RUS Asks for Comment by Sept. 10 on $600 Million e-Connectivity Pilot Program
The Rural Utilities Service seeks comment by Sept. 10 on a $600 million e-Connectivity Pilot program, established in the FY 2018 omnibus spending bill. It will pay for the construction, improvement and acquisition of facilities and equipment for broadband service…
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in eligible communities, says a notice to be in Friday's Federal Register. The program targets communities where at least 90 percent of households don’t have access at least 10 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream. “Applications for eligible rural areas are prohibited from over-building or duplicating broadband expansion efforts made by any entity that has received a broadband loan from" RUS, the agency said. Among questions are “whether affordability of service should be included in evaluating whether an area already has ‘sufficient access’” and “what equates to consumers’ costs being so high that [services] are effectively rendered inaccessible to rural households?”