In a video call, President Biden spoke to a Wisconsin family over their new fiber line, built and operated by VernonCom, with funds from the American Rescue Plan.
The White House recently published a 90-second video conversation between President Biden and a Wisconsin couple, Emile and Camille Smith. The conversation, which touched on the family's business, was casual, but the call was notable because it was conducted over their new fiber line, funded by the American Rescue Plan.
Since taking office, President Biden has signed major legislation with tens of billions of dollars for broadband deployment. That includes the $10 billion capital projects fund, authorized in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), used primarily for broadband infrastructure – as well as billions more for broadband from ARPA's $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF); and of course, over $45 billion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for NTIA programs, including the signature $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program and the $1 billion Middle Mile program; as well as $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program.
BEAD takes center stage in most conversations about the administration's broadband efforts, due to its size and its ambition to achieve "Internet for all." But as that complex program has been taking shape, the Biden-Harris administration has been steadily awarding funds and connecting families across the US via other broadband deployment programs.
That includes the Smith family, in Crawford County, Wisconsin, who benefited from a grant awarded to Vernon Communications Cooperative (VernonCom) via State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, authorized via ARPA and managed by the US Treasury Department. Wisconsin was allocated a total of $2.53 billion in SLFRF, of which the state allocated $102 million for broadband deployment projects (in addition to $42 million from the capital projects fund).
According to Wisconsin's most recent performance report on its use of SLFR funds, Vernon Communications was awarded $5.69 million to build a fiber network reaching "52 businesses and 993 residential locations in the towns of Freeman, Utica, and Seneca, and the villages of Mount Sterling and Lynxville in Crawford County." The project was fully completed by the end of Q2 2024, according to the state.
The Smith family, who run a small business, told Biden that access to high-speed Internet in their rural region has provided new opportunities for their business (including potentially even convincing their 26-year-old son to work there) as well as enabling access to telemedicine.
It also enabled them to conduct a face-to-face conversation with the president of the United States from their home.
'Rural electrification'
Their service provider, Vernon Communications Cooperative (now VernonCom), advertises several symmetrical speed plans ranging from 50 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s ($54.95-$200/month). The cooperative was first established in 1951 as the Vernon Telephone Cooperative (VTC) "with financial assistance from the Rural Electrification Act," according to its website. It later transformed into VC Co-op, as an Internet service provider, and this year rebranded as VernonCom.
On his call with the Smith family, Biden likened the administration's work on broadband to that 1951 legislation: "What we're doing nationally, with the billions of dollars we're spending on providing Internet to all communities, is a little like what Roosevelt did for electrification of rural America," he said.
As of earlier this year, the Treasury Department had awarded nearly all of the $10 billion allocated via ARPA for the capital projects fund.
In an email to Light Reading, a spokesperson for the Treasury Department confirmed "there are Biden-Harris Administration funded high-speed Internet infrastructure projects under construction or completed in 45 states."
Those dollars are in motion – along with funds from prior federal programs such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and Connect America Fund (CAF) – as states across the country begin opening applications for the BEAD program. BEAD funds are expected to start flowing in 2025.
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