HELENA — On Wednesday morning, Governor Greg Gianforte signed off on an agreement to invest around $309 million of ARPA funding to expand broadband in Montana.
The grants, which focus on rural Montana, will fund 61 broadband expansion projects in 27 counties across the state.
Click here to see the complete list of funding recommendations.
The Gianforte administration says the grants are estimated to provide broadband to 61,887 serviceable locations including homes, businesses, farms and ranches. Of those locations, 38,631 of them are in unserved communities, 21,956 in underserved communities and 1,300 in frontier communities.
Gianforte told reporters Wednesday the digital divide between Montana’s broadband infrastructure and other parts of the country has been an issue for decades and has only grown more prevalent.
“With today’s investment, Montanans across the state will have greater access to opportunities for employment, healthcare and education,” said Gianforte. “And businesses in every corner of our state will be able to grow prosper and create more good-paying Montana jobs.”
According to the Federal Communications Commission, about 1 in 3 Montanans do not have access to broadband, which is three times the national average. The digital divide is even greater in Montana’s rural communities where 3 in 5 Montanans do not have access to broadband.
The projects were recommended by the Montana ARPA Communications Advisory Commission. The state took applications for grants through April, and initial rankings came out in August. After some providers questioned the scoring system, state staff went back over it and came back with updated rankings that shook up the list significantly.
Under the federal American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, Montana was allocated $266 million to upgrade broadband access in unserved and underserved areas. The state put together the ConnectMT grant program and invited companies to make proposals. However, state leaders also hope to redirect another $44 million in unused ARPA money to the broadband program. That will require a small change to the state law that authorized the program, and lawmakers hope to pass that quickly once the 2023 legislative session begins.
About $109 million of the money will go to one provider: Charter Communications. All of Charter’s applications scored high enough to qualify for a grant, but the commission adopted a cap so no single company can receive more than about 35% of the funding. Critics of the process argued the funding allocation may leave much of the state’s rural areas still unserved.
The deadline for ARPA funding to be expended is December 31, 2026. Misty Ann Giles, Director of the Department of Administration and the state’s Chief Operating Officer who leads the broadband program, said the state will be working with all parties to ensure funding is spent.
(DECEMBER 9, 2022) After months of consideration, a state commission has delivered its recommendations on how to distribute up to $300 million in federal funds to improve high-speed internet access in Montana.
At a meeting on Wednesday, the ARPA Communications Advisory Commission approved its final rankings for 85 projects that applied for broadband funding. 61 of those projects – in 27 Montana counties – were recommended to receive grants, and another 11 are in line for funding if any of the top projects withdraw or scale down their scope.
“Is this perfect? No, and I don’t think anything ever is perfect,” said Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, who chairs the commission. “But what this does is, it serves Montana best, and I’m proud to say that I think, with the work that we’ve done, we’ve gotten to that point.”
Governor Greg Gianforte will have to give final approval of the recommendations before any money is officially awarded.
Click here to see the complete list of funding recommendations.
It’s been a long, convoluted process. The state took applications for grants through April, and initial rankings came out in August. After some providers questioned the scoring system, state staff went back over it and came back with updated rankings that shook up the list significantly.
“This has been challenging to say the least, because In any situation where you’re handing out money, you just don’t have enough to go around – and that’s a fact,” Ellsworth said. “We were well oversubscribed.”
The commission was initially set to recommend about $260 million in funding. However, state leaders now hope to redirect another $44 million in unused American Rescue Plan Act money to the broadband program. That will require a small change to the state law that authorized the program, and lawmakers hope to pass that quickly once the 2023 legislative session begins.
About $109 million of the money will go to one provider: Charter Communications, the nationwide telecommunications company that runs Spectrum internet services. All 28 of Charter’s applications scored high enough to qualify for a grant, but the commission adopted a cap, so no single company can receive more than about 35% of the funding.
Representatives for Charter have criticized the addition of the cap throughout the process, but on Wednesday, they said they were ready for the recommendations to move forward regardless.
“This is about getting broadband access to those who don't have it in the most effective way with limited funds,” said Bridger Mahlum, a state government affairs director with Charter. “And so in that spirit, as Charter has thought more about this process along the way, we would urge you to support this proposal that you have before you as written and pass it along for the Governor's consideration, because we are looking forward to getting our shovels out and getting access to Montanans who don't have it.”
But some providers still expressed disappointment at how they were scored against larger companies, and at how the state handled overlapping applications. When two projects sought to serve the same area, the higher-scored application received full funding and the authority to add service to all locations it asked for, while the lower-scored project would only be able to serve the ones that weren’t included in the other proposal – receiving a corresponding reduction in funding.
In one case, Charter and Lincoln Telephone Company applied to serve overlapping locations in the Birdseye area northwest of Helena. As Charter’s application was ranked higher, it was awarded most of the contested service locations. Lincoln Telephone Company was awarded a grant, but only for 1% of the funding it had asked for.
Geoff Feiss, general manager of BroadbandMT – formerly the Montana Telecommunications Association – represents locally-owned telecom companies in Montana. He said those companies were invariably outranked by larger providers in the scoring, and they were left with the hardest locations to serve. He urged the committee to delay making their recommendations for several overlapping claims, to give the companies a chance to try to come to an agreement on how to resolve the conflicts.
“We're willing to work with all providers to iron out solutions in these areas,” he said. “You can give us a deadline and we'll return with solutions to the few remaining projects that continue to plague the program. By setting aside temporarily just a few projects, we can proceed with awarding the vast majority of ConnectMT projects. We can remove the few thorns that are causing practically all of the pain. We can preserve the integrity of the ConnectMT program while promoting and protecting the best interests of the state of Montana. After all, we're all Montanans. We sit down with our neighbors and mend our fences.”
Sen. Janet Ellis, D-Helena, did propose that type of delay, but Ellsworth ruled her motion out of order, because the commission had already voted to move forward with its recommendations.
