New Mexico has awarded a total of $300,000 in broadband planning grants to Jemez Springs, Doña Ana County, and Santo Domingo Pueblo. The announcement was made by the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access & Expansion (OBAE).
The broadband grants will come to the Tribal homelands through the OBAE’s Grant Writing, Engineering, and Planning Program (GWEP), to which New Mexico allocated $5 million to help Tribes, local governments, and cooperatives bring broadband to unserved locations.
So far, OBAE has awarded GWEP grants to 18 Tribal communities, 17 local governments, and four rural electric and telephone cooperatives. There is still $1 million available and OBAE welcomes applications. The maximum award is $100,000. There are no matching requirements. ISPs are not eligible to win grants.
Jemez Springs will use its grant to:
- Study the feasibility of extending middle-mile fiber infrastructure along the southern 10-mile Highway 4 corridor.
- Initiate the engineering assessment and planning for fiber infrastructure serving unserved and underserved residents, businesses and municipal facilities.
Doña Ana County will use its grant to:
- Produce shovel-ready engineering and planning deliverables for public Wi-Fi deployment at county-owned facilities.
- Assess connectivity options and create a plan to deploy public Wi-Fi to parks and recreational fields.
Santo Domingo Pueblo will use its grant to:
- Document existing fiber lines and infrastructure to identify gaps in connectivity.
- Support the engineering and technical planning required to scale the Pueblo’s current fiber project. The goal is to create a seamless transition from current operations to an expanded footprint.
“These awards will play a vital role in expanding broadband infrastructure in rural and Tribal areas. Future connectivity through this funding will transform lives as the state looks to close the digital divide,” Neala Krueger, the OBAE’s state grants senior program manager, said in a press release about the New Mexico broadband grants. “We are excited that more entities are using these planning grants to prepare for broadband deployment.”
This is the third announcement by GWEP during the past several months.
Last October, New Mexico announced two broadband grants (to the Pueblo of Pojoaque and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, Inc.). It followed in December with two more (to the Santa Clara Pueblo in Rio Arriba County and the Fort Sill Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache Tribe in Luna County).
All of the awards were for the maximum grant of $100,000.
