Capital Projects Fund

Velocity, founded in 2018 and located in south central Kansas, is a subsidiary of the Butler Electric Cooperative and serves approximately 5,500 consumer customers. Velocity’s fixed wireless service operates on more than one band of unlicensed spectrum, depending on the loading and density of each tower. However, the organization will be migrating to fiber in the coming months and years. As a nonprofit, Velocity is trying to provide service as close to cost as possible. Velocity’s current fixed wireless pricing ranges from $49 (up to 15/3 Mbps) to $84 (up to 100/10 Mbps).

The Utah Broadband Center (UBC) has important updates about significant progress on its Broadband Access Grant projects. The Broadband Access Grant is an American Rescue Plan Act-funded grant that set aside $10 million to help households and businesses impacted by COVID-19.  The UBC awarded the grant to subgrantees All West Communications, Box Elder County Government and CentraCom Interactive.  Beehive Broadband placed 36,000 feet of fiber In Mantua, installed 72 handholes for splice enclosures, and completed 100 percent of all aerial pole attachments.

Governor Wes Moore (D-MD) announced $69 million in federal funding for two new programs to help more Marylanders access high-speed, affordable internet. Administered by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development’s Office of Statewide Broadband, the two programs, Home Stretch for Public Housing and Home Stretch for Difficult to Serve Properties, are expected to provide internet access to an estimated 15,000 unserved Maryland households.

The state of Mississippi will be getting one of the largest allotments in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program–$1.2 billion. The funding comes on top of $151.5 million that the state was awarded from the Capital Projects Fund and an earlier award of $32.6 million from the Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP). “We started with a smaller award and the awards have been getting larger and larger," said Sally Doty, director of the Office of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi (BEAM).

The Colorado Broadband Office received 112 applications from 37 entities requesting broadband funding through the Advance Colorado Broadband grant program. The total funding requested totals $643 million, which is almost four times more than the $162 million budgeted for the program. The network operators requesting the funding offered to contribute a total of almost $312 million in matching funds for projects in 47 counties. Thirty counties received one application, and 17 counties received more than one.

In the past five years, FOCUS Broadband has gone from deploying fiber connectivity to just two North Carolina counties to eight, nearly doubling its number of customers from 36,000 to 63,000.

The goal of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) $40+ billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program is to ensure that everyone in the United States has access to reliable, high-speed, and affordable broadband. Part of the challenge is how to treat areas where funding already has been awarded for broadband deployment. Will all awardees perform as expected?

Having a high-speed internet connection—and the ability to use it—is critical to modern life. One major challenge persists: we can run fiber broadband to every home in North Carolina, but if the residents can’t afford the service, they still risk being left behind. Fortunately, Congress created a tremendously impactful tool to combat the high costs of internet service as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). I urge you to reauthorize this critical program that makes internet access more affordable.

The Department of the Treasury approved $156.7 million for high-speed internet projects in Oregon under the American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund (CPF). Oregon is approved to receive $149 million for broadband infrastructure projects, which the state estimates will connect approximately 17,195 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet.

Mediacom has completed a fiber-optic network expansion in rural Truesdale (IA), delivering phone plans and download speeds of up to 2 Gbps with a focus on low-cost accessibility. Truesdale is the tenth community that Mediacom, the fifth largest cable operator in the US, has constructed through collaboration with the Empower Iowa Rural Broadband Grant Program. The operator has expanded its fiber network to over 1,400 locations in rural Iowa through that public-private partnership.