The Oregon Broadband Office (OBO) recently announced the American Rescue Plan Act Broadband Deployment Funding Program (ARPA BDP) results. Through this program, 19 counties are receiving new broadband services. OBO selected 21 applications to receive the $157 million that Oregon was allocated. In total, 15,488 locations across the state will be served by broadband services, 86.5% of which are locations previously unserved. The average cost per household was $9,368. The average monthly service cost will be $39.04, with no program charging more than $50 per month.
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program is coming up quickly. This program is going to be much larger than BDP, with total funding of $688 million. OBO is holding open office hours on the first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. Past recordings are on the BEAD website and you may register for upcoming meetings here. Please encourage your local providers to apply for this program and engage in proactive communication with OBO about pre-qualification and their application to resolve any issues to prevent the application from being disqualified.
Submitted by: Tim Dooley | AOC Legislative Affairs Manager