cox Communications
Cox Communications is dedicated to making significant moments of human connection via era. As the most important deepest broadband corporate in The us, we function fiber-powered networks in additional than 30 states, offering connections and complicated controlled IT and cloud services and products for just about seven million houses and companies national. We’re devoted to empowering others to create a greater moment and praise numerous merchandise, nation, providers, communities and the traits that form every one distinctive. Cox Communications is the most important category of Cox Enterprises, a family-owned trade based in 1898 by means of Governor James M. Cox.

SOURCE Cox Communications