Cox Communications was the biggest winner in Florida broadband funding announced in July and will get over $80 million for 11 projects, Telecompetitor has learned. Fellow cable provider Comcast was the second biggest winner and will take home over $60 million for 34 projects, followed by Conexon, which will receive about $40 million.
Other companies winning funding include Charter Communications, AT&T, CenturyLink, Suwanee Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC), Consolidated, TDS, IBT, and Myakka.
The state of Florida announced broadband grants totaling $247 million in July, but the announcement was made on a county-by-county basis and did not indicate which providers would do the builds.
Several providers subsequently revealed how much support they won in the funding round. But it wasn’t until yesterday that Telecompetitor obtained a complete list of the network operators to whom the funding will be going. We submitted a request for the information through the state’s freedom of information act laws several weeks ago and finally obtained the complete list by provider.
The Florida broadband awards were made through the state’s Broadband Infrastructure Program, which was funded through the federal Capital Projects Fund (CPF). The state allocated $247 million in CPF money for the Broadband Infrastructure Program, which indicates that all funding has been awarded in the program.
All projects winning funding are expected to support service at speeds up to 1 Gbps, other than CenturyLink/Lumen’s project in the City of Bonita Spring, which will provide symmetrical speeds of 100 Mbps.
The state of Florida previously offered a different broadband funding program known as the Broadband Opportunity Program. Cable companies have been big winners in that program as well. Charter was the top winner in June 2023, and Comcast was the big winner in February 2023.
Conexon was the biggest winner in awards announced in April 2023.
A complete list of the funding winners can be found on Telecompetitor’s Broadband Nation webpage for Florida under the tab for the Broadband Infrastructure Program. Additional information about Florida broadband, including links to state broadband funding resources and Telecompetitor coverage, can also be found on that page.
