In a second round of funding, Delta Electric Power Association has been notified that it has received a grant of about $469,000 through the Mississippi Electric Cooperatives Broadband COVID-19 program.
Like the $4.4 million grant Delta Electric was notified it had received late last month, the recent $468,994 grant must also be matched by Delta Electric dollar for dollar and will go toward its project to bring broadband internet service to underserved portions of its 13-county area of utility coverage, said David O’Bryan, the cooperative’s general manager.
Delta Electric was one of 13 cooperatives in Northern Mississippi receiving a portion of the $65 million the Legislature set aside to increase expansion of high-speed internet service in areas that lack it. The state’s grant program, which used federal money from the CARES Act, was administered in light of increased reliance on the internet as students and adults had been working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Initially, Delta Electric applied for a $4.9 million dollar-for-dollar matching grant through the program. However, during that first round of funding, the grant program “got over-subscribed,” O’Bryan said, meaning the grants awarded were scaled back.
The Legislature also appropriated $10 million for entities other than electric cooperatives in order to provide high-speed internet service.
The unused funds from that program were used as a second round of grant funds for the electric cooperatives, O’Bryan said.
With the latest award Delta Electric now has its original $4.9 million grant for its broadband expansion project.
As O’Bryan said in late July, Delta Electric’s high-speed internet project will work to provide service in a large portion of Carroll County as well as a few census tracts in Grenada County.
About half of Delta Electric’s 4,500 customers in Carroll County will initially be reached with internet service; there’ll be plans later on to expand to the rest of the customers.
“We’re going to move along as fast as we can to get this service out to customers,” O’Bryan said Tuesday. “We’re hoping that by the November-December timeframe we’ll be doing the home installations for the broadband.”
O’Bryan added that Delta Electric customers not in the grant area can register for broadband service.
• Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
