USDA works to expand rural broadband

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now accepting applications for funding to provide broadband service in undeserved rural areas. Broadband service is the speed of your internet. This new grant will be available in the year 2021 under the Community Connect Grant program.

This program assists the eligible applicants that are rural areas that have a broadband service that is less than 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. These areas will need to be lacking this broadband service to qualify for this.

The Grant recipients must be able to provide a broadband speed of at least 25 Mbps downstream and at least 3 Mbps upstream to the service area. USDA is there to grant these people that need this service with priority based on the requirements found at 7 CFR part 1739.

For people able to be eligible, the following requirements are needed. Incorporated organizations, federally-recognized Tribes, State and local units of government, and any other legal entity, including cooperatives, private corporations, or limited liability companies organized on a for-profit or not-for-profit basis.

The eligible areas are rural areas in which lack any existing broadband speed of at least 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream are eligible. For more information and application guide, visit https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/community-connect-grants

Applicants are encouraged to review the application guide and sample material online. Electronic submissions must be received by Dec. 23, 2020, at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time (EST) to be eligible for funding.

This will hopefully allow people to have better service in order to do work, or educational pursuits. It is very helpful to those who are in the rural areas that don’t have this sort of service to help them.