The Wayne County Economic Development Division is surveying residents online in an effort to enhance the county’s ability to secure state and federal grants to improve high-speed internet access.
"The data collected in this survey will help us seek to expand the locations in the tri-county area that are eligible for federal (and possibly, state) grant funding to expand high-speed broadband infrastructure in our community,” said David Schreiber, senior business development manager of the division.
The survey will remain live throughout the summer. You can click online at www.MichiganMoonshot.org/Tri-County-Broadband or call (313) 625-0029 to request a paper survey be sent to the home. The survey should take five minutes or less to complete.
Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties are partnering with The Michigan Moonshot, Merit Network Security, Michigan State University and M-Lab in this effort. The Michigan Moonshot is a collective call to action which aims to bridge the digital divide in Michigan. Stakeholders include Merit Network, the nation’s longest-running research and education network, the Quello Center at Michigan State University and M-Lab, the largest open Internet measurement platform in the world.
The essential goal of the survey is to identify areas of the Tri-County region that do not have broadband Internet or have poor service. If you click the survey online and have any website issues, try refreshing your web page, or accessing the line from a different browser like Chrome, Firefox, etc. If the problems persist, call (313) 625-0029. You’ll know when you submit your survey by clicking the speed test button at the bottom of your submittal. That speed test will open a different page and is the last step toward submitting the survey.
Any residents who are somewhere other than their Michigan residence can still complete the survey, but should skip the “speed test” portion.
The survey will work on cellphones, but residents and business owners are encouraged to complete it from your home or business connection.
Bandwidth, or broadband speed, can be visualized by thinking of the Internet connection as a system of roads. If those are one-lane roads, they can get bottlenecked. But if more lanes are available, travelers can reach their destination quicker. Broadband is Internet access, but the term refers to high-speed connectivity. Current federal standards define broadband as 25 megabits per second for download and 3 megabytes per second for upload. Delivery can include wireless, satellite, fiber or others.
All residents are encouraged to complete the survey regardless of connectivity status. Even if your residence has Internet, it is critical to broadband planning and improvement efforts that your household data is recorded.
Residents who work from home should complete the appropriate survey (fixed Internet or non-fixed Internet). Answer the question “Please indicate if this is a business or residential property” with the answer “Residential.”