USDA Rural Development Broadband Roundtable

USDA Rural Development will be hosting a Rural Broadband Roundtable in Monroe, Louisiana on April 9th.

The event will be an opportunity for stakeholders to get a better understanding of the e-Connectivity Pilot Program, known as ReConnect, which congress authorized and funded in 2018.

The ReConnect Program offers loans and grants to facilitate high-speed broadband deployment in rural areas that currently lack sufficient internet access. The delivery of broadband connection and high-quality service will enable technologies critical to rural communities, such as precision agriculture, and will fuel long-term economic development and opportunities in rural America.

Telecommunications companies, rural electric cooperatives and utilities, internet service providers, and municipalities are eligible to apply.

Projects funded through the ReConnect Program must serve communities with fewer than 20,000 people and that have no broadband service or where existing service is slower than 10 megabits per second (mbps) download and 1 mbps upload.

The Rural Broadband Roundtable will take place at the Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 9th.