Boswell For Congress

Urbandale, Ia. – Today, Congressman Leonard Boswell joined USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Iowa State Director of USDA Rural Development Bill Menner to announce more than $24 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants to extend and improve broadband services in Iowa.

“As a rural Iowan, I understand the importance of providing reliable 21^st century technology to rural Iowa communities, schools, farms and small businesses,” Boswell said. “These grants also support jobs in the area as we work on connecting more Iowans with broadband services and servicing the existing fiber. I thank Secretary Vilsack for his continued dedication to Iowa and for bringing resources that farmers and rural communities need back to the state.”

These grants are part of approximately $133.8 million in federal funding for broadband projects in Iowa under the Recovery Act. The funding will be allocated as follows:

• $12.2 million grant to the Iowa Telecommunications Services to connect 9,293 people to broadband services and benefit roughly 14,291 businesses.
• $5.9 million grant to Southwest Telephone Exchange to implement the Southwest Iowa Fiber-to-the-Home Broadband Deployment project to provide broadband service to roughly 1,468 people, 55 businesses, and nine community institutions in the towns of Imogene, Emerson, Henderson and their surrounding rural areas.
• $5.1 million award to Iowa Telecommunications Services, Inc to offer and improve broadband services to approximately 7,270 people and roughly 7,367 businesses.
• $873,000 award to the Cedar Falls Utilities to offer broadband service speeds of up to 50 Mbps in rural Black Hawk, Butler and Grundy Counties to approximately 1,753 people and roughly 259 businesses.