Just as Oklahoma relaunched its effort this week to find internet service providers for the state’s expansion of rural broadband service, Colorado took its first step to use more than $826 million for the same kind of effort.
Colorado received $826.5 million in funding as part of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program. The Colorado Broadband Office published its first volume of the state’s initial proposal for spending the funds and will take public comment through Oct. 9.
“This transformational infrastructure funding … will accelerate the work to connect 99% of Colorado to high-speed broadband by 2027,” a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis said Monday, reported Colorado Politics.
The state has identified more than 236,000 businesses and homes that lack high-speed internet, making them eligible for the grant program. An estimated 147,000 are considered to be “unserved” by existing broadband systems and another nearly 89,000 are “underserved.”