TDS broadband stimulus projects extend service to 500 Wisconsin, Michigan homes

TDS Telecom (NYSE: TDS) is putting broadband into the hands of more rural residential and business customers in Wisconsin and Michigan thanks to the completion of two American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) broadband stimulus projects.

In Reeseville, Wis., TDS operating subsidiary Riverside Telecom has made broadband service available to nearly 200 homes. The service provider installed about six miles of fiber cabling and six new Remote Terminal (RT) cabinets to house broadband loop carrier (BLC) and related equipment to deliver services to each location.

A Rural Utilities Service (RUS) grant covered 75 percent of the project cost, while TDS invested the remaining 25 percent, or $275,000.

Work in Reeseville follows an announcement it made in December where it partially completed a stimulus-funded broadband in the Iola and Scandinavia, Wis., area.

With the project near Augusta, Mich., partially complete, the Communication Corporation of Michigan will be offering some customers broadband service. It will also start providing service to households in Medina, Mich., by this spring.

When both of these projects are completed, TDS will enable nearly 300 households in Michigan with broadband services. For this project, it installed 10 miles of fiber optics and six new cabinets.

TDS Telecom has made considerable progress with its 44 broadband stimulus projects, reaching over 13,000 additional homes with broadband service earlier this month. Besides Wisconsin and Michigan, the telco has reached similar milestones in Alabama, New Hampshire and Virginia.

For more:
- see the release

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