Las Vegas, Nev. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) applauded the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) announcement that it is investing $43.2 million in grants and loans to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas across the country. Over $12.8 million dollars of this funding will go to deploy fiber-to-the-premises network to connect rural farms and businesses to high-speed broadband across Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, including in Humboldt and Elko Counties.
“Many businesses, schools and public offices are moving services online in order to stay safe during the coronavirus pandemic, but too many of Nevada’s rural counties lack the high-speed broadband needed to stay connected. I saw these struggles firsthand during my recent virtual Nevada tour, when constituents across the state struggled to connect to online meetings and voiced their frustrations over a lack of quality internet access. I’m proud to announce this grant which will help bring broadband to Nevadans in Humboldt and Elko Counties, and I’ll continue to work to bring high-speed internet to all corners of our state.”
BACKGROUND:
This grant funding is part of the $550 million Congress allocated to the second round of the ReConnect Program, which offers unique federal financing and funding options in the form of loans, grants, and loan/grant combinations to facilitate broadband deployment in areas of rural America that don’t currently have sufficient access to broadband, defined by the law as 10 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.
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