Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced an initial award of $18.5 million in grant funding benefiting 17 counties across the state as part of the Texas Broadband Pole Replacement Program. This initial funding will support the deployment of broadband to rural, unserved areas by partially reimbursing grant awardees who’ve replaced more than 11,000 poles that support retail broadband services. To receive funding under the program, awardees were required to demonstrate they incurred eligible costs for removing and replacing existing poles to support retail broadband services that reliably meet or exceed broadband speeds of at least 25 Mbps download and three Mbps upload.

Awardees include Bartlett Electric Cooperative, Charter Communications, United Electric Cooperative Services Inc., and MidSouth Electric Cooperative.

For more information on funding opportunities, see the Texas Broadband Development Office website here.