RUS Awards $310M in Broadband Funding
Posted Jan 27, 2010
Wireless Week
By Maisie Ramsay
The USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has handed out over $310 million in federal broadband stimulus money for 14 middle mile and last mile projects.
Just one of the projects to receive federal funding calls for the use of wireless technology. The Iowa-based LaMotte Telephone Company received $375, 630 in grant and loan money to build a 300-foot tower for WiMAX-based wireless broadband service in Springbrook, Iowa.
Other projects include a $6 million fiber-to-the-premises service for more than 540 homes and anchor institutions in rural Burleigh County, N.D.; a $3.89 million high-speed DSL broadband service to remote, unserved households within the rural service territory of Butler Telephone in southwest Alabama; and an $88 million middle-mile project by United Utilities in southwestern Alaska.
"The awards for these broadband projects will support anchor institutions – such as libraries, public buildings and community centers – that are necessary for the viability of rural communities," said USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement.
The RUS secured an additional $3.55 million in private money for the projects, bringing the total investment in rural broadband to $313.48 million.
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