Blair, Nebraska — April 10, 2024 — Great Plains Communications (GPC), the Midwestern digital infrastructure provider with a growing, privately owned 18,000+ mile fiber network reaching 13 states, has been awarded a total of $3.54M as one of the winning bidders in the Nebraska Public Service Commission’s (PSC) 2024 Reverse Auction to expand broadband access to more than 1,100 households in unserved areas of Nebraska.
GPC’s funding will assist in providing high-speed fiber broadband services to approximately 310 unserved households in rural areas of Columbus, Hebron, Kearney, Madison, Mead, Monroe, Nebraska City, Palmer, Seward and Superior, Nebraska. GPC has begun engineering and design with all areas projected for completion in the next 48 months.
“We are looking forward to bringing high-speed fiber broadband services to more residents in these unserved areas of the state,” said Joe Pellegrini, President and COO of Great Plains Communications. “We applaud the Nebraska Public Service Commission for facilitating this reverse auction program to maximize available broadband funding to benefit more communities.”
The 2024 reverse auction was designed to provide broadband-capable voice service to rural areas where telecommunication carriers Frontier and Windstream have traditionally served by redistributing Nebraska Universal Service Fund (NUSF) support that was unused and subsequently withheld from the two companies. Bidding began on January 22, with the final round held on March 11.
