The Demand for Middle-Mile Fiber

The deadline for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)'s middle-mile grant program just closed, and the NTIA said that it received 235 applications totaling $5.5 billion in grant requests for a $1 billion grant program. I was surprised when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) legislation allocated only $1 billion to middle-mile fiber. That works out to only $20 million per state. It will be interesting to see how the NTIA spreads the funding. I have to imagine that some of the grant requests are from states or groups of counties asking to build large statewide or regional networks. It’s likely that most of the grant requests hope to build fiber routes that immediately solve existing problems. But unfortunately, more than 80% of the requests are not going to get funded. Maybe the great demand for this grant program will prompt Congress to find more funding for middle-mile. It’s one of the best investments they can make.