Iowa Municipals Receive over $5M in Iowa Broadband Grants

Three of Iowa's municipal telecommunications utilities were successful bidders in the latest round of funding from the Iowa Broadband Grant program. Awards totaling $97.5 million were announced by the Iowa OCIO office today.

---

Cedar Falls Utilities was the largest recipient of funds for a municipal utility. Approximately $2.34 million in grant funds will support the CFU fiber network buildout in rural areas west and north of Cedar Falls.

Manning Municipal Utilities will receive $2.2 million to build fiber-to-the-home in rural areas around Manning, which recently completed a fiber rebuild of its network in Manning.

Muscatine Power and Water's grant award of $550,000 will support FTTP in areas east of Muscatine.

Grant applications by Osage Municipal Utilities and Vinton Municipal Communications Utility did not receive funding. With one exception, every funded project was either an independent telecommunications cooperative/mutual or municipal utility.

Larger companies did not fare well in the process. Mediacom and Windstream's applications for fiber builds in several areas were passed over, along with fixed wireless proposals from Mediacom and AMG Technology.