Centre County government is seeking proposals from service providers to expand broadband internet to underserved areas, as Pennsylvania nears the application roll out for its share of a major federal funding program.
The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved issuing a request for proposals “from internet service providers to develop their plan for expansion of high-speed broadband to include unserved and underserved prioritized communities within Centre County.”
Pennsylvania was awarded $1.16 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the largest ever federal investment in broadband internet expansion. The Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority (PBDA) is expected to detail the timeline for BEAD funding at its Oct. 10 meeting, according to Elizabeth Lose, Centre County assistant director for planning and community development.
The RFP issued on Tuesday is intended “to get out in front of this program and to be able to start to do those identification project areas.”
A countywide broadband study and strategic plan prepared with CTC Technology and issued in January 2023 identified about 8,000 underserved and unserved addresses in three zones — northern, central and eastern —as targets for broadband expansion. Smaller projects have begun to address some of those.
Last year the county selected two projects — one for Curtin and Liberty townships, another for Boggs Township and part of Penns Valley — to apply for some of the $200 million being distributed for funding from the American Rescue Plan Act Capital Project Funds distributed by by the PBDA.
“Under the Capital Projects Fund, we weren’t entirely clear what the authority was looking for,” Lose said. “And then after the fact, it was more described to us that they were looking for those very large projects that could serve a number of locations at one time. But now under the BEAD, there’s going to be a lot of different areas, like smaller pockets, that are going to have to be served, and the money is there to fund these projects. So if we could get three or four projects advanced again at Centre County, I would certainly recommend that those go to the authority.”
The RFP for BEAD funding projects is similar to the one used for Capital Project Funds, and again proposals will be evaluated on six factors.
Those include comprehensiveness of the proposal and the technical solution proposed — i.e., whether it will be a wireline project or wireless. The county will also consider affordability for low-income households, the company’s operational experience, financial viability of the project and cost per household to be connected.
“We want to try to find some kind of alignment between what the state is going to roll out as what they say those areas need to be served, and then how does that line up with county’s strategic plan,” Lose said.
The county will accept questions from potential proposers through Oct. 11 and provide answers by Oct. 18. The submission deadline, however, will not be until Jan. 3, so as to to allow a company that wants to respond to Centre County’s RFP adequate time,” Lose said.
Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Higgins said the county has set aside $1 million from its ARPA funds to assist companies with the local match requirement for BEAD grants. A 25% local match is required for awarded funds, but Lose said that the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and Information Administration will allow for lower match amounts on some projects that will have a very high cost.
The county received eight proposals for Capital Project Funds projects last year, and Lose said she is hopeful the county will receive a similar pool this time around.
“It’s been a long wait for this opening, so I’m glad we’re poised and ready and have the data to be able to put together hopefully some good proposals that will go in and be competitive,” Commissioner Amber Concepcion said.
