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Vermont Telephone Co. won a broadband stimulus grant Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture worth more than $81 million, along with a $35 million government-backed loan to bring high-speed Internet access to the Green Mountain State’s underserved rural communities.
In addition to building out its Wireless Open World broadband expansion program, VTel will also use the funds for a planned one gigabit fiber network to VTel’s existing customers.
VTel President Michel Guite said the Springfield-based company is contributing $30 million in equity to the project. Guite estimates the work resulting from the expansion and build-out will create as many as 1,800 jobs in the state. The planned high-speed Internet access will run over VTel’s wireless system and cost between $10 a month for light users and $35 a month for regular users, Guite said in a statement.
Also being paid for by the grant, Guite said, will be the integration of Smart Grid improvements to its network.
In total, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack awarded $1.2 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband grants Wednesday, for 126 broadband infrastructure projects across the country. An additional $117 million in private investments nationwide will be leveraged by these Recovery Act funds, bringing the total nationwide investment to $1.31 billion. The VTel grant and loan package account for nearly 10 percent of the national allocation announced Wednesday and is the second largest award announced today by Vilsack.
Last month Massachusetts landed its chunk of federal broadband stimulus money, when the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, was awarded a $45.4 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The state will chip in $26.2 million in matching funds, bringing the total funding to $71.6 million to bring broadband access to businesses and residents in 123 communities in western and north central Massachusetts.
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