Burns Twp Broadband Initiative

05/29/2022

The ARPA funds currently available to our township are not enough to bring fiber to every home in our township, but it can help us to get the ball rolling.

State and Federal broadband grants available now are for “Shovel Ready Communities”. Burns township could use the current ARPA funds to hire the consultants needed to research our internet infrastructure and come up with a plan to get us “Shovel Ready”!

We need your help:
-Go to the township meetings.
-Contact the township Supervisor and board members. Tell them how important this is.

05/28/2022

🎉So happy for our neighbors in Cohoctah Township!🎉

At a January Cohoctah Township meeting, they approved to use ARPA Funds to bring fiber to the homes in their township.

{ARPA funds can be used for water, sewer and broadband infrastructure, among others things.}

01/04/2022

At last night’s Burns Township meeting, it was shared that they have received 178 surveys out of the over 1300 sent out with the winter tax bill. Most all returns were in agreement that we are lacking in high speed internet and need a change. Although the deadline was December 31st, please encourage everyone to fill out the survey and return it to the Burns Township Hall. Some of the returns did not include the speed test, possibly because they were confused on how to run it? This information is still very important moving forward. (A lot of residents might not realize the survey is with the winter tax bill because they have their taxes paid with their mortgage and don’t really look at the tax bill.)

The Township Supervisor also stated that the party hired to fill out the grant to cover the $2M infrastructure installation from TVC out of Lennon has been completed and sent in to the State of Michigan. This is a state grant program that requires no matching funds from the Township and is awarded by the State from Federal Funds for better broadband in the rural communities.

Everyone is encouraged to reach out to our legislators
Representative Ben Frederick
[email protected]
and
Senator Tom Barrett [email protected]
to help push our grant proposal to the top of the list. Tell the legislators what speed of internet you are currently getting and how important it is to you for virtual learning, working from home, virtual medical care and other activities. The squeaky wheel gets the grease!

12/21/2021

Reminder, the survey responses are due December 30th.

Your opinion matters!

12/21/2021

12/05/2021

Burns Twp Residence:
📬 Check your mailboxes for your winter tax bill. It included a Burns Twp Broadband Survey!

📃 The Burns Township Board is conducting a study to determine if high speed Internet is lacking in our township!! 

📨 Please fill it out and return it to the address listed on the back by December 30th.

‼️This is our first step to getting better internet!!

🎉Thank you Burns Twp Board!!!

🗯Please share with other Burns Twp Residents!

10/29/2021

Big shout out and thanks to our Township Supervisor Casey Glass for attending the Shiawassee County Commissioners meeting and describing the poor internet service in our area. You can watch it by clicking on this link: https://youtu.be/7mYhDkAVr3g?t=752

The commissioners are looking for ways to spend the funds received by the government, which can include improving broadband. To hear how the commissioners can spend the money, watch this portion of the meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mYhDkAVr3g&t=19s

Thoughts? Comments?

10/24/2021

☑️ We’ve established the NEED

Now let’s pool together our skills to start the process of bringing better internet to our Township!

‼️ We’re looking for someone with Grant Writing skills that can help us ‼️

10/10/2021

Burns Township Residents Only-
Let’s test our current home internet speed. Please make sure you are using a device connected to your home internet, not a cell phone. We will use this information to build our case for better internet infrastructure in Burns Township.

1. Go to https://speed.measurementlab.net
2. No need to login or make an account, just run the free (simple) speed test.
3. Report your results below in the comments.

Use this template to report your results in comments:

-Device used to test speed:
-Home internet service provider used:
-Download speed (Mb/s):
-Upload speed (Mb/s):
-Latency (ms):

**Please share this post with other Burns Township residents.

After you get your results, compare them to what the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) reports. FCC maintains that the minimum broadband speed should be 25 mb/s Download speed and 3 mb/s for Upload speed.

10/09/2021

Burns Township residents:
what do you use for reliable home internet?

09/11/2021

Let’s work together to bring better internet to our area!
*Other communities have rallied together for this same cause, we can too!