Six months ago, Brightspeed and nonprofit organization Ripe for Revival set out to meet that need head-on through the nonprofit’s pay-what-you-can market.

Maple Broadband’s 1 Gbps service is being offered to the 700 qualified nonprofits in the county for $69.95 per month.

Seventy-one percent of survey respondents say that outages lasting one hour or more should qualify for a credit.

The Pinellas County launch marks the beginning of a more than $100 million investment by IQ Fiber in the region. The network deployment is expected to continue for 18-24 months.

Arvig was recently awarded grants totaling $3.4 million from the state’s Broadband Line Extension program after submitting successful lowest-cost bids to serve the locations.

Gateway Fiber expects to activate its first customers in the second half of 2026. Bismarck Mayor Michael Schmitz welcomed the benefits fiber can provide.
