Lancaster, Chester county broadband networks receive $1.6 million

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The United States Department of Agriculture is investing $1.6 million in Lancaster and Chester counties as part of a $16 million grant package for broadband expansion in rural Illinois, Oregon and South Carolina.

The investment package is part of the $550 million Congress allocated to the second round of the USDA’s ReConnect Program, according to a news release.

The $1.6 million will go to Lancaster Telephone Company to install a fiber-to-premises network that will link 5,574 people, 20 businesses, 17 farms and three educational facilities to high-speed broadband internet.

“The need for rural broadband has never been more apparent than it is now as our nation manages the coronavirus national emergency,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in the release. “Access to telehealth services, remote learning for school children, and remote business operations all require access to broadband. I am so proud of our rural communities who have been working day in and day out, just like they always do, producing the food and fiber America depends on. We need them more than ever during these trying times, and expanding access to this critical infrastructure will help ensure rural America prospers for years to come.”

The first round of ReConnect loan and grant funding, adding up to $698 million, was deployed after congressional allocations to the program in March 2018. Applications for round two, in which agricultural department received 172 applications for $1.57 billion, closed April 15, 2020.