Apply for the Rural eConnectivity Program (2022)

Apply for the Rural eConnectivity Program this year if you are are seeking local grant in the US. The Program provides grants that will help in development of the rural areas in America.

Check other Details and the Eligibility Criteria for more information regarding this local grant.

Sponsoring Agency: Rural Utilities Service, USDA 

Type of Fund: Grant

Deadline: February 22, 2022

Details:

The ReConnect Program provides loans, grants, and loan/grant combinations to facilitate broadband deployment in rural areas.

In facilitating the expansion of broadband services and infrastructure, the program will fuel long-term rural economic development and opportunities in rural America.

Eligibility Criteria

The following areas are eligible:

• For a PFSA to be eligible for funding, at least 90 percent of the households in the PFSA must lack sufficient access to broadband. For purposes of this FOA, sufficient access to broadband means any rural area in which households have access to fixed, terrestrial broadband service of at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. Applicants must submit evidence that sufficient access to broadband does not exist for 90 percent of the households in the PFSA, identify all existing providers in the PFSA, and indicate what level of service is being provided. If these areas are found to have sufficient service, the application will be rejected.
• Pursuant to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Pub. L. 116-260), the service areas of existing RUS borrowers without sufficient access to broadband, as defined in this FOA, are eligible for ReConnect funding
• Areas that receive support from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but are without sufficient access to broadband, as defined in this FOA, are eligible for funding under this FOA.
• RUS will offer funding in areas receiving or under consideration for a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) award because RDOF funds both operational expenses and capital expenses, while ReConnect funds only capital expenses. However, the application should explain why RUS should provide additional funding. For example, will the applicant commit to an accelerated deployment schedule if it receives RUS funding. RUS will also require all ReConnect awardees receiving or under consideration for RDOF funding to submit a statement certifying that the funds requested from ReConnect have not been and will not be reimbursed by the RDOF award. That is, funds must be used only for complementary purposes and not for duplicative ones, and therefore funding recipients cannot claim that both RDOF and ReConnect funds were used to pay for the same labor or materials used to deploy broadband to specific locations or to procure the same unit of network equipment. Recipients that receive both RDOF and ReConnect funding must keep separate accounts to track the sources and uses of each funding source as needed to support the certification statement submitted with its ReConnect application.
• If two or more applications are submitted for the same non-Tribal Land area receiving or under consideration for an RDOF award, and one of those applications is submitted by the RDOF winning bidder, or the winning bidder’s assignee, and its application scores equally as high as the other application(s) for the area, RUS will give preference to the applicant receiving or under consideration for the RDOF award, except that on Tribal Lands, RUS will give preference to the applicant that has a Tribal Government Resolution of Consent.

You can also check this section in detail their official website mentioned below and apply for this local grant if interested.

For more information, visit here.