Rural Development (USDA )

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $63 million to bring high-speed internet access to people living and working in rural areas in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi. The investments include funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The $63 million in grants comes from the third funding round of the ReConnect Program, in which USDA invested a total of $1.7 billion. The four projects being funded are:

It was worth the wait. The third round of the US Department of Agriculture's ReConnect Loan and Grant Program closed in 2022, after awarding $759 million in rural broadband grants and loans to 49 deployers, mostly small local exchange carriers (LECs). The average cost of passing each home, farm, other business, or school was just over $4,500, compared to $4,100 in 2019 and almost $6,000 in 2020. All awardees in this round, and almost all in previous rounds, told USDA they were deploying fiber to the premises.

US Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)—ranking member and chairman, respectively, of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband—and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) reintroduced the Rural Internet Improvement Act. This bipartisan legislation would streamline and bolster US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development broadband programs and ensure that their funding is being targeted to rural areas that need it the most.

There needs to be a way to consistently track the billions in broadband infrastructure money coming from the federal government, said Information Technology and Innovation Foundation panelists. With $42.5 billion coming to the states from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, experts floated the idea of having mandated ongoing reporting requirements on what that money is doing. Brookings Institution senior fellow Nicol Turner-Lee said her research group is discussing their own version of a tracking me

The United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service seeks comment on its update of Rural eConnectivity Program (ReConnect Program) regulation to ensure that requirements are clear, accurate as presented, and in compliance with Federal reporting requirements. The changes to ReConnect rules include:

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a major hand in broadband matters. The agency's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is responsible for overseeing a number of rural broadband funding programs, including the well-known multi-billion-dollar ReConnect loan and grant initiative. Andrew Berke has only recently taken the reigns as RUS Administrator, having been appointed by President Biden in October 2022.

US Department of Agriculture (USDA) leaders are looking to ensure that billions in government funding are easier to access by the rural communities many federal programs are meant to serve. USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small highlighted USDA's ReConnect Program, which is currently seeing more applications than available funding.

Congress already allocated $65 billion for broadband in 2021 via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), but as negotiations over the 2023 Farm Bill get underway some are angling for even more cash to boost rural broadband. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Farm Bill is a sprawling piece of legislation covering agricultural and food programs that are revisited every five years or so. The last Farm Bill was passed in late 2018, meaning it is up for renewal in the back half of 2023.

The Biden Administration launched an initiative, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Partners Network,  that has some interesting benefits for rural communities. The goal is to help rural areas maximize the benefits available from the federal government. The new program is putting federal employees directly in rural communities and making them available to help rural communities navigate the confusing federal bureaucracy. As an example, one of the primary roles of the Rural Partners Network is to help local communities find and apply for grants.

What counts as a fiber passing, anyway? It seems the answer varies slightly by operator, though most consider a passing to be any location which can be connected to fiber running along the main road. A Consolidated representative said passings are locations that are in “close proximity” to its network.