BROADBAND OUTREACH & AGGREGATION FUND (BOAF)

The enactment of Act 183 of 2004 (Pennsylvania’s telecommunications modernization law) created the Broadband Outreach and Aggregation Fund (BOAF) program.  This program was established by the Commonwealth to provide assistance for outreach programs regarding the benefits, use and procurement of broadband services as well as aggregating customer demand in communities with little or no broadband service.

Through this program, NEPA will undertake the following activities throughout our seven county service region of Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Schuylkill and Wayne:

• Broadband Education & Outreach
• Aggregation of Broadband Demand
• Assist Communities to Obtain Broadband Service

Bona-Fide Retail Request (BFRR) Program

The Bona-Fide Retail Request (BFRR) program provides residents in areas currently lacking broadband, the ability to request high speed internet service. In the NEPA region, if you reside in the service territory of Verizon, the BFRR program allows you to submit a written request for service deployment. The following generally applies through the BFRR program:

• If 50 retail customers or 25% of retail access lines in a “carrier serving area (CSA)”, whichever is less, request service and commit to at least one year of service from the participating provider, then service must be provided within 365 days.

NEPA will work with communities to collect BFRR forms completed by customers in unserved areas and act as the liaison between Verizon and the community. CLICK HERE to access the Verizon BFRR request form.

View Areas NEPA is Assisting to Obtain Broadband Service

NEPA is working to assist communities throughout our region without broadband service, obtain connectivity. Through this process, the phone companies divide geographic areas without service into Carrier Serving Areas (CSA) and assign a threshold of customers which must agree to sign up for service in order to bring broadband service, as required by law.

NEPA has worked to map all active CSA areas in our region through Google Earth™ in order to provide an interactive and user-friendly format to keep interest parties informed of project status. In addition, individuals can input their address to determine if they are in an active CSA area, or if a new request needs to be submitted for your area.

You will need to download Google Earth™ mapping service using this link http://earth.google.com. Once you have downloaded Google Earth™, you can view all the available maps in the NEPA region by CLICKING HERE. You may check CSA status information by clicking the yellow pushpin located on the individual CSA areas mapped through "Google Earth™" . If you are not in an active CSA area, NEPA will work with you to initiate the process – please contact:
Joe Chacke @ jchacke@nepa-alliance.org or 570-655-5581 for details.