Adam RollinsRural communities across Texas will soon benefit from a windfall investment in broadband connectivity, enhancing underserved communities’ access to high-speed, reliable internet. The Broadband Development Office (BDO) announced that $701.9 million through the second round of the Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas (BOOT II) program will support broadband expansion initiatives for thousands of households.
The BOOT II program supports countywide infrastructure projects that offer broadband access to homes and businesses that have insufficient access to dependable internet. The BDO selected 24 counties based on the number of locations without broadband service at speeds of 100/20 megabits per second.
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The office expects to deploy primarily fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology to ensure recipients will have high-quality broadband access. The recipients will ensure that all FTTH projects will offer symmetrical internet speeds of at least 1 gigabit per second.
In addition, the counties will provide an unbundled, low-cost option at all locations. The BDO requires that projects receiving funding must be completed by the end of 2026.
As of now, the BDO has only finalized $424.6 million in projects across 13 of the chosen counties. The awards will enable the counties to connect more than 54,000 locations to reliable, high-speed internet. The remaining awards are in the finalization process for the last nine counties, which anticipate connecting nearly 39,000 locations.
This story was originally published in the Texas Government Insider newsletter from Strategic Partnerships, Inc. To have the latest government contracting news stories from across the country delivered straight to your inbox, click here to subscribe.
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