One-Maryland Inter-County Broadband Network (ICBN)

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

After the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), many counties across the country began to receive grants from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) established by the Federal Government. This program provides counties with money directed towards building broadband networks to increase connectivity, particularly in rural areas. The state of Maryland received a $115 million grant from BTOP, with Howard County securing $72 million of the funds. With the money from this grant, Howard County started their One-Maryland Inter-County Broadband Network (ICBN) program. A collaborative effort between multiple counties, communities, and private businesses, Howard County is seeking to provide higher quality, lower cost broadband connectivity to key anchor institutions and community partners such as libraries, public schools, colleges, community centers, and public housing. ICBN exists to facilitate public safety interoperable communications, reduce operational costs for all government communications, serve as a catalyst for economic development, and encourage public-private partnerships through open access, dark fiber availability. When computers are networked together under ICBN, they are interconnected by communication channels that allow for a sharing of resources and information. The ICBN will allow computers from a myriad of hospitals, schools, public-safety operations, and libraries to be networked together – something that they are not able to do with the current bandwidth and cost-restraints they are under. Cloud computing is another technology that will further innovation, giving businesses and families reliable and easy access to virtually infinite storage. Currently, the ICBN is in its engineering and construction phase. However, once completed, each ICBN jurisdiction is expected to save more than $28 million annually, as the current infrastructure is antiquated and costly. For instance, Howard Community College will be able to eliminate the high costs of network services between the Laurel College Center and the other campuses of the Howard and Prince George’s community colleges and devote more resources to education. Being that the cost of this project is paid for by a $72 million federal grant, the county will benefit greatly from the construction and implementation of the One-Maryland Inter-County Broadband Network.