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Federal Funding To Benefit Broadband Projects In West Kentucky, Northwest Tennessee

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  The United States Department of Agriculture is investing $55.3 million in broadband infrastructure projects throughout rural Kentucky and Tennessee. 

 

The funding announced Wednesday by Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Donald “DJ” LaVoy will invest in four high-speed broadband projects. 

 

The first project is a $2.4 million grant to the Ballard Rural Telephone Cooperative Corporation will create a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, which builds fiber optic cables to households and businesses, potentially impacting 578 households in rural McCracken County.

A $32 million loan to the Gibson Electric Membership Corporation will send a FTTP network to rural Fulton, Graves and Hickman counties in the Purchase region of Kentucky, and Dyer, Lake, Obion and Weakley counties in northwest Tennessee.

 

An $18.7 million grant will bring a FTTP network to rural Adair, Cumberland and Russell counties in central Kentucky, potentially affecting 3,650 households over 45 square miles. The final allocation is a $2.3 million grant to deploy an FTTP network to a service area in Breathitt County in eastern Kentucky, to service an area includes over 637 households. 

 

Fulton County Judge/Executive Jim Martin said broadband access is an important tool in growing the region’s economy. 

 

“Manufacturers look at broadband accessibility the same way they look at any other utilities like electricity or sewer,” Martin said. “That’s giving us a product where we can be competitive with other places in recruiting manufacturing investment.”

 

The USDA funding was also praised by Congressman James Comer, who represents Kentucky’s first district in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

 

“Increasing access to rural broadband is a key infrastructure need in the modern economy and one of my top priorities. With this grant, fiber broadband will be built in some of the most rural parts of western and southcentral Kentucky, providing an economic lifeline to our rural citizens,” Comer said in a press release.

 

The funding comes from a $600 million allocation made by Congress in 2018 to expand broadband infrastructure in rural America. The funds are administered by a program called “ReConnect.” The USDA said ReConnect received 146 applications for grant support totaling $1.4 billion. Last December, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the department will provide an additional $550 million in ReConnect funding for 2020. The application period for the current funding cycle opens January 31.  

 

Dalton York is a Morning Edition host and reporter for WKYU in Bowling Green. He is a graduate of Murray State University, where he majored in History with a minor in Nonprofit Leadership Studies. While attending Murray State, he worked as a student reporter at WKMS. A native of Marshall County, he is a proud product of his tight-knit community.
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