Loan Insurance Approved for Rural Broadband Award Winners | News, Sports, Jobs

CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Economic Development Authority voted on Tuesday to award the first loan insurance applications for four state ISPs that received winning bids at the rural broadband auction of last fall, while a lawmaker continues to question a company’s ability to deliver.

The EDA has approved loan insurance applications for Bridgeport-based Citynet for a loan of up to $ 16 million from MVB Bank; Preston County-based Digital Connections / PRODIGI for a loan of up to $ 2.6 million from Clear Mountain Bank; GigaBeam, based in Bluefield, Va., For a loan of up to $ 8.4 million from Citizens Bank of West Virginia; and a loan transfer of up to $ 3 million for Buckhannon-based Micrologic from Citizens Bank of Weston to Citizens Bank of West Virginia.

Loan insurance claims are for 100 percent of a 10-year letter of credit. Approval is pending a cash flow calculation from Treasury Investment Board and terms recommended by staff.

West Virginia was able to raise more than $ 362 million through the Federal Communication Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunities Fund Phase I auction.

The auction allocated $ 9.2 billion over 10 years to subsidize the construction of gigabit broadband internet in unserved rural areas of the United States.

Nine companies, including Citynet, Digital Connections, GigaBeam and Micrologic, have won bids from the FCC to extend high-speed Internet to 119,267 unserved census tracts in West Virginia. The other winners were Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Altice USA (Suddenlink), Commnet Wireless, Shenandoah Cable Television and Frontier Communications.

Last year, Governor Jim Justice signed an Executive Order removing regulatory caps from EDA’s broadband loan insurance program. As part of the decree, the court also ordered the EDA to limit the approval of the application for the broadband loan insurance program to the maximum necessary for the first year of the program.

“It’s a good thing for the state of West Virginia. This will help us develop broadband ”, said Michael Graney, executive director of the West Virginia Development Office and president of EDA. “We want to continue to use all these federal dollars that we can, but we also have to use some state dollars.”

The justice system used its state of emergency powers when the decree was signed last September. The West Virginia legislature plans to pass legislation this year to permanently remove regulatory caps on loan insurance, as well as provide additional funding for broadband expansion and remove additional regulatory hurdles. 2021 legislative session begins February 10

“I can assure you that broadband will be a topic that will be discussed frequently over the next 75 days and I hope we can advance broadband at a much faster rate than in the past,” Grany said. “It is fundamental and very important.”

One of the committees working on broadband expansion is the House of Delegates Technology and Infrastructure Committee and its chairman, Del. Daniel Linville, R-Cabell. Last week, Linville wrote a letter to Frontier CEO Bernie Hahn asking for further details on Frontier’s ability to meet its obligations under the RDOF auction, its deal with the Utilities Commission and its broadband expansion plans after bankruptcy.

“As we develop policies related to regulation and financial support at the state level, it is our responsibility as policy makers to gather the facts about how past programs have not been able to to bridge the digital divide ” Linville said. “We have a mandate from the people of West Virginia to do the job. To do this, we must learn the lessons of past efforts by the federal government and a craft policy that learns from the successes and failures of the past.

Frontier was the largest recipient of RDOF dollars in West Virginia at $ 247.6 million. In a PSC order issued Jan. 15, Frontier agreed to spend $ 200 million – or a minimum of $ 50 million per year – on capital improvements by 2023 and to deploy high-speed fiber internet. optical in at least 150,000 locations in the state by the end of 2027. Frontier had accepted dollars from the FCC Connect America Fund in 2015 to expand broadband to 89,190 locations in West Virginia by the end of 2020.

“Given the substantial federal funding Frontier has received, the information I have requested is critical to our efforts,” Linville said. “The House Committee on Technology and Infrastructure, and myself as chair, will not falter until we connect West Virginia to the internet infrastructure we need to thrive in the world. 21st century. “

A Frontier spokesperson said he was working to find out if they had received Linville’s letter and had no comment.

(Adams can be contacted at [email protected])