Yesterday, the White House announced $677 million in grants and loans for high-speed internet service in rural areas of 22 states and the Marshall Islands. Now in the fourth round of funding, the USDA has put $3.1 billion into 179 rural broadband projects through its ReConnect program in less than two years.
“We’re delivering this funding because the internet is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity to fully participate in today’s society.”
The ReConnect Program provides loans and grants to deploy high-speed internet access to parts of rural America that currently do not have sufficient access to broadband and is a key part of the Biden Administration’s Internet for All initiative to connect everyone in America to high-speed internet by 2030. Most of the ReConnect funding, $493 million, was awarded as grants while the remaining $174 million was structured as loans, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
A California company, Ponderosa Telephone Co., based in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, received the largest award, $42.6 million split evenly between grant and loan money. The plan is “to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises and hybrid-fiber-coax network to provide high-speed internet,” said the USDA. “This network will benefit 1,280 people, 26 businesses and 12 farms in Fresno County, California.”
"The fact that this administration understands and appreciates the need for continued investment in rural America to create more opportunity is something that I'm really excited about," Vilsack said on the media call.
Click here for a full list of projects receiving ReConnect Funding.
