The Rural Utilities Service announced projects in 18 states have been awarded $254 million in funding from the broadband stimulus program. These awards are for round one of the program and they add to a growing momentum of recent stimulus awards from both NTIA and RUS.
Applications for round two of the program are now being accepted and the application window was recently extended to March 26th for NTIA’s BTOP infrastructure projects and March 29th for RUS’ BIP infrastructure projects.
“These broadband projects will provide rural America access to the tools it needs to attract new businesses, educational opportunities and jobs,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. In addition to the $254 million for the announced 22 projects, matching funds of $13.1 million in private investment will be provided. To date RUS has issued $895.6 million for 55 broadband projects in 29 states or territories. Congress authorized $7.2 billion for the broadband stimulus program, of which $2.5 billion has been allocated to the Rural Utilities Service. The remaining funds are allocated to the NTIA BTOP program.
Below is a summary of the latest awards:
Alaska
- Supervision Inc.: The Farther and Faster Project; $174,680 grant and $43,671 private investment. The funding will provide last mile cable to deliver broadband capability to homes, businesses, and community facilities in Tanana, a predominantly Alaska Native community located on the Yukon River.
American Samoa
- American Samoa Telecommunications Authority: Broadband Linking the American Samoa Territory (BLAST) Project; $10,000,000 loan, $81,034,763 grant and $4,462,000 private investment. The funding will replace an old, deteriorating legacy copper infrastructure, with a more robust and weather-durable fiber optic network that will link the main islands of American Samoa, making it possible to provide broadband services to every household, business, and critical institution in the region.
California
- Ponderosa Cablevision: Millerton Project; $1,926,431 loan and $1,926,431 grant. The funding will provide Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) in a 31-square-mile area adjacent to Ponderosa’s current service territory. Telemedicine and online education applications will now be accessible since the closest medical and school facilities require a 45-minute drive.
Colorado
- Wiggins Telephone Association: Weldona-Orchard FTTP Project; $2,168,544 loan and $2,159,887 grant. The funding will provide FTTP in the Weldona-Goodrich-Orchard area of northeastern Colorado.
Georgia
- Flint Cable TV: Flint Digital Wave Project; $4,095,913 loan and $4,095,913 grant. The funding will provide a Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) network to homes in underserved areas of Culloden, Yatesville, and Friendship Community in rural central Georgia. This HFC network will use the latest DOCSIS 3.0 cable standard, enabling channel bonding and speeds up to 100Mbps.
Idaho
- Coeur d’Alene Tribe: Coeur d’Alene Reservation Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Project; $6,142,879 loan and $6,142,879 grant. The funding will provide a FTTH broadband system offering broadband services to anchor institutions, critical community facilities, and approximately 3,770 unserved and underserved households in the communities of Plummer, Worley, Tensed, and DeSmet, as well as isolated farms and rural home sites on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation in North Idaho.
Indiana
- Sunman Telecommunications: 700MHz WiMAX Wireless Broadband Plan Project; $5,694,611 loan and $5,694,611 grant. The funding will provide needed broadband services to households, businesses and key community organizations that are currently underserved in rural communities of Indiana. (About one percent of this network also serves a small area in Kentucky.)
Kansas and Oklahoma
- Totah Communications, Inc.: The Totah Broadband Expansion Project; $4,852,105 loan, $3,660,360 grant, and $2,100,000 private investment. The funding will upgrade existing copper-fed DSL nodes to fiber-fed DSL nodes and install additional fiber-fed DSL nodes throughout the service area.
Michigan
- Southwest Michigan Communications: Paw Paw and Antwerp, MI FTTP Project; $4,165,513 loan and $4,165,512 grant. The funding will provide advanced broadband services to the residents in the rural Paw Paw area.
Minnesota
- Halstad Telephone Company (HTC): The HTC Minnesota Exchanges Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Project; $3,277,500 loan and $3,277,500 grant. The funding will provide FTTP broadband in five towns and surrounding rural/farm areas in Norman and Polk Counties in Minnesota, using 320 miles of fiber optic cable and providing those locations with broadband capability up to 100 Megabits. (less than five percent of this network will serve an area in North Dakota)
Mississippi
- Bay Springs Telephone Co.: Bay Springs Broadband Initiatives Project; $4,304,496 loan and $4,135,693 grant. The funding will expand advanced DSL broadband services to unserved and underserved areas within Jasper, Jones, Rankin, Scott, and Smith Counties, Mississippi.
New Mexico
- Pueblo de San Ildefonso: TewaCom Broadband Initiative (TBI), Phase 1-Upper Rio Grande Valley Project; $632,225 loan and $632,225 grant. The funding will enable the Pueblo to expand service to 2,405 households.
- Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative Inc.: The Penasco Valley Telephone (PVT) Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) Project; $4,818,607 loan and $4,770,660 grant. The funding will provide high-speed broadband to unserved areas in the ILEC territory through fiber and wireless technology.
North Dakota
- Halstad Telephone Company (HTC): The HTC Hillsboro North Dakota Town Broadband Project; $246,500 loan, $246,500 grant, and $7,000 private investment. The funding will increase broadband capability up to 100 Megabits for Internet and video service to 800 locations in the town of Hillsboro in Traill County.
Ohio
- Wabash Mutual Telephone Co.: Fort Recovery Area FTTH Project; $2,201,042 loan and $2,174,787 grant. The funding will provide an optical fiber network in the region that allows digital television and high-speed Internet using fiber optics deployed directly to the premises.
- Intelliwave: The Athens, Fairfield, and Pickaway County Ohio Rural Broadband Initiative Project; $1,162,599 loan and $1,116,997 grant. The funding will provide affordable wireless broadband and VoIP phone service to underserved rural Ohio communities in Athens, Fairfield, and Pickaway counties.
- Benton Ridge Telephone Co.: The Broadband Expansion Project – Benton Ridge; $1,611,124 loan and $1,547,942 grant. The funding will provide Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) in the Benton Ridge exchange of South Central Ohio, including dedicated fiber optic connections for each customer.
Oregon
- Canby Telephone Association: Rural Clackamas Co. Service Expansion Project; $248,046 loan and $496,090 grant. The funding will provide advanced DSL infrastructure and connectivity to underserved areas of rural Clackamas County.
Texas
- PRIDE Network, Inc.: The Texas South Plains Project; $22,720,551 loan and $21,829,549 grant. The funding will provide a FTTP telecommunications infrastructure, with a WiMAX service-extension overlay that will bring advanced broadband services to rural communities of the Texas South Plains region.
- PRIDE Network, Inc.: The Burkburnett and Iowa Park Project; $12,811,071 loan and $6,309,931 grant. The funding will provide a FTTP telecommunications infrastructure, with a WiMAX service-extension overlay, that will bring advanced broadband services to the rural communities of Burkburnett and Iowa Park (less than five percent of this network will serve an area in Oklahoma).
- XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc.: The FTTP and Very High Speed DSL2 (VDSL2) Combination Application Project; $3,065,440 grant, and $3,190,560 private investment. The funding will provide a FTTP and Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) advanced DSL technology within two separate service areas in and around the communities of Dalhart and Stratford.
West Virginia
- Gateway Telecom LLC: West Virginia Last Mile Project; $1,475,459 loan and $1,417,597 grant. The funding will provide a wireless last-mile broadband solution to serve residences and anchor institutions in unserved rural areas of West Virginia.
