Feds Approve State’s $43M Broadband Expansion Plan

The U.S Department of Treasury has approved Connecticut’s proposal to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to expand broadband internet access.

The $42.9 million dollars from the Capital Projects Fund will launch a program that will construct and deploy the appropriate infrastructure for internet access in underserved areas.

Specifically, the Connecticut Broadband Infrastructure Program will aim to get homes and businesses connected to broadband internet in areas without necessary infrastructure.

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Energy and Technology Policy will administer the program.

The competitive grant program is anticipated to launch in early 2023, with an initial target of expanding or improving access to 10,000 homes and businesses. 

Reliability

Officials said the enhancements will give homes and businesses access to symmetric upload and download speeds of at least 100 megabytes per second.

The program will also focus on reliability and resiliency throughout the networks. 

More robust topologies and methods of infrastructure deployment will be top of mind. 

The enhancements will give homes and businesses access to download speeds of at least 100 megabytes per second.

The program will look at building underground infrastructure which is more durable, as well as designing failover traffic routes to direct traffic to a secondary resource when the primary resource is weakened.

With a focus on low-income areas, internet service providers funded by the program will be required to participate in the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program. 

The program provides low-income households $30 per month off internet bills.