The U.S. Treasury has approved the state of Mississippi to receive $151.5 million from the Capital Projects Fund (CPF) for broadband deployments. The funding represents 93% of the state’s entire CPF allotment.
The funding will go toward the state’s Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi (BEAM) competitive grant program. That program will fund three types of broadband investments: large scale projects, line extensions, and community based broadband projects.
The state of Mississippi expects the Capital Projects Fund money to cover some of the costs of making service available to 47,300 Mississippi homes and businesses, according to a U.S. Treasury press release. The state will make awards to network operators for the deployments through the BEAM program.
The Capital Projects Fund has a total budget of $10 billion. States can use their allotment for a variety of purposes, and many are choosing to use some of it for broadband. As of now, 42 states have been approved to receive CPF money for broadband projects.
This isn’t the first time the state of Mississippi has received federal funding for broadband.
In 2020, the state directed $75 million in funding that it received through the CARES Act to rural broadband.
More recently, the state was approved for $32.7 million in funding through the NTIA Broadband Infrastructure Program.
And the state is expected to be one of the biggest recipients of funding in the upcoming Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband program.
