Patrons of the Huachuca City Public Library will soon have access to high-speed internet thanks to the Federal Communication Commission’s E-Rate program and the Arizona Broadband Initiative. Last spring, the library accepted a bid from Century Link to bring leased-lit fiber to the library and filed for E-Rate funding. The Town was notified on January 11th that the project had been approved and funded. Construction costs of the project in the amount of $154,000 will be fully funded by FCC and the Arizona Corporation Commission. The FCC will also cover 80% of the monthly service cost. The new fiber will provide a 500 Mbps internet connection to the library which is 42x faster than the library’s current 12 Mbps connection to the World Wide Web–a 4067% increase in speed!

The new service will have a tremendous impact on the library and its patrons. The increased speed has the potential to transform the kinds of services offered to the public. It will bring our library into the 21st Century and allow us to offer internet access at speeds not readily available outside of larger cities. The increased bandwidth will enable the library to provide better quality programs to the public, General Education Development (GED) testing, distance learning, video teleconferencing and more. E-Rate is a program of the FCC that helps fund technology costs for K-12 schools and libraries. For more information about this project, please contact Suzanne Harvey at 520-456-1063 or sharvey@huachucacityaz.gov. erate press release