State launches multi-million dollar broadband internet access program
A window opened earlier this week offering Montanans more than half a billion in federal dollars to expand the state’s high-speed internet access.
Montana’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, maintained by the state’s Department of Administration, began accepting applications this month and will continue to do so through October 15. Combined with federal funds, the state has committed nearly $1 billion to bolster broadband connectivity in one of the most sparsely populated states in the U.S.
“These are areas that are really difficult for these (telecommunications) companies to reach without some government capital to get things started,” said Misty Ann Giles, director of the Department of Administration.
“They’re very expensive and there’s not a lot of return, because they’re not connecting 1,000 homes. They’re maybe connecting four homes,” she said, likening the state’s BEAD program to the Rural Electrification Act enacted during the Great Depression and federal water construction projects approved by Congress in the 1960s and ’70s. Federal investment jumpstarted those projects, Giles said, and then let the private sector take over.
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