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USDA Opens Up Rural Broadband Funding The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began accepting online applications for at least $600 million in first-round funding via its new ReConnect Rural Broadband Pilot Program on Wednesday. The program is aimed at promoting partnerships between the federal government, the private sector and rural communities to deploy infrastructure in areas with insufficient access. In this initial series, USDA is offering at least $200 million in grants, $200 million in loan and grant combinations and $200 million in low-interest loans via its portal, reconnect.usda.gov. Deadlines are:
ReConnect and its $600 million appropriation from Congress more than doubles funds the agency offered via its historic broadband programs, according to USDA. And it will unveil future funding rounds later this year, the agency said. Investing in rural American broadband will improve economic development, innovation and the quality of life, wrote Sonny Purdue in a report to the President. "Reliable and affordable high-speed internet connectivity will transform rural America as a key catalyst for prosperity," he wrote. The original deadline for the first wave of funding was in April but most likely it was postponed due to the shutdown earlier this year -- something Gary Bolton, vice president of global marketing at ADTRAN, suggested when federal agencies closed their doors from Dec. 22, 2018 to Jan. 25, 2019. "There may be a month or so delay," Bolton said at the time -- correctly -- about the shutdown's impact on USDA funding. "Every community wants to grow. The number one way to grow is to make sure you have robust broadband infrastructure." Related posts:
— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana. (Home page art source: USDA) |
In a flurry of activity throughout the week, Donald (DJ) LaVoy, Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development at the US Department of Agriculture, and his team spent about $145.8 million in the non-urban or suburban areas of seven states.
Calix reported revenue of $120.19 million – up 4% – in Q4 2019, putting a bounce in the step of company president and CEO Carl Russo and a shine to Calix's ongoing transition from hardware vendor to a provider of platforms enabled by cloud, APIs and subscriber experience.
Looking to curtail e-waste and improve the bottom line, BT will require customers to return routers and set-top boxes, although subscribers will not have to pay a fee when they receive regular broadband equipment.
The industry standards organization is looking to ease operator pain from residential WiFi, while it also sees initiatives in connected home and other projects bear fruit.
Deploying DOCSIS 3.1 across its entire footprint gave Rogers Communications the ability to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s,
contributing to a broadband segement that generated about 60% of the Canadian operator's $3.05 billion (US) in Q4 cable earnings.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2022
1:00 p.m. New York / 6:00 p.m. London When your broadband business adds new services and connected devices, do they also add complexity, slowing customer support teams as they navigate multiple data sources to uncover connectivity issues? We’ve worked with hundreds of support teams to help them implement a subscriber experience management platform that gives greater visibility into subscriber issues. They can proactively troubleshoot amid complexity—improving the subscriber experience and raising customer satisfaction ratings like Net Promoter Scores. Join this webinar with experts from Calix and global research leader Omdia who will share exclusive research about how you can:
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