Capital Projects Fund Helps Build Nebraska’s Broadband Bridge

“In our digital world, high-speed broadband web is fundamental infrastructure we have to develop our total state.”

—Governor Pete Ricketts

Nebraska adopted a state broadband plan in 2014 setting objectives of extending broadband service and adoption to 90 % of Nebraska households by 2020. Nonetheless in need of its connectivity objectives, the state ramped up efforts towards common broadband through the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts fueled with federal assist. This week, the U.S. Division of Treasury permitted Nebraska’s newest plans to attach everybody within the state. 

The Digital Divide in Nebraska

Broadband of no less than 25 Mbps down and three Mbps up was obtainable to 84.6% of Nebraskans in 2015, up from 79.3% in 2014. Nebraska ranked thirty fourth out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia on this measure. 

However common marketed obtain and add speeds in Nebraska lagged behind the USA and most neighboring states. Nebraska had a median marketed mounted obtain pace of 20.4 Mbps in comparison with the usaverage of 32.6 Mbps and a median marketed mounted add pace of 8.5 Mbps in comparison with the U.S. common of 12.8 Mbps. There have been important variations in common add and obtain speeds between the state’s extra populous and fewer populous counties. Nebraska counties with populations higher than 20,000 had a median marketed mounted obtain pace of 36.5 Mbps and a median marketed mounted add pace of 16.2 Mbps. As compared, Nebraska counties with populations lower than 20,000 had a median marketed mounted obtain pace of 16.8 Mbps and a median marketed mounted add pace of 6.8 Mbps.

Though the info would have appeared to point that there’s an urban-rural divide in Nebraska, some rural counties carried out fairly effectively on a number of of the indications. For instance, Keith County with a inhabitants of 8,062 had the best marketed add and obtain speeds within the state on the time.

Nebraska lagged behind the U.S. and neighboring states within the subscription charge to increased pace tiers of broadband (then outlined as 10 Mbps down and three Mbps up or higher). In over half of the counties in Nebraska, fewer than 20% of households subscribed to broadband at speeds of 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up or higher.

Nebraska’s Broadband Applications

In June 2020, Gov. Ricketts laid out his plans on tips on how to spend the primary $387 million given to the state beneath the CARES Act. Increasing broadband to rural areas was one in all 4 priorities. The state devoted $29.5 million to its Rural Broadband Distant Entry Grant Program in hopes of bettering web connectivity and offering extra alternatives for tele-health providers. 

In Could 2021, the state enacted the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Act, a legislation geared toward bringing quick, dependable broadband connectivity to an estimated 30,000 households. The legislation created the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program to facilitate and fund the deployment of broadband networks in unserved and underserved areas of Nebraska. The state appropriated $20 million to this program yearly starting in fiscal yr 2021-2022.

The Broadband Bridge Program was designed to help with expensive deployment tasks which may not in any other case happen with out public help. The legislation gave the Nebraska Public Service Fee the authority to grant awards to help candidates with eligible infrastructure set up prices for qualifying tasks. Qualifying tasks should present broadband Web service scalable to 1 hundred megabits per second for downloading and 100 megabits per second for importing, or higher (100Mbps/100Mbps). Candidates have been required to offer matching funds equal to no less than fifty % of the entire improvement prices of the venture. The utmost grant quantity awarded can’t exceed $5 million for a single venture.

Eligible candidates for this program can embody:

1. a broadband Web service supplier together with any telecommunications firm, cable tv firm, or wi-fi community supplier that gives broadband Web service;
2. a cooperative;
3. a political subdivision;
4. an Indian tribe. [Applications from a political subdivision or an Indian tribe shall be made as part of a public-private partnership with a broadband Internet service provider.]

A venture involving improvement of a broadband community in an unserved space or an underserved space could also be thought-about. An unserved space is an space of Nebraska by which areas lack entry to broadband Web service at speeds of no less than twenty-five megabits per second for downloading and three megabits per second for importing (25Mbps/3Mbps). An underserved space is an space of Nebraska by which areas lack entry to broadband Web service at speeds of no less than one-hundred megabits per second for downloading and twenty megabits per second for importing (100Mbps/20Mbps).

Functions involving underserved areas should additionally embody a digital inclusion plan that demonstrates entry to and use of knowledge and communication applied sciences by all people and communities within the venture space, together with probably the most deprived people and communities. The plan should describe the service’s efforts to make sure members of the group to be served will be capable to afford the providers supplied, and should describe any reductions and/or assist applications to be supplied for low-income people. Acceptable digital inclusion plans should not impose information caps on client utilization.

In 2021, the Broadband Bridge Program awarded a complete of $19.2 million in grants to 19 suppliers throughout the state. Communities that benefitted included Ansley, Arcadia, Burwell, Thedford, Mullen, and rural areas close to Ravenna. 

In 2022 the legislature up to date the legislation, lowering the matching grants for tasks positioned in high-cost areas from 50 % of venture prices to 25 %. The replace additionally prolonged the deadline for purposes to be filed with the Nebraska PSC from July 1 to Oct. 1, with grants being awarded no later than Jan. 31 of the next yr, starting in 2022. Grant recipients should now decide to sustaining a minimal 100 Mbps of obtain and add speeds for all areas for which they’ve acquired grant funding and agree to supply broadband within the venture space for 15 years. The replace additionally contains provisions that:

• present as much as $2 million in annual grant funding to offer precision agriculture connectivity of no less than 100 Mbps obtain and 20 Mbps add pace to speed up rural financial improvement and supply high-speed web connectivity to farm websites in unserved areas of the state;
• enable the Nebraska PSC to create and preserve a Nebraska location material broadband entry map;
• require the Nebraska PSC’s weighted utility scoring system to incorporate the power to supply charges in a venture space akin to charges supplied by the applicant exterior the venture space; and
• present for an expedited wire-crossing allow course of for telecommunications corporations wishing to cross railroad rights of manner.

Capital Tasks Fund Assist

On August 30, 2022, the U.S. Treasury permitted Nebraska’s plan to speculate $87.7 million in broadband infrastructure tasks. The state estimates that the funding, 68% of its whole Capital Tasks Fund allocation, will assist join 23% of the areas in Nebraska that also lack broadband service. Every of the broadband suppliers funded by the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program will take part within the Federal Communications Fee’s Reasonably priced Connectivity Program—a $30 per 30 days subsidy for low-income households.

The Nebraska PSC will companion with the Nebraska Division of Financial Growth to manage the brand new funds.

“This new funding together with what’s at the moment in place will make a big effect on serving to to offer broadband to the unserved and underserved areas of our state,” mentioned Dan Watermeier, the chairman of the Nebraska PSC.