The United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service (USDA RUS) is
accepting applications for another round of loans
for the Rural Broadband Access Loan and Loan Guarantee Program. This
program provides loans of up to $20 million for rural connectivity. The
window to apply opened September 1st, and
the deadline is September 30, 2017.
Thousands To Millions Of Dollars For Rural Areas
The USDA RUS has at least $60 million available this funding cycle
for this program. All loans will be between $100,000 and $20 million.
The program will only consider funding projects that offer speeds of at
least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.
For this program, the USDA RUS focuses on completely rural
communities where at least 15 percent of households do not have
high-speed Internet access. To be eligible, these rural areas cannot
have more than two incumbent providers or have previously received USDA
RUS funding.
Although the program is specific to rural communities, most
organizations are eligible to apply, including tribal governments, local
governments, cooperatives, and corporations. No partnerships and no
individuals may apply for funding, however, as the loans must go only to
organizations.
This is only one of the Broadband programs that the USDA RUS manages.
The agency also handles the Community Connect Grants and the Distance
Learning & Telemedicine Program. The report “Broadband Loan and Grant Programs in USDA’s Rural Utilities Service” from the Congressional Research Services describes these programs in more detail.
- original post at muninetworks.org (September 6, 2017)