NORWICH - Area internet providers may be inflating the number of Chenango County homes with high-speed internet and reporting those inaccuracies to New York State, according to officials at the county’s planning department.

The department is now encouraging residents to check their own internet connection speeds and self-report to the New York State Public Service Commission, citing discrepancies in the state’s recently released broadband map which relies heavily on data that’s reported by private internet providers.

“Obviously there are errors,” said Shane Butler, director of the Chenango County Planning Department. “I personally fact checked about 25 places that were addresses on the map to see what was right and what was wrong. What I found was that about 75 percent were still wrong on the map.”

The issue, said Butler, is that private companies look at broad regions of the county. If just a handful of homes in that region receive high-speed internet access, then the entire region is counted as receiving it.

To combat the inaccuracies, the planning department says it’s critical for residents to check their own internet speeds and give accurate data to the state. Doing so would open the county to more opportunities to advocate for reliable high-speed internet in all four corners of the county and pursue grant money to make it happen.

“There really is no perfect way to do this, so we’re relying on as many sources as we can so that we’re not relying only on the businesses or the residents,” Butler added. “What we’re trying to do is get people to get onto that broadband website, look at their home and see what’s available, and determine if that site is correct, then report information as inaccurate on the website so it can be updated. If people do that, we could have better information.”

The Chenango County Planning Department is collaborating with Southern Tier 8, a regional planning board that works jointly with eight counties in the Southern Tier region, to get a better handle on the issue.

“The current internet connectivity data map of the Southern Tier 8 region today is at best incomplete,” the agency states on its website. This, it says, is leading to a lack of opportunity for food, connectivity, education, and work across the southern tier.

The county planning department and Southern Tier 8 are also promoting a discount program that could save local residents on their internet bill. The FCC has made available the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) which provides $30 per month towards internet service for eligible households. A significant number of people in Chenango County, and throughout the Southern Tier, are not utilizing this program despite eligibility. Roughly $1 million annually is not being utilized in Chenango County alone, said Butler.

Southern Tier 8 has applied for a $22 million state-sponsored grant that will lead to better internet connectivity in parts of Chenango, Broome, Cortland and Tioga counties. The application is currently working its way through the process.

The Chenango County Planning Department is encouraging locals to visit the state broadband map to report inaccuracies in their high-speed internet availability. The map can be found online at mapmybroadband.dps.ny.gov.