PCCA Journal 3rd Quarter 2014 - page 45

PCCA Journal|3
rd
Quarter 2014
45
TELECOM NEWS
Continued on page 46
USDA Funds Rural Broadband Expansion
A
griculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on August
15 awarded nearly $40 million in loans
for new or improved broadband service in
rural parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, and
Texas. The loans are being funded through
USDA Rural Utilities Service’s Telecommunications Infrastruc-
ture Loan Program to finance projects to expand voice, video,
and data services.
In Texas, the Community Telephone Company will use a
$26.4 million loan to replace its outdated copper system with
a fiber-to-the-premises network. Community Telephone also
will make system improvements in its six exchanges in the
north central Texas plains.
The Red River Rural Telephone Association is receiving an
$8.5 million loan to construct 145 miles of buried fiber optic
cable in Abercrombie, Colfax, Fairmount, Great Bend, Han-
kinson, Lidgerwood, Mooreton, and Wyndmere in North Da-
kota; and in Barnesville and Rollag in Minnesota. This project
will complete Red River’s fiber-to-the-premises network.
The Griggs County Telephone Company will use a $4.7
million loan to deploy fiber-to-the-premises in Binford and
Cooperstown, N.D. Griggs County also will use loan funds to
make improvements in the system’s four exchanges.
The Dakota Central Communications Cooperative received
a $2.2 million USDA broadband grant in 2010 to bring fiber-
to-the-premises service to Gackle and Streeter, N.D. This
network connects more than 400 rural subscribers. Thanks
in part to this funding, Daktel (along with Dickey Rural
Networks) has constructed what is believed to be the largest
100 percent fiber-to-the-home network in the United States.
It covers 10,000 square miles and reaches roughly 18,000
homes.
FCC Launches Rural
Broadband Expansion Experiments
O
n July 11, the FCC
launched experiments
to explore how ro-
bust broadband can
be expanded at lower
cost in rural America. The experiments
will inform the agency’s broader effort
to expand rural broadband through its
Connect America Fund. They will also
inform the FCC’s efforts to ensure that
consumers everywhere can benefit from
the sweeping technological advances
occurring now in the communications
industry, while preserving consumer pro-
tection, competition, universal service,
and access to emergency services during
these transitions.
Up to $100 million will be available for
the experiments, which will be divided
into three groups as follows:
• $75 million to test construction of net-
works offering service plans provid-
ing 25 Mpbs downloads and 5 Mbps
uploads—far in excess of the current
Connect America Fund standard of
4/1—for the same or lower amounts
of support than will be offered to car-
riers in Phase II of Connect America
• $15 million to test interest in delivering
service at 10/1 speeds in high-cost areas
• $10 million for 10/1 service in areas
that are extremely costly to serve.
Applicants will compete nationwide
for the funds, which will be awarded to
projects that are most cost effective. A
key goal of the experiments is to test this
competitive bidding process before it is
used to allocate funds more broadly from
the Connect America Fund, anticipated
to occur later in 2015.
The experiments will also test service
over diverse technologies, including fiber
and wireless networks, and will be open
to non-traditional providers, including
electric utilities, wireless internet service
providers, and others. To ensure diverse
experiments, project sizes are capped,
while entities serving Tribal lands are
eligible for a 25 percent bidding credit.
The FCC’s initial announcement of
rural broadband experiments in January
received more than 1,000 expressions
of interest from a wide range of entities
proposing service over diverse technolo-
gies. Final applications for the experi-
ments are due 90 days after release of
the FCC order, with selection expected
by the end of 2014.
The FCC is also seeking comment on
how the Connect America Phase II com-
petitive bidding process can offer bidding
credits when states provide matching
funds to expand rural broadband.
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