The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) has approved $40 million in grants that will bring broadband to more than 9,000 broadband serviceable locations (BSLs) in seven counties in the state.
The grants were made by The New Jersey Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Equity (NJBIDE) Pilot Program. They will benefit broadband serviceable locations (BSLs) for Atlantic, Burlington, Cumberland, Essex, Salem, Sussex, and Warren counties.
Awardees included the City of Vineland, the County of Salem, the Borough of Penns Grove, Brightspeed (as Connect Holding II LLC), and Verizon New Jersey Inc.
Brightspeed issued a separate press release, which said that it won grants of almost $10 million to bring broadband to more than 3,300 homes and businesses in the New Jersey counties of Sussex and Warren.
“This historic investment to ‘connect the unconnected’ answers the call we have heard throughout the State,” said NJBPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy.
“Access to broadband is a necessity in the modern world and the funding awarded through the NJBIDE program will help connect areas not currently served by a high-quality internet connection, spurring opportunity, economic growth, and putting social mobility within reach for communities and families throughout the Garden State.”
In a March Telecompetitor post, Vallary Bullard, the director of the New Jersey Office of Broadband Connectivity (OBC), expressed confidence that the $264 million Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program allotment provided to the state will reach the 6,000 underserved and 20,000 unserved locations in its application.
The relationship between those locations and the 9,000 BSLs reached by the funding announced last week by the NJBPU is unclear.
Additional information about broadband in New Jersey, including links to state funding resources, grants made, state-specific Telecompetitor coverage and more, can be found on the Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
