The Illinois Department of Commerce has released a list of awardees in Round 3 of the Connect Illinois broadband funding program. Awards made in this round total approximately $328 million, which will cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to areas lacking high-speed service.
Twenty-one entities will receive funding, including local telecom providers, electric cooperatives and others. Some awards will go to individual localities such as Kendall County, whose $15 million win Telecompetitor reported in March.
The biggest winners in this round were two local companies. Jo-Carroll Energy Co-op will take home $69.9 million for 11 projects and ProTek Communications will take home almost $51 million for seven projects.
One of the bigger names winning funding was Frontier, whose $24.7 million win Telecompetitor reported in March. Another major provider – Comcast – was awarded over $5 million.
Nine awardees will receive more than $10 million in Illinois broadband funding and three will receive less than $1 million.
The full list of awardees includes:
- Adams Telsystems
- Cable One
- Central Illinois Regional Broadband Network
- City of Chicago
- Comcast
- Crossville Telephone
- Diverse Communications
- Frontier
- Grafton Technology
- Jo-Carroll Energy Co-op
- Kendall County
- Logan County
- Metro Communications
- Oneida Telephone Cooperative
- ProTek Communications
- Shelby Electric Cooperative
- Strada Communications
- Surf Internet
- Village of Troy Grove
- Wabash Communications Co-operative
- WK&T Cooperative
Project descriptions for all awardees reference fiber broadband deployments. Additional details can be found here.
Additional information about Illinois broadband, including links to state funding resources and state-specific Telecompetitor coverage can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
