Village of Schoharie to add free downtown Wi-Fi access

Mike Forster Rothbart, The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.
·3 min read

May 27—By the end of the summer, the village of Schoharie expects to have free public internet serving its downtown, thanks to $100,000 from a state grant.

"I'm sitting in the village of Schoharie and cell service is pretty spotty," said Julie Pacatte when she answered her phone Thursday afternoon but could not hear the caller at the other end. Pacette is executive director of the Schoharie Economic Enterprise Corporation. "I'm hoping that having community Wi-Fi will help solve this problem," she said.

The Wi-Fi project will provide open internet access along a 3/4 mile stretch of Main Street in Schoharie, from Bridge Street to Prospect Street and perhaps beyond. There are about 400 households and 800 residents in this part of the village.

The project moved forward on May 20, when the Schoharie County Board approved giving the development contract to MIDTEL, a Middleburgh-based telecommunications company. Construction of a mesh system — with antennae mounted on street light poles around the village — is scheduled to begin in June and finish by August. However, there may be delays if supply-chain shortages make equipment unavailable. At the latest, the project should be complete by the end of 2022, Pacatte said.

One potential technical issue is a state requirement that prohibits building infrastructure within a 100-year floodplain, which includes most of downtown Schoharie. The preliminary plan is to install equipment at higher elevations that can distribute the signals to buildings on the lower, west side of Main Street.

This is a first demonstration project in a "digital strategies initiative" for Schoharie County, designed to improve the local economy by upgrading rural telecommunications. A second part of the project will help local businesses adapt to doing online sales and marketing.

SEEC, the Schoharie Economic Enterprise Corporation, is an economic development nonprofit that worked with the county to apply for state COVID assistance. Through the federal CARES Act, the village received Community Development Block Grants totaling $741,000 in 2021 and 2022. Besides $100,000 for the Wi-Fi project, most of the other assistance will go directly to 23 local companies in the form of business digital marketing grants.

"We received more than 30 applications in December; 23 businesses were eligible and ready to participate," Pacatte said. "Unfortunately, we did not have enough grants to go around." $250,000 went to the top applicants. Another $375,000 was awarded to Schoharie County businesses on Monday, May 23.

The COVID pandemic has shown rural businesses that they need to simultaneously be "hyperlocal," focused on serving the needs of their immediate community, and paradoxically also be internet-savvy so they can expand their reach beyond the local region, according to Pacette.

"People wanted to help their neighbors stay in business and to find their livelihoods as much as they could," she said. "Particularly in Schoharie County that had been through a flood 10 years before that, everybody locked elbows and kind of dredged through the water together. And I think we felt that same sentiment during the pandemic."

However, for businesses that can effectively market themselves online, sell goods online or provide services remotely, "geographic boundaries no longer exist," Pacette said.

Mike Forster Rothbart, staff writer, can be reached at mforsterrothbart@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7213. Follow him at @DS_MikeFR on Twitter.