Image
Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Tribes, Cooperatives, and Counties Nab $1.4 Million In New Mexico Grants
By
on
The New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) has awarded $1.4 million in grants to 15 counties, tribal communities, cooperatives, and municipalities for planning, engineering and grant writing to expand broadband access in long-underserved communities.
The funding not only allows these communities to begin analyzing their local connectivity needs in more detail, it potentially opens the door to helping them apply for more than $675 million in BEAD grants the state of New Mexico is poised to receive courtesy of 2021 infrastructure legislation.
The New Mexico Grant Writing, Engineering and Planning Program (GWEP) awards must be used for grant writing, engineering and planning for broadband expansion projects and the development of infrastructure projects. Traditional private ISPs were not eligible.
The first round of awards were announced in June, with a second batch announced in July.
Image
Round one awardees included $100,000 grants to the Village of Pecos, Valencia County, Pueblo of Isleta, Pueblo of San Ildefonso, Pueblo of Laguna, Pueblo of Jemez, and Otero County, and a $90,000 grant to Luna County.
Round two awardees included $100,000 grants to Santa Fe County, the City of Raton, the Pueblo of Picuris, the Jemez Mountains Electric Co-op, and Redi-Net, as well as a $72,635 grant to Colfax County and a $72,500 grant to Penasco Valley Telephone Co-op.
Grant winners are expected to have submitted their proposals no later than June 30, 2025. The awards will be used to either develop new broadband projects, or in the case of Tribal communities – like the Pueblo of Laguna – be used to plan out expansions of existing wireless and fiber networks with the potential assistance of additional looming federal funding.
“This is a big step forward to helping unserved regions of our state attain high-speed internet,” OBAE acting director Drew Lovelace said in a prepared statement.
Federal and state data (which likely underestimates the scope of the problem) reveal that 16 percent of New Mexico’s 873,797 serviceable locations are either unserved or underserved, with 70,609 (8 percent) completely unserved and an additional 72,384 (8 percent) underserved. The state of New Mexico is 39th in BroadbandNow’s coverage, speed, and availability rankings.
Image
Money is still available in New Mexico’s GWEP program, and OBAE is urging tribal governments, local governments, rural telephone cooperatives and rural electric cooperatives to submit applications for the GWEP assistance grants.
In late July, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that the state had received final approval for its plans to receive and distribute $675 million in BEAD grants the state expects to receive sometime in 2025.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s $675 million investment in New Mexico will help transform our digital infrastructure,” Grisham said. “This funding empowers New Mexico to bridge the digital divide and create equal opportunities across the state, especially for our rural and tribal communities.”
Inline image of Pueblo of Jemez Visitor Center courtesy of Jay Peeples, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic
Geoterm
Related Stories
‘Innovation’ Think Tank Pushes Lazy Smear Of Community Broadband
New “study” maligning municipal broadband doesn’t come as much of a surprise despite its sweeping and patently false claims about the entire sector.
New York Announces Another $140 Million in Municipal Broadband Grants
New York’s Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) continues to provide grant funds to build municipal broadband networks across the state, as state broadband officials recently announced the program’s largest round of funding to date. Earlier this month, $140 million in grant awards were announced for six projects from the Finger Lakes to North Country Region.
Open Access ErieNet Fiber Network Gets Underway In Western New York
Erie County, New York’s ErieNet broadband initiative is poised to begin construction in Buffalo, NY, after the Buffalo Common Council recently passed a resolution approving the Telecommunications License Agreement with ErieNet LDC. The approval is a major step toward bringing affordable next-gen broadband access to long-neglected parts of Western New York.
Bell Canada’s Ziply Acquisition Raises Questions About Open Access In The Pacific Northwest
Bell Canada’s history of anti-competitive behavior could herald a culture shift at the ascending provider with Ziply and Bell Canada’s rapid-fire acquisition of smaller providers across the Pacific Northwest.
Fort Dodge Iowa Boosts Funding For Popular Municipal Fiber Network
The city council voted to provide a $3.1 million loan from the city’s sewer fund to complete the build-out of Fort Dodge Fiber. In 2021, the city borrowed $33.3 million to pay for building the fiber optic utility with a loan to be paid off with revenue generated by Fort Dodge Fiber as the project expanded. But thanks to inflation and increasing labor and material costs, that $33.3 million isn’t going to be enough to finish the project.
New Resource Alert: ILSR Unveils Community Networks Predictive Map
In September we released our updated map pinpointing the location of the 400 municipally owned Internet service providers now serving almost 800 communities across the United States. Today, we unveil our predictive map that provides a multi-layered look into the near future of community broadband networks.