Revised A-CAM Offers Get 106,000 Sites Broadband Improvements, FCC Says
An additional $65.7 million annually over the next 10 years in alternative connect America cost model (A-CAM) support means an added 106,000 rural customers getting improved broadband service from rate-of-return companies, the FCC said Monday. Bringing and maintaining broadband "in…
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deeply rural America is not at all easy," NTCA said. "But the connections these funds will enable will help to drive commerce, unleash innovation, and promote distance learning and telemedicine in communities across rural America currently waiting for higher speed connectivity." The companies commit to building out 25/3 Mbps broadband to those 106,000 sites that otherwise would have received slower 10/1 Mbps service -- which Chairman Ajit Pai tweeted Monday was "good news on the rural broadband front!" It helps further close the digital divide, he said. Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming will have more than double the number of customers served by 25/3 service, the agency said. Massachusetts will have the smallest gains, at 9.1 percent. Minnesota will have the biggest jump in number of sites, with 11,358 additional sites getting 25/3 service under the A-CAM funding, the FCC said. Others with big jumps are Oklahoma with 7,724 additional sites and Texas with 7,025. Of the 186 rate-of-return companies receiving the money, Minnesota's Arvig Enterprises is the biggest single recipient, with $24.7 million annually. Also receiving substantial funding: Pioneer Telephone Cooperative ($24.42 million), Great Plains Communications ($22.52 million), Telephone and Data Systems ($20.32 million) and Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative ($13.67 million). "This program is great for all rural America," said Arvig Chief Financial Officer Staci Malikowski in an interview. She said the money helps "us do what we do ... a whole lot faster" and can make the difference in broadband being provided at all. Malikowski said rural customers, and the funding helps pay for deployment of such technologies as copper or fiber, plus electronic upgrades of existing infrastructure. The 186 companies had been authorized to receive A-CAM support but had picked revised offers that carried extended funding and new deployment obligations, the FCC said.