Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar Announces $700 Million in Awards for Broadband Infrastructure Projects

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced awards totaling $701.9 million for the second round of the Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas Program (BOOT II), aimed at bridging the digital divide and enhancing broadband access for unserved and underserved communities across the state. This initiative, funded partly by the federal Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (CPF) and supplemented by voter-approved state revenue, was established to connect more than 95,000 unserved locations to high-speed, reliable internet. BOOT II is a competitive grant program designed to support countywide infrastructure projects that, when completed, will provide broadband service to homes and businesses currently lacking reliable internet access. Of the $701.9 million available to be awarded for BOOT II, the BDO has finalized agreements totaling more than $424.6 million, which will cover projects in 13 of the 24 selected counties and connect more than 54,000 locations to high-speed, reliable internet service. The counties are Bastrop, Carson, Coleman, Edwards, Falls, Irion, Karnes, Liberty, Morris, Newton, Reagan, Throckmorton and Trinity. The BDO is in the process of finalizing awards for an additional nine counties which will connect almost 39,000 additional unserved locations.