Laserfiche WebLink
AS OF JUNE 24, 2021 <br />25 <br /> <br />Designing infrastructure investments to provide service to unserved or underserved <br />households or businesses means prioritizing deployment of infrastructure that will bring <br />service to households or businesses that are not currently serviced by a wireline <br />connection that reliably delivers at least 25 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps of upload <br />speed. To meet this requirement, states and localities should use funds to deploy <br />broadband infrastructure projects whose objective is to provide service to unserved or <br />underserved households or businesses. These unserved or underserved households or <br />businesses do not need to be the only ones in the service area funded by the project. <br /> <br />6.9. For broadband infrastructure to provide service to “unserved or underserved <br />households or businesses,” must every house or business in the service area be <br />unserved or underserved? [6/17] <br /> <br />No. It suffices that an objective of the project is to provide service to unserved or <br />underserved households or businesses. Doing so may involve a holistic approach that <br />provides service to a wider area in order, for example, to make the ongoing service of <br />unserved or underserved households or businesses within the service area economical. <br />Unserved or underserved households or businesses need not be the only households or <br />businesses in the service area receiving funds. <br /> <br />6.10. May recipients use payments from the Funds for “middle mile” broadband <br />projects? [6/17] <br /> <br />Yes. Under the Interim Final Rule, recipients may use payments from the Funds for <br />“middle-mile projects,” but Treasury encourages recipients to focus on projects that will <br />achieve last-mile connections—whether by focusing on funding last-mile projects or by <br />ensuring that funded middle-mile projects have potential or partnered last-mile networks <br />that could or would leverage the middle-mile network. <br /> <br />6.11. For broadband infrastructure investments, what does the requirement to “reliably” <br />meet or exceed a broadband speed threshold mean? [6/17] <br /> <br />In the Interim Final Rule, the term “reliably” is used in two places: to identify areas that <br />are eligible to be the subject of broadband infrastructure investments and to identify <br />expectations for acceptable service levels for broadband investments funded by the <br />Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. In particular: <br /> <br />• The IFR defines “unserved or underserved households or businesses” to mean one <br />or more households or businesses that are not currently served by a wireline <br />connection that reliably delivers at least 25 Mbps download speeds and 3 Mbps of <br />upload speeds. <br /> <br />• The IFR provides that a recipient may use Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal <br />Recovery Funds to make investments in broadband infrastructure that are <br />designed to provide service to unserved or underserved households or businesses <br />and that are designed to, upon completion: (i) reliably meet or exceed