The U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding grants and loans that total about $759 million to 49 high-speed internet projects in 24 states and in other territories, the department announced Thursday.
There are four awards for Michigan, including a grant for the Upper Peninsula that was one of the largest in the country.
The Upper Peninsula Telephone Company received a $34,532,301 grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 1,625 people, 69 farms, 40 businesses and two educational facilities to high-speed internet in Dickinson, Luce, Mackinac, Marquette, Menominee and Ontonagon counties.
The other Michigan awards are:
- The Baraga Telephone Co., $3,302,981 loan to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 362 people, four farms and two businesses to high-speed internet in Houghton County.
- DMCI Broadband LLC, $3,122,745 loan and $3,122,745 grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 2,899 people, 94 farms, 56 businesses and four educational facilities to high-speed internet in Branch and Hillsdale counties.
- Michigan Central Broadband Company LLC, $14,948,004 grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-home network to connect 360 people, 52 farms and seven businesses to high-speed internet in Crawford, Kalkaska, Otsego and Presque Isle counties.
The federal funding is part of the department’s ReConnect Program and is partially funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program seeks to boost broadband access — primarily in rural areas — to download speeds of 100 megabits per second.
“This really is critically important to the future of rural America,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said during a call with reporters. “Whether it’s distance-learning opportunities for our students, telemedicine for hospitals, doctors, market development for our small businesses or precision agriculture for our farmers, the internet — high-speed internet — is absolutely essential.”
About $668 million of the new funding is grants, with loans totaling about $91 million. It was the third such ReConnect announcement this year and is the largest so far. Another announcement is expected later this year and one in 2023, Vilsack said.
So far, the grant and loan awards have totaled about $1.6 billion.
The largest total award is a $36 million loan to Public Service Telephone Company for a fiber project in seven Georgia counties that would connect 21,289 people, 569 businesses, 323 farms and 29 educational facilities.
The other largest grants announced Thursday were:
— Nearly $35 million for a southwest New Mexico fiber project.
— Nearly $35 million for a fiber network in the Republic of Palau.
— Nearly $30 million for Guam.
— More than $30 million for central Alaska.
A version of this story first ran in the Advance’s sister outlet, the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
authored by Jared Strong
First published at https%3A%2F%2Fmichiganadvance.com%2F2022%2F10%2F27%2Fusda-announces-another-759-million-of-grants-and-loans-for-rural-internet%2F
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