Published April 2, 2021
Television news outlets in Buffalo, N.Y. reported that a UB team co-led by electrical engineers Filippo Malandra and Nicholas Mastronarde, together with Mission Ignite, have been awarded a $300,000 grant to bring high-speed internet to Fruit Belt residents in the City of Buffalo.
Buffalo was one of seven communities in the country to receive grant money to improve broadband access. The broadband access will go to the Fruit Belt neighborhood using a Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) based wireless network.
“We are excited to take part in this important effort to reduce the digital divide in underserved communities,” said project co-leader Filippo Malandra, assistant professor of research in the Department of Electrical Engineering. "We're going to build this infrastructure and create a private LTE network that can be used to provide Internet connectivity."
“We've initially targeted the 150 households," said co-leader Nick Mastronarde, associate professor of electrical engineering. "We believe that we'll be able to hit between 25 megabits per second downlink and three megabits per second uplink."
