Illinois wins $253.7 million in federal funding to boost internet access in underserved areas

WASHINGTON — The Biden White Home, Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth with Gov. J.B. Pritzker introduced Tuesday that $253.7 million in federal funds will probably be despatched to Illinois to spice up broadband infrastructure improvement the place it’s missing all through the state.

The COVID-19 pandemic threw a highlight on web affordability and availability and the necessity to make it as widespread as different utilities, akin to electrical energy and water.

Throughout the pandemic, the difficulty of digital inequities in rural Illinois and components of the Chicago space with excessive numbers of low-income residents grew to become extra necessary as a lot of on a regular basis exercise is performed over the web,

The $253.7 million in federal cash — which is a part of the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Tasks Fund — will join 87,613 households and companies, in accordance with the state, which can cowl about 25% of areas in Illinois with out high-speed web entry.

“You’ll be able to nonetheless run into individuals who bear in mind their grandfathers and grandmothers telling the story about when electrical energy got here to the American farm, again within the Thirties,” Durbin mentioned.

“And President Franklin Roosevelt realized with out electrical energy, farmers and rural residents had no probability of being a part of the twentieth century economic system. They introduced electrical energy to the farms and created fashionable farming within the course of. Now you see the identical younger individuals recounting their grandparents story.

“They’re struggling to know why they don’t have entry to the web. They notice it’s necessary for his or her training. It’s vital for maintaining companies and attracting new ones. That’s why the American Rescue Plan is a plan for jobs and enterprise creation and to present youngsters a combating probability to be aggressive” on the planet economic system.

Durbin spoke in a Zoom name with the governor, Duckworth, White Home American Rescue Plan coordinator Gene Sperling and others.

The cash is flowing on to the state of Illinois by way of the Treasury Division, which accepted the state’s software for this broadband grant. The division mentioned the Join Illinois Broadband Grant “will prioritize tasks that display neighborhood help, deploy fiber-optic infrastructure, present reasonably priced service.”

Duckworth, a member of the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband — which has jurisdiction over internet-related issues, mentioned on the decision, “This funding will assist governments with vital capital tasks, together with dependable reasonably priced broadband infrastructure and different digital connectivity know-how tasks.”

Many low-income households could also be eligible for web reductions of as much as $30 a month. The Biden administration has gotten pledges from 20 web suppliers to supply high-speed service for no more than $30 a month. To seek out out in case you are eligible for this break — and join it in case you are — take a look at www.affordableconnectivity.gov

BACKGROUND: The Pritzker administration has been engaged on broadband fairness, entry and affordability points for a number of years, beginning earlier than the pandemic. Pritzker’s Rebuild Illinois capital plan included $420 million for broadband infrastructure enhancements.

The state, Pritzker mentioned on the decision, “has lengthy acknowledged the necessity for public-sector management and broadband growth, even earlier than the pandemic revealed the true magnitude and penalties of the digital divide.”

“…Collectively. federal and state funding will enable us to increase broadband entry to each nook of our state,” Pritzker mentioned.

Below the state packages, “tens of 1000’s” of properties and companies within the state have already gotten connections, Pritzker mentioned.

Requested how lengthy it could take for the brand new federal {dollars} to assist Chicago — over and above what the state is already doing — the governor mentioned it might take as much as a 12 months “to put fiber or to seek out the perfect and quickest web connection to achieve an space after which to really put these {dollars} to work. So I’d say it would take a 12 months for the federal {dollars} that we’re seeing at the moment to really attain these communities in Chicago, however it’s not for lack of there being progress already on the state stage. It’s simply that it takes slightly time to get these {dollars} to work, and these new {dollars} are going to be tremendously useful.”