grants

Content tagged with "grants"

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Sherwood, Oregon Ferments ‘Future-Proof’ Fiber To Preserve and Expand Municipal Network

In the City of Sherwood, a mostly residential bedroom community 16 miles south of Portland, officials have been quietly cultivating a digital vineyard across Oregon’s “Gateway to Wine Country.”

As part of its on-going work to build out a citywide fiber network, Sherwood Broadband recently secured a $9 million grant from the Oregon Broadband Office Broadband Deployment Program (BDP) to continue expanding Sherwood’s municipally-owned network into neighboring rural communities just outside city limits.

The grant award is part of $132 million in federal Rescue Plan funds the state is doling out to an array of community-owned broadband initiatives for 16 projects across 17 counties.

Award winners include Beacon Broadband, a subsidiary of the Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative ($19.4 million); Jefferson County ($19.2 million); Douglas Fast Net, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Douglas Electric Cooperative ($8.5 million); the Idaho-based member-owned cooperative Farmers Mutual Telephone Company, which offers broadband service in Malheur County, OR ($18.9 million); and a handful of independent providers like Blue Mountain Networks ($6.5 million) and Ziply Fiber ($10.2 million), recently acquired by Bell Canada.

Conexon Connect Completes First Major Florida Fiber Deployment

Conexon Connect has completed its first fiber to the home project in Florida, a 2,000-mile network launched in partnership with Escambia River Electric Cooperative (EREC).

In a public statement, Conexon noted that this was the sixth fiber project they’ve completed nationwide with fiber Internet access being delivered to 12,000 EREC members.

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Escambia River Elec Coop Sign Cleaning with hose

"Over the past two years, we've worked tirelessly to bring this critical infrastructure to every EREC member in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties," EREC CEO Ryan Campbell said of the milestone. "Today, every member of our cooperative has access to fast, reliable Internet, which is not just about improving connectivity – it's about enhancing quality of life, fostering economic growth and ensuring that no one in our community is left behind in the digital age.”

Conexon’s Alexis Madison told ILSR that the EREC project will be financed with approximately $21.8 million in grants, including an Escambia County grant of $6.3 million, two Broadband Opportunity Program (BOP) grants totaling $5.9 million, and a Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP) grant of $9.6 million.

New York Awards $13.1 Million In New Low Income Housing Broadband Grants

New York State officials have unveiled the first round of broadband deployment grants made possible by the state’s $100 million Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP), which aims to drive affordable fiber and Wi-Fi to low-income state residents trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.

As part of the program, the state recently announced it will be spending $13.1 million to connect 14,167 lower income residents across Buffalo, Rochester, upper Manhattan and the Bronx with both affordable gigabit-capable fiber – and low cost Wi-Fi.

Flume, the partner ISP chosen by the state, will offer residents the choice of three broadband tiers: 100/20 megabit per second (Mbps) fiber for $10 per month, symmetrical 200 Mbps fiber for $15 per month, and symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) fiber for $30 per month. All three subsidized fiber options will be locked at that price point until 2034, according to the state.

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Fox Hall affordable and senior living housing complex in Manhattan

“In today's digital age, access to reliable, affordable high-speed Internet isn't just about convenience – it's about ensuring every New Yorker can participate fully in our modern economy and society,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said of the new grants. “Through these strategic investments, we're not only installing fiber and infrastructure, we're opening doors to education, healthcare and economic opportunity.”

Faster, Better, Cheaper

North Dakota Nearing 100 Percent Fiber Connectivity

With the incoming Trump administration and the ascendance of GOP leaders taking aim at key aspects of broadband expansion initiatives embedded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, industry insiders expect the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to likely get a major facelift in the coming months.

GOP Senate leaders have signaled they will push for BEAD to be scaled back or reconfigured.

One way they may do that is to remove the law’s preference for funding fiber network deployments and create a path for subsidizing Musk’s satellite Internet company, arguing that Starlink would be a more cost-effective solution to bring broadband to rural America.

Late last week, in fact, NTIA released its “Final Guidance for BEAD Funding of Alternative Broadband Technology.” And while the updated guidelines still considers fiber deployments as “priority broadband projects,” the agency administering the BEAD program now explicitly says that states can award “LEO Capacity Subgrants.”

2024 in Review | Episode 104 of the Connect This! Show

Connect This! Show

Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (TAK Communications) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) and special guest Jade Piros de Carvalho (Bonfire). Topics include:

Join us live on December 19th, at 2pm ET or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us for the next episode on Friday, January 10th at 2pm ET. Use the link below to add to your calendar.

Email us at [email protected] with feedback and ideas for the show.

Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, and watch on LinkedIn, on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.

 

North Carolina Telephone Co-op FOCUS Broadband Secures $5.4 Million For Fiber Expansion

The North Carolina nonprofit telephone cooperative FOCUS Broadband nabbed $5.4 million in grant funding from the state’s Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) to extend its fiber network to 800 additional rural homes and businesses in heavily unserved portions of both Chowan and Perquimans counties.

According to a company announcement, the funding was provided by the North Carolina Completing Access To Broadband (CAB) grant program, made possible, in turn, by the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). With an end of the year obligation deadline looming, communities are mobilizing to ensure ARPA-related funds have been fully committed.

Of the total $5.4 million in total state funding, FOCUS says that $1.9 million will be used to expand high-speed Internet service to over 300 addresses in Chowan County, with $3.4 million of the funds being utilized to bring high-speed Internet service to an additional 588 addresses in Perquimans County. Currently, the cooperative provides broadband services to 71,000 residents and businesses.

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FOCUS Broadband fiber expansion flyer

FOCUS Broadband CEO Keith Holden indicates the cooperative will contribute approximately $1 million of its own money to the projects, with Chowan and Perquimans counties providing a combined $338,806 in additional funding.

Alpine County Open Access Fiber Among Big Winners In Latest California FFA Grants

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has announced another $237 million in new grants that will help fund broadband expansion across 21 different California towns, cities, counties, and tribal communities. Meanwhile, numerous additional grants that are waiting in the wings are expected to get formal approval sometime in September.

Alpine, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Santa Barbara, and Tulare counties are among the latest winners in California’s $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program (FFA).

That program is an extension of California’s ambitious Broadband For All initiative, a $6 billion effort aimed at dramatically boosting broadband competition and access across the Golden State.

At an August 22 meeting, CPUC officials formally approved both a third and fourth round of FFA broadband funding. With these latest two rounds of funding, the CPUC says it has doled out $434 million in grant awards across 22 counties across California.

Open Access Fiber Comes To Alpine County Via Third FFA Round

The third round of formally approved grant awards included $95 million in funding for 10 broadband projects across California’s Alpine, Modoc, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Tulare counties. This round of awards also included grants for the Fort Bidwell Indian Community in Modoc County and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in Santa Barbara County.

Alpine County’s $7 million grant for fiber broadband expansion will be managed by the Golden State Connect Authority and help fund the Alpine County Broadband Network, an open access fiber network that will deliver fiber for the first time to 721 unserved locations and 818 unserved residents across Alpine County.

Shot Clock Winding Down on ARPA Funds For Broadband Projects

Communities looking to leverage American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for broadband or other local infrastructure need to act soon or risk losing access to a once-in-a-generation funding resource.

Most ARPA recipients seem well aware of the deadline, but data suggests more than a few communities could drop the ball.

As part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), $25 billion was specifically earmarked for broadband expansion.

But the law also created the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program, which doled out $350 billion for states, municipalities, and tribal governments to offset pandemic losses or flexibly invest in local infrastructure.

Maine Awards $9.6 Million For Fiber In Lincoln, Waldo Counties

Maine’s state broadband office, the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), has unveiled $9.6 million in new grant awards to help bring affordable fiber to 15,561 homes and businesses across 12 widely underserved communities in the Pine Tree state.

According to the announcement by the MCA, the grants will primarily be focused on leveraging public-private partnerships to drive fiber into unserved locations in Waldo and Lincoln Counties.

The grants are part of the MCA’s Partnerships for Enabling Middle Mile Program (PEMM), which addresses large-scale, regional broadband needs by leveraging middle mile infrastructure.

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Maine Middle Map

Lincoln County saw a grant award of $6 million matched by $24.3 million in private and public investment including county ARPA funds (which the MCA notes was the “highest percentage of financial commitment from any public-private partnership awarded through an MCA program to date”).

The deployment, which is expected to begin in 2025, involves a partnership between Lincoln County and Consolidated Communications and will bring fiber that passes 14,436 homes and businesses in Woolwich (in Sagadahoc County), Wiscasset, Alna, Dresden, Boothbay, Edgecomb, Waldoboro, Whitefield and Nobleboro.

“This is probably the most exciting thing since cable TV came into any of these towns,” Evan Goodkowsky, broadband infrastructure consultant for Coastal Maine Regional Broadband, told the Lincoln County News.

Tribes, Cooperatives, and Counties Nab $1.4 Million In New Mexico Grants

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.

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Pueblo of Jemez visitor center

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.