Telecommunications Grants

A broad move for broadband
Traill County in line for high-speed Internet connection
Hundreds of residents and businesses in Traill County are in line to receive high-speed Internet connections in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s largest-ever distribution of funding for rural broadband.
By: Chuck Haga, Grand Forks Herald

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Nextview all offers | sign up for email offers | add your businessHundreds of residents and businesses in Traill County are in line to receive high-speed Internet connections in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s largest-ever distribution of funding for rural broadband.

Halstad Telephone Co. will receive slightly more than $4 million in a federal stimulus grant and loan package to provide broadband Internet and video service to customers the Minnesota company serves in Traill County, the USDA and members of North Dakota’s congressional delegation announced Monday.

“That’s going to be quite a deal,” said Ronald Peterson of Buxton, N.D., a member of the Traill County Commission, who said he and other commission members weren’t aware of the impending project.

Peterson, who said he is “the furthest-north customer of Halstad Telephone,” said he hopes the improved Internet connections will help stimulate economic activity and employment in the county.

Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan and Rep. Earl Pomeroy also announced $6 million in stimulus loans, grants and leveraged funding for BEK Communications Cooperative in Burleigh County.

Stimulus money

The funding, meant to bring broadband service to unserved and underserved rural areas, was awarded by USDA, using dollars available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In all, USDA handed out nearly $310 million in stimulus money on Monday to extend high-speed Internet connections to 14 rural areas around the country, with the largest amount — an $88.1 million grant and loan — going to an Alaskan telecommunications company to wire 65 towns and villages in the southwestern part of the state.

Congress allocated $7.2 billion for broadband in the 2009 stimulus bill. USDA will distribute $2.5 billion while the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration will hand out the remaining $4.7 billion.

Competition for the grants and loans has been intense, the Associated Press reported, with USDA and Commerce receiving almost 2,200 applications seeking $28 billion. Applications for a second and final round of funding are due by March 15.

The goal behind the stimulus money is to create jobs and boost the economy in rural areas and poor neighborhoods where residents and businesses haven’t been able to keep pace in the evolving information age, according to the federal agencies.

Some of the funding will provide infrastructure necessary for rural areas to advance in such areas as online education, telemedicine and other bandwidth-hungry services.

“This funding will help connect communities across North Dakota to the power of the Internet,” members of the congressional delegation said in a joint statement issued through Conrad’s office. “This broadband investment will build on a solid foundation for future economic growth.”

Fiber-to-premises

In Burleigh County, the BEK Communications Cooperative will use a $2 million grant, a $2 million loan and $2 million in leveraged funding to expand its existing system to offer fiber-to-the-premises service to more than 540 underserved homes and institutions.

BEK’s existing network provides service to a little more than half of the service area’s population, and more than a fifth of current users derive income from the Internet, the lawmakers said. Expansion should stimulate economic growth and public safety, they said.

In Traill County, the new money — a $2 million grant, a $2 million loan and $10,000 in leveraged funds — will provide fiber-to-the-premises broadband service to homes and businesses.

Other awards announced Monday went to rural areas in Alabama, Missouri and Iowa.


Reach Haga at (701) 780-1102; (800) 477-6572, ext. 102; or send e-mail to chaga@gfherald.com.

Tags: local news, traill county, halstad telephone company, broadband internet service, american recovery and reinvestment act, utilities, business

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