Nebraska Public Service Commission Awards Over $20 Million In Grants For Broadband Development

From Nebraska Examiner:

By Jazari Kual

December 9, 2022

LINCOLN — More than $20 million will be distributed in 37 grants from the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program, the Nebraska Public Service Commission has announced.

“As expected, the second-year of the NBBP grant program has surpassed the initial funding year,” said NSC Chair Dan Watermeier. “We have a good process in place and are eager to provide funding to continue broadband buildout to unserved and underserved Nebraskans.”

The PSC received 115 grant applications and narrowed the pool to 103 submissions.

Funding all 103 projects would have exceeded the available funding, so the commission applied a scoring system based on the projects’ details and the applicants’ financial, legal and technical capability to build a broadband network.

The commission also ranked the applicants by priority in bringing broadband to entirely underserved areas first.

Grant recipients must complete their projects by June 6, 2024.

A list of approved projects and funding amounts is available on the PSC website’s Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program page.

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