Organizations ranging from the country’s largest telecom corporations to individual schools and nonprofits were named as recipients of more than $127 million in awards that the State of Maryland disbursed to support broadband access and improvement.
The funds, which Gov. Larry Hogan announced during a Friday press conference in Harford County — which took place at the home of a family that had allegedly benefited from prior state broadband expansion efforts — were distributed as part of Connect Maryland, an initiative of Maryland’s Office of Statewide Broadband that endeavors to bring broadband to every Marylander who wants or needs it.
That problem is especially dire in Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city and the home of an estimated 96,000 households without reliable internet access, but also extends to more rural parts of Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore. The full list of awardees, who received funds according to a variety of sub-categories like educational funding and community-based organizational support, thus reflects the full spread of the state’s urban and rural concentrations.
Still, a significant amount of this funding was concentrated within Baltimore city and the surrounding counties. Here are just a few of the entities from those regions that received major awards:
