(Fremont County, IA) – Officials with SWIPCO (The Southwest Iowa Planning Council), based in Atlantic, report the Iowa Department of Management Division of Information Technology recently awarded $148,960,000 as part of the Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant Program. SWIPCO helped Fremont County obtain two of the project awards out of 91 completed applications. The funding will help build out broadband infrastructure in newly established Broadband Intervention Zones (BIZ). 96 zones were created across the state through feedback from 55 public meetings in Iowa communities. These BIZ were deemed to be in the most need for broadband infrastructure expansion.

One project award was for $892,891 that will cover 74 locations in northern Fremont County between Tabor and Thurman. The project will be completed by AMG Technology Investment Group. The other project receiving award funds is for $3,526,433 that will provide 513 connections in southern Fremont County covering locations in and around Sidney, Hamburg, and Riverton. The project will be executed by Midwest Data Center.

Those broadband projects must meet or exceed data speed rates of 100mbps download and 20mbps upload. All projects must be scalable to 100mbps download/100mbps upload within three years of the completion date, with many projects hitting that mark immediately.

Prior to this round of funding, offerings allowed broadband providers to select where they wanted to build based on mapping data that identified areas lacking broadband. This did spur significant infrastructure buildout in the state, but some areas continued to be unserved due to a variety of reasons. This current round of funding placed a priority on some of those underserved areas that show motivation to attract broadband providers to the area.

More funding is expected to be released as the effort to cover the entire state with quality broadband access continues. Counties and cities that have identified areas of need and are still searching for funding should stay in contact with SWIPCO to be ready for future opportunities. You can call SWIPCO at 712-243-4196 or email swipco@swipco.org for more information.

SWIPCO is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.