By Benjamin Rothstein

DOVER — The Delaware Department of Technology and Information provided insight into its operations during a Joint Finance Committee hearing Thursday, plus offered a report about broadband efforts.

Among the budget requests were around $55,000 to annualize certain staff positions, and over $5 million for licensing fees for hardware and software, and for modernization of the agency’s data center.

For example, “we have computer room air-conditioning units that are probably from the ’90s that need to be replenished,” said the department’s chief information officer Greg Lane.

And, though the topic was brushed over during DTI’s presentation, many committee members had questions about the Delaware Broadband Office’s work to run broadband internet to every home in Delaware, which would then require that residents purchase service from a provider.

Roddy Flynn, executive director of the Broadband Office, gave insight. “There are about 9,500 addresses throughout the state that don’t have access to what we consider to be high-speed internet that is above 25 megabytes per second, (with a) download (speed of) 3 megabytes per second,” he said.

“What that means is that it’s enough to do basic email, (but) we’re trying to get everyone up to fast enough so that multiple devices within the same home can all be streaming video to everything. We’re going to do that through a wired connection to every house.”

Western Sussex County has been a focus, and Mr. Flynn said that, so far, around 95% of the county is connected to the internet already.

But rules on funding use make it difficult to be sure that every single disconnected home is covered.

“We’re working very hard to make sure that we are collecting every address that we possibly can before we commit to how we’re going to use this federal money because, once we commit to that, our list freezes in place, and you can’t add (addresses) per the federal rules,” Mr. Flynn continued.

“I believe that our list will be very, very accurate, but there will be homes that ... we learn about after we start this (deployment).”

Committee member Sen. Dave Lawson, R-Marydel, asked Mr. Flynn about disconnected homes in Kent County.

“I will say, the addresses that remain (in Kent County) are very expensive to connect, and that’s why it’s taken so long, but we do have the funding. We are gaining access to funding to get universal coverage across the state,” Mr. Flynn replied.

According to the department’s timeline, broadband installation will begin in 2025.