Eligibility, application details for $600 million rural broadband subsidy program released

21 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Salinas valley field

Rural broadband grant money will go to areas where 100% of homes do not have access to sufficiently fast service, which is defined as 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds from a wireline or fixed wireless provider. Mobile and satellite service don’t count. If a mix of grant and loan is applied for, then only 90% of the homes have to be unserved at that level.

The federal agriculture department rolled out its new ReConnect program in a webinar yesterday, and filled in a lot of the details about what sort of areas are eligible, which will score higher than others, and who can apply for the $300 million in grants and $300 million in loan money approved by congress earlier this year.

Grants will go to applicants who score the most points on the program’s grading scale. The fewer people per square mile and the more farms served, the more points a project gets. The points max out at 6 people or fewer per square mile and 20 farms served. Serving businesses, schools, health care and other critical facilities, and tribal lands also rate higher.

Faster speeds are better. The minimum service speed for subsidised projects is 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload, but proposals that promise a symmetrical 100 Mbps to every home and business in the project area will score the best.

For the most part, the program will avoid spending money in areas that received broadband subsidies from either state or federal sources.

One question left unanswered – and I asked it – is whether communities where the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF–2) is paying incumbent telephone companies to upgrade service to the 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps level (areas where CAF–2 subsidies were auctioned off are explicitly ineligible, though). Those build outs are not yet complete, and not all homes and businesses in a given community are subsidised, so it’s possible that some areas earmarked for CAF–2 money would lack sufficiently fast service and, presumably, be eligible.

Pretty much any organisation other than a sole proprietorship or simple partnership can apply, including local governments, cooperatives and non-profit corporations. There is one catch: either the applicant, or the applicant’s parent company, has to have been in business for at least two years. Start-ups need not apply.

States with better broadband programs will get a boost, too. Extra points go to projects in states that have a broadband development plan, that don’t keep utilities out of the broadband business and streamline permit and environmental clearances.

One intriguing hint was dropped during the webinar. The program managers are anticipating a second round of funding after the initial money is spent. It’s possible that another deal could be cut as part of a federal budget package – that’s where the $600 million came from. But it seems likelier that the new money will come from the $1.7 billion earmarked for broadband grants and loans in the recently passed farm bill.

The fun is only beginning.

Rural Utilities Service, funding opportunity announcement and solicitation of applications, ReConnect broadband grant and loan program, 14 December 2018.

I’m collecting documents regarding this program here.