Lake County aims to improve internet access and speeds for more than 250,000 ‘underserved’ residents

More than 250,000 Lake County residents are considered “underserved” by the internet capabilities at their homes, according to the Federal Communications Commission, something that has drawn the attention of members of the Lake County Board early in the new term.

District 15 member Jennifer Clark, D-Libertyville, first noticed what she calls a “widespread lack of access to high speed internet in our community” during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, when many of her Lake County-based students at Carthage College were struggling to complete assignments and attend remote instruction because of internet capabilities that did not match software.

Now, Clark will chair the County Board’s Special Committee on Broadband, formed to examine current speeds in Lake County and plan for how the county can help improve the access, affordability and ability to use the internet for residents in the decades to come.

“The goal here, if we do this right, we are setting up Lake County to have the robust technological infrastructure for the next 30 years,” Clark said. “This is the goal, and it will allow us to be productive, competitive and residents to thrive.”

A map presented Friday from the Lake County Geographic Information System/Mapping Division shows that nearly every municipality and many unincorporated areas of Lake County — from parts of Antioch in the county’s northwest corner to Beach Park in the northeast, then down to southern areas in Hawthorn Woods, Lake Forest and other towns — are underserved or even unserved.

The map shows that an estimated 262,004 people in more than 104,000 households and businesses are underserved, and more than 4,000 people in more than 1,500 households and businesses are unserved. According to FCC standards, underserved connections are speeds under 100/20 megabits per second, while unserved connection speeds equate to coverage under 25/3 megabits per second.

The committee’s vice chair, District 7 member Carissa Casbon, D-Gurnee, has also made access to high-speed internet for county residents a focus in recent months.

During a Financial & Administrative Committee meeting in September, Casbon pleaded for the County Board to help a group of residents from the Hunt Club Farms subdivision in Warren Township who were unable to get high-speed internet access without paying internet service provider Comcast an estimated $400,000 to set up service.

While sympathetic to the subdivision’s problems, committee members determined they did not have the needed leverage to negotiate a connection to the subdivision into the new, 10-year franchise contract that was before the committee for approval.

Casbon said the subdivision’s predicament prompted her to do research on coverage internet service providers offer, and how there are a lot more areas without high-speed internet capabilities than she realized.

Clark alluded on Friday to the County Board needing to invest some funds in conducting accurate research and crafting a long-term plan on high-speed internet, and said she thinks using a slice of American Rescue Plan Act funding will be crucial to ensuring the county is eligible for grants that could be used to help make sweeping investments.

The quality and availability of high-speed internet has also been an increasing focus for the federal government, which enacted the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 and allocated $65 billion to invest in expanding high-speed internet access in areas around the country, including Illinois.

“We are going to have to spend money in order to access all these other grant opportunities,” Clark said. “There are more grant opportunities (than in the presentation), we didn’t want to overwhelm everyone today.”

At the outset, it appears that will is present within the commission, and from other County Board members.

The committee voted to issue a request for proposal for consulting services about broadband in Lake County, and will meet again in early February.

County Board Chair Sandy Hart called the committee’s work “critical” and said she has confidence in staff and the committee to plan improvements because, “the passion is there for this.”

District 9 member Mary Ross Cunningham, D-Waukegan, thanked Clark and Casbon for mobilizing the board to proactively improve high-speed internet service all around the county after noticing problems.

“You’ve got it going for Lake County ... and I appreciate you for that and I will support you,” Cunningham said.

Casbon is set to continue researching and then present findings this spring about the state of internet accessibility, and connectivity resources available to people in her district and around Lake County.

The committee features a pair of Republicans in District 2 member Adam Schlick of Wauconda and District 5 member Kevin Hunter of Ingleside.

Schlick asked what the funding mechanisms could be for funding the consulting services, and assistant county administrator Matt Meyers said staff has found they could use some funds allocated from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Other Democrats on the committee are District 16 member Esiah Campos of Round Lake Beach, District 4 member Gina Roberts of Beach Park and Angelo Kyle of North Chicago.

“With our schools and our kids, as an uncle of four nieces, they are fortunate enough to have high-speed internet,” Campos said. “But a lot of the members in my district, their children do not.”