The Harris County Broadband Task Force has been established to guide strategy, coordinate public-private partnerships, and track progress made in the Texas county.
The task force was created by a unanimous vote of the Harris County Commissioners Court after a presentation entitled “Harris County Broadband Roadmap: A Platform for Shared Investment and Public Engagement.” The presentation was created by Harris County Universal Services (HCUS) and US Ignite.
Members of the task force will be appointed by the court and include county offices, community organizations, academia, and the private sector.
“The creation of the Harris County Broadband Task Force marks an important step in our efforts to close the digital divide,” Texas’ Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said in a press release about the public-private partnerships task force.
“The task force members will bring a diverse mix of perspective and commitment needed to expand digital access in Harris County. I’m eager to witness how this task force will turn bold ideas into action.”
US Ignite is a national nonprofit specializing in broadband connectivity, technology innovation, and city planning. The presentation it helped create included more than 30 interviews of county staff from more than 10 departments, county data analysis, workshops, and examination of national models.
There are more than 171,000 households in Harris County without broadband. The Harris County Broadband Roadmap makes recommendations in three categories for the Texas county: public-private partnerships, infrastructure and digital opportunity.
In Texas and beyond, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are an increasingly vital way to bring connectivity to unserved or underserved communities. At a late June panel at the Fiber Connect 2025 Conference, UTOPIA Fiber Direct of Government Relations Nicole Cottle said PPPs often thrive in situations where people say, “This will never happen.”
In May, Telecompetitor spoke with Eric Bathras, chief technology officer for infrastructure at the Maryland Department of Information Technology and one of the leaders of Digital Infrastructure Group (DIG). He described the benefits of the resource sharing agreements the organization has entered into in the state.
Indeed, there is no shortage of ideas. In May, New York Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute released a report describing seven types of PPP opportunities: requests for proposals (RFPs), smart cities, state grant programs, local network expansion, dark fiber/conduit release, new market entry, and regulatory reform.
