The U.S. Treasury approved $149 million in funding from the Capital Projects Fund last year to cover the cost of rural broadband deployments in Oregon.
Oregon was one of the last states to have its CPF allocation approved. The funding was expected to cover more than 17,000 homes in the state.
Later this month, the Oregon Broadband Office plans to open applications for the $149 million it received in funds to help pay for some of the expenses associated with bringing broadband to areas without broadband access .
Although $156.7 million was allocated in total, part of that amount would be used for administrative expenses.
The funds are intended to be used for line expansion, intermediate networks, and Internet access in underserved and unserved areas.
To provide clear context, a location without 25/3 Mbps service is considered unserved, and underserved areas are those where service is not available at speeds above 100/20 Mbps.
With these funds provided, service providers are expected to deploy services at symmetrical speeds of 100 Mbps in these locations.
Municipalities, private and for-profit entities, electric utilities, cooperatives, municipal subsidiaries and non-profit organizations can apply for this funding.
A scoring system will determine the awards and points will be awarded for the rigor of the application and the consideration of several aspects of the infrastructure project. Additionally, there is also a way to get additional bonus points.
What are these different infrastructure project metrics that will help you gain the upper hand when it comes to scoring? So let’s explain this!
Deployment characteristics, service costs and matching funding are part of the infrastructure project parameters.
Scoring for deployment features is determined as follows: You can earn two points for each unserved site and one point for each underserved site.
Scores assigned based on cost of service are 5 points per location if 100/100 Mbps service costs $30 per month or less and 2 points per location if it costs between $30 and $50 per month.
Contractors can also receive 50 points for each percentage point of overall project costs to which they contribute.
Following the total points, 5% of the overall project score is added for one of the four priorities listed below that the project addresses:
- Regional consideration
- Affiliated with Muni/Cooperative/Nonprofit
- High level of preparation
- Census block or tract with moderate to high social vulnerability.
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