Indiana

Comcast is footing most of the bill for a $55 million broadband network buildout in Indiana for which the company also won funding from the state. The state of Indiana awarded Comcast several grants totaling about $9.4 million to cover some of the costs of the buildout in June. The remaining $45 million-plus will be covered by Comcast, the company spokesperson confirmed.  That’s around 83 percent of total project costs.

Mercury Broadband filed letters notifying the Federal Communications Commission that the company is returning census block groups (CBGs) awarded funding in Kansas, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. Mercury said deployment costs have increased dramatically since Mercury made its bids in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction and factors outside of its control, including rising costs and competitive encroachment, have rendered deployment to many of these RDOF CBGs economically unviable and ultimately unachievable.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved and recommended for award applications from Georgia and Indiana, allowing them to request access to more than $37 million to implement their Digital Equity Plans. This funding comes from the $1.44 billion State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program, one of three Digital Equity Act grant programs created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The states will use the funding to implement key digital equity initiatives.

Georgia: $22,455,639

The Indiana Connectivity Program announced the 11th round of awards on Oct. 8, 2024. The 11th round of the program awarded $1,489,320 to expand broadband to 326 addresses across 34 counties. Of these addresses, 310 are homes and 16 are businesses. Internet providers carrying out the projects matched $5,286,195 for a total investment of $6,775,515.

The Indiana Connectivity Program announced the 10th round of awards on July 11, 2024. The Indiana Connectivity Program aims to connect residents and businesses that lack access to broadband internet service with service providers and assist in the expense of extending broadband to those locations. The 10th round of the program awarded $3,327,496 to expand broadband to 708 addresses across 38 counties. The awardees and amounts were:

Brightspeed has been awarded more than $213 million in local, state, and federal grants to deploy fiber broadband networks in 12 states.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Indiana’s Initial Proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative. This approval enables Indiana to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program—a major step towards closing the digital divide and meeting the President’s goal of connecting everyone in America with affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service.

Governor Eric Holcomb (R-IN) announced an additional $81.5 million in the final round of the Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program. The fourth round of the grant program leveraged 17 telecommunications providers and utility cooperatives contributing more than $135 million in matching funds, resulting in more than $216 million total investment for broadband.

Surf Internet and the Newton County (IN) Economic Development Commission (EDC) are paving the way for nearly all of the county’s residents to be connected to high-speed, fiber-optic internet by the end of 2024.