SPI Insights

Washington, D.C. – Twelve states are among the beneficiaries of $277 million in National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) grants to connect unserved households.

The grants were awarded to Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.

Missouri’s Department of Economic Development topped the list of awardees with $42.24 million going toward its last-mile fiber deployment across 12 counties. The project is designed to bring qualifying broadband to more than 13,000 unserved households with up to 1 gigabyte per second service.

The state of Mississippi will get $32.7 million in grant funding to implement last- and middle-mile broadband via 10 unique projects in 10 counties across the state.

A regional public-private partnership in Acadiana, Louisiana, will receive nearly $30 million to deploy fiber to more than 22,000 rural underserved areas in Acadia, Evangeline, and St. Landry parishes.

The ConnectMaine Authority will collect $28.1 million to provide last-mile broadband to 11,700 unserved households in rural Maine, and the North Carolina Global TransPark Authority will receive $30 million to bring fiber to 15,000 unserved homes in Lenoir County.

NTIA awarded $20.46 million to Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, for the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Expansion in the Alleghenies project. Planners propose to deploy last-mile fixed wireless to six counties in the Southern Alleghenies region.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provides a historic $65 billion investment to expand broadband in communities across the U.S.

NTIA is preparing to launch a series of new broadband grant programs funded by the law that will build broadband infrastructure across the country, create more low-cost broadband service options, and address the digital equity and inclusion needs in U.S. communities.