Another 10 broadband funding grants have been doled out by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to fund broadband projects in eight states under the government's broadband stimulus program.
Distributed under the NTIA's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), the NTIA has awarded a total of $357 million in grants to fund projects in California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
One of the winners in the latest funding round was the state of Pennsylvania, which received $128 million in two federal Recovery Act grants. The first $99.6 million grant will be used by the Pennsylvania Research and Education Network (PennREN) to build a 1,700-mile fiber network to bring broadband access to 60 community anchor institutions (private universities, K-12 schools, libraries, and hospitals) in 39 counties across South and Central Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania will also receive a $28.8 million grant to fund a $36 million "middle mile" project to expand broadband facilities in northern Pennsylvania.
The deadline to submit a proposal for the second round of broadband stimulus funds is set for March 15.
For more:
- Multichannel News has this article
- see the Pennsylvania release here
- the NTIA also provides a link to current projects
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