Charter Pursues More Rural Broadband Funding

Charter said it has applied to receive $21 million in funding through the Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund – American Rescue Plan program to cover the majority of the costs for a rural broadband build in Henderson County (TN). The company has become quite aggressive on rural broadband, which it sees as an opportunity to gain broadband and video subscribers in markets with little or no competition. The company was one of the biggest winners in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) rural broadband auction. The auction awarded funding to bring broadband to unserved areas to the companies that committed to doing so for the lowest level of support. The Henderson County project that Charter proposes would make gigabit service available to 4,300 homes and small businesses, with Charter contributing $12.9 million toward the project cost. This would be in addition to the $5 billion Charter has said it will invest in unserved rural communities, including $1.2 billion in RDOF funding. Although the new funding that Charter has requested would come from the state of Tennessee, the Tennessee program was ultimately funded through the State and Local Fiscal Recovery program established in the federal American Rescue Plan Act. That act gave each state a pool of money that the state could use for a variety of purposes, including broadband.