USDA to spend $500 million extending high-speed internet to rural America

Broadband Internet Access
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(Missouri Independent) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture will send more than $500 million in loans and grants to telecommunications providers to bring high-speed internet to rural areas across 20 states, Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday.

The department will spend $360 million in grants and $141 million in loans through its ReConnect Program to benefit sparsely populated communities, including in Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, and Tennessee.

In Missouri, Net Vision Communications LLC will receive a $12.4 million loan to connect 4,587 people, 300 businesses, nine farms, and 15 public schools to high-speed internet in Barton County. Chariton Valley Telephone Corp. will receive a $2.2 million grant to connect 642 people, eight businesses and 94 farms to high-speed internet in Monroe and Randolph counties. The company will also make high-speed internet affordable by participating in the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity and Lifeline programs.

The funding, the third round from the department’s ReConnect program, combined with additional money from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law enacted last year, would make a major difference in connecting rural populations and businesses, Vilsack said.

“We now have for the first time a genuine opportunity to literally cover all of America,” Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, told reporters on a Wednesday press call. “With the ReConnect program round three and the resources available under the infrastructure law, I think we’ve come a long way to improving and increasing the level of service.”

The department will also provide more funding to rural internet programs through the bipartisan infrastructure law “in the coming months,” according to a department news release. More ReConnect awards would also be announced in the coming weeks, the department said.

The current funding stream was targeted to upgrade existing infrastructure, Vilsack told reporters Wednesday.

“The beauty of this process is USDA has a very specific role,” he said. “That goal is to essentially increase the capacity of existing facilities.”

The two largest allotments were both grants for Alaska communities.

The Alaska Telephone Company will receive $33 million to deploy a fiber network to connect 211 people and five businesses in Haines Borough, the Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, and the Scagway Municipality.

USDA will provide Arctic Slope Telephone with $31 million for a similar network to connect 476 people, 15 businesses, and a public school in the North Slope Borough.

The full list is available here.


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Jacob Fischler

https://www.missouriindependent.com

Jacob Fischler is a Washington correspondent for States Newsroom, a network of state-based nonprofit news outlets that includes The Missouri Independent.