Berrien County’s broadband committee is drafting a letter of support for internet service providers applying for new grants to roll out high-speed service to the remaining properties in the area that lack it.

Berrien County Commissioner Teri Freehling this week updated colleagues on the latest with an effort to secure Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program grants for those ISPs. Those funds are coming from the federal government to the Michigan High Speed Internet office, and the deadline for ISPs to apply for grants is April 9.

Freehling tells us Berrien County’s role in pursuing these BEAD grants differs from its role with the previous ROBIN grants.

“It is a little bit different in that there is no monetary ask from the ISPs,” Freehling said. “They’re simply asking for letters of support. And so that is a little bit different, but it’s still a competitive grant, and we want to show those who are scoring the grant applications that there’s a lot of support within Berrien County.”

Freehling said five ISPs are seeking support, and BC Bit, the broadband committee, is working with municipalities to write letters of support.

New FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been critical of the BEAD program, but Freehling says there’s nothing that can be done locally about that.

“We’ve not heard anything from the state that they’re pausing, and so we’re going to continue as the funding is continuing to be available.”

Freehling says the county can only go about doing everything it can to help expand broadband to all properties.

There are about 2,600 still unserved in the county. The areas with the highest number of unserved properties are Lake Township, followed by Buchanan Township, Chikaming Township, and Niles Township.