USDA announces $6.3M fund for high-speed internet in rural Kansas

HOLTON, Kan. (WIBW) – U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Growth Beneath Secretary Xochitl Torres-Small visited J.B.N. Phone Firm Inc. in Holton on Thursday to announce greater than $6 million in funding for high-speed web entry for rural residents and companies in eight counties in Kansas and Nebraska.

“Excessive-speed web is important for achievement in training, healthcare, and enterprise within the twenty-first century,” stated Christy Davis, USDA Kansas State Director for Rural Growth. “Federal funding makes it attainable for communications corporations, like J. B. N. Phone, to serve our state’s rural communities.”

The grant totals $6,319,640. It will likely be used to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises community. The community will join 704 folks, 17 companies, and 225 farms to high-speed web in Jackson, Nemaha, Pottawatomie, Republic, Washington, and Riley counties in Kansas in addition to Jefferson and Thayer counties in Nebraska.

The USDA is partnering with J.B.N Phone Firm Inc. to make high-speed web inexpensive by taking part within the FCC’s Reasonably priced Connectivity and Lifeline applications. It’ll present low-income customers who qualify for a month-to-month service credit score as much as $30.

“We’re excited to be part of it,” stated Austin Taylor with J.B.N. Phone. “We couldn’t be extra blissful to be right here on this room speaking about JBN and these alternatives. We’re grateful and we look ahead to the various alternatives which are going to proceed to come back to deliver fiber to rural America.”

“We have been capable of attain locations that have been really unserved, to go the place we couldn’t go earlier than,” Torres-Small stated. “(J.B.N. is) investing within the hardest to succeed in locations, the toughest to succeed in properties, they usually’re additionally investing within the methods that may improve the velocity, to future-proof the velocity, and be inexpensive.”

USDA is making the investments by means of the third funding spherical of the ReConnect Program. The Division will make extra investments within the coming months with funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure regulation, which gives a $65 billion funding to broaden inexpensive, high-speed web to all communities throughout the U.S.

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