Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the selection of 14 Recovery Act Broadband Infrastructure projects that will receive $309,923,352 through funding made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Altogether, Congress awarded the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) $7.2 billion in Recovery Act funding to help bring broadband services to rural unserved and underserved communities. (For more, click here).

Below is a complete list of the second round of Recovery Act Broadband award recipients by state:

Alaska
Southwestern Alaska, United Utilities, $43,982,240 grant and $44,158,522 loan. The funding will provide middle mile connectivity to 65 communities.
 
Alabama
Butler, Butler Telephone Co., Inc., $3,892,920 grant. The funding will provide high speed DSL broadband service to remote, unserved households within its rural service territory.

California
San Joaquin, Tranquillity, and Fresno, Audeamus, $2,741,505 grant and $2,741,505 loan. The proposed project is a fiber-based broadband infrastructure for the unserved and underserved communities in this service area. A last-mile project, it will provide access to approximately 1,500 households, local businesses and anchor institutions in the communities.

Iowa
Meriden and Archer, C-M-L Telephone Cooperative Association, $1,519,225 grant and $1,519,225 loan, $1,525,315 in matching funds. Funding will provide services via a fiber optic network to rural communities with high speed Internet exceeding 20 Mbps.

Bennett, Delmar, and Lowden, F & B Communications, Inc., $1,609,162 grant and $1,628,588 loan. Funding will provide services via high speed fiber optic network with speeds exceeding 20 Mbps.

Springbrook, LaMotte Telephone Company, $187,815 grant, and $187,815 loan. The funding will provide services from a 300-foot tower and Wi-Max installation for wireless broadband service in the surrounding area.

Kansas (1% of the network is to be built in Nebraska)
Western Kansas, Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., $49,588,807 grant and $51,612,842 loan. Funding will provide service in an area 99.5 percent unserved/underserved. The company is a cooperative and RUS partner on 32 other projects.

Tennessee (1% of the network is to be built in Kentucky)
Northern Tennessee, North Central Telephone Cooperative, Inc., $24,715,709 grant and $24,964,000 loan. The funding will provide the necessary infrastructure to provide advanced voice, video, and data services that exceed 20 Mbps to remote and rural communities in the service area.

Louisiana
Morehouse Parish, Northeast Louisiana Telephone Company, Inc., $4,359,000 grant and $8,124,600 loan. Funding will provide an active Ethernet system with symmetrical speeds of 20 Mbps. The system will be using buried fiber to the premise.

Missouri
Ralls County, Ralls County Electric Cooperative, $9,548,908 grant and $9,548,909 loan. Funding for this project will provide a fiber optic network to residential and commercial members and the underserved safety and anchor agencies in the service area.

North Dakota
Burleigh County; BEK Communications Cooperative, $1,986,473 grant and $2,016,571 loan; $2,016,572 in leveraged funds. The funding will provide fiber-to-the-premises broadband service to underserved homes and anchor institutions.

Traill County; Halstad Telephone Company, $2,027,600 grant and $2,027,600 loan; $10,000 in leveraged funds. The funding will provide fiber-to-the premises broadband service to unserved homes and businesses in Traill County.

Oregon
Marion County, Gervais Telephone Company, $314,430 grant and $314,430 loan. This project extends Gervais Telephone Company’s existing fiber network by building out from the nearest fiber splice point through the funded service area to provide broadband connectivity to residential and business end users, as well as to four anchor institutions.

Virginia
Alleghany County, NTELOS Telephone Inc., $8,062,088 grant and $8,062,088 loan. The funds will provide fiber-based broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved homes, businesses and critical community institutions in this rural county.

On January 15, RUS and NTIA announced they are accepting a second round of stimulus applications from February 16 to March 15. These awards, in the total amount of $4.8 billion, will be announced by September 30.

-Linda Hardesty

The Daily

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