The Biden administration has announced more than $930 million for high-speed “middle mile” infrastructure connections, meant to help expand capacity and lower the cost of connecting local broadband deployments to regional and national networks.
Middle-mile infrastructure doesn’t connect end users directly, but rather connects local networks with the larger internet. That transport piece is often overlooked as part of network deployment needs—but as mobile network operators know from their own build-outs, the performance received at a network end-point is directly impacted by the backhaul performance and capacity that are available. The cost of backhaul for local networks also impacts the ability to cost-effectively deploy, and funding of middle-mile access is seen as one way to bring down overall broadband deployment costs.
Middle-mile infrastructure received a dedicated $1 billion in funding through the bipartisan infrastructure act that provides $42.5 billion for broadband connectivity.
“The Middle Mile program will invest more than $900 million in the infrastructure needed to connect communities, military bases, and Tribal lands to the Internet, lower the cost of access, and increase bandwidth,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Much like how the interstate highway system connected every community in America to regional and national systems of highways, this program will help us connect communities across the country to regional and national networks that provide quality, affordable high-speed Internet access.”’
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communication and Information Alan Davidson called the middle-mile program a “force multiplier in our efforts to connect everyone in America” and said that such infrastructure “brings capacity to our local networks and lowers the cost for deploying future local networks. These grants will help build the foundation of networks that will in turn connect every home in the country to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service.”
The $930 million in announced awards includes infrastructure awards across 35 states and Puerto Rico, in more than 350 counties—and the actual value of the projects is significantly higher than the awards, because that $930 million is matched with another $848.46 million in outside funding.
According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the projects awarded will deploy more than 12,000 miles of new fiber which will pass within 1,000 feet of nearly 7,000 community anchor institutions. The individual grants range from $2.7 million to nearly $89 million, with an average award of $26.6 million.
NTIA said that it received more than 260 applications for funding, which totaled nearly $7.5 billion in requests.
-An Alabama project to deploy 677.1 route miles of at least 144-count buried fiber, including 411.5 route miles for access to unserved areas, 29.8 route miles for access to underserved areas and 235.8 route miles for connectivity to four Internet peering points.
-A California project for 680 miles of middle-mile fiber across 37 spurs that are part of a larger statewide middle-mile network and bringing that network within 5 miles of 288,000 unserved addresses and 14 Tribal entities.
-Three projects won by infrastructure provider Zayo in the Southeast and the West, spanning hundreds of miles of fiber routes. In West Texas, Zayo plans to build a new, 644-mile underground middle mile fiber route that “would serve some of the most rural areas in Western Texas, stretching from Dallas to El Paso,” according to the project summary. In addition to anchor institution access points, Zayo will work with a partner to build nine 180-foot towers along the route that will each be able to host up to four ISPs providing mobile and fixed wireless 5G broadband service.
