Grants Help Fund Surf Internet Fiber Expansion

As federal and local government agencies award funding to cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to unserved and underserved rural areas, one company that has used that funding from a variety of sources to fuel its deployment efforts is Surf Internet. The company—which serves parts of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan—has been around since 2001 and initially focused on using fixed wireless broadband to serve rural areas. After deploying to a few thousand locations in 2018, the company geared up to 10,000 locations in 2019 and now has fiber available to around 75,000 locations. The company also has about 8,000 or 9,000 fixed wireless subscribers, including some served via $4.5 million worth of CBRS spectrum licenses that Surf holds. Among Surf Internet’s broadband funding wins:

• About $1 million in Michigan, which the company will match with an additional million dollars of funding of its own;
• $6.6 million from the Indiana Next Level Connect program; Surf will contribute matching funds there as well, which will put the total to be invested at more than $10 million;
• $115,000 from the Indiana Connect program, to which Surf Internet will add $50,000 of its own;