Pinpoint Communications asks Lincoln County for nonexclusive letter of support for federal broadband grants

Tom Schumacher, president of Pinpoint Communications, told the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on the company’s plan to extend fiber to rural pockets of the county and asked the board for a letter of support for state and federal broadband grant applications.

Pinpoint, a Cambridge, Nebraska–based “overbuilder” of fiber, is preparing organizational and project applications for Nebraska’s broadband grant rounds tied to federal BEAD/DEED funding, Schumacher said. He described two project areas that overlap Lincoln County — labeled in the grant maps as DPA J63 and K71 — and said the company expects to submit the organizational (OA) application before March 9 and project applications by April 11. Schumacher said awarded projects would carry a roughly four‑year buildout requirement.

The request matters because letters of support carry points in the Nebraska application process and can influence competitiveness, Schumacher said. He asked the county for a nonexclusive support letter but said Pinpoint would not expect exclusivity.

Commissioners and county staff questioned the company on route selection, construction standards and local impacts. Schumacher said Pinpoint’s network is all fiber, that the company now places fiber in duct to simplify future repairs, and that it operates a data center in North Platte near East State Farm Road (the presenter said it is the company’s HughesNet‑anchored facility). He said Pinpoint has grown from about 1,500 fiber passings five years ago to roughly 22,000 passings today and estimated about 80% of the addresses inside the portions of J63/K71 his team is proposing are unserved or underserved. Schumacher also said the company currently serves roughly 90 customers in the immediate area he described and that earlier rounds of “Bridge” funding helped build the initial network anchor.

County commissioners raised procedural questions: whether the county should be in the position of endorsing one applicant in a competitive round, whether permitting and restoration standards would be enforced and how the county could avoid bearing cleanup costs if work is not done to standards. Schumacher said Pinpoint follows long‑standing RUS‑style construction standards, uses a mix of in‑house crews and subcontractors, and typically provides maps and permitting material to counties as part of the work. He declined to accept mandatory exclusivity and said the company expects to be a second‑round applicant in parts of the DPA because it is not proposing to cover an entire DPA.

Several commissioners said the board has been advised to hold off issuing letters of support until the National Association of Counties (NACO) toolkit and the Nebraska Broadband Office guidance are finalized and until the county legal team reviews proposed endorsements. One commissioner also said planning and zoning officers and legal counsel (named in discussion as Mr. Volkmar) planned to take part in upcoming BEED/DEED and NACO meetings in Kearney.

No formal vote or binding action was taken at the meeting. Schumacher said Pinpoint provided a draft letter to county staff; commissioners asked for contact information and documentation and said staff and legal would review any draft before the board considered a recommendation.

Quotes from the meeting included Schumacher's summary of the company's ask: "We may not get it. What we're looking for is a support letter saying, you know, we support Pinpoint as a carrier to come into our county for these applications." Planning and legal review was emphasized by a commissioner who said the county had been advised to "hold off on issuing those" letters until the toolkit is finalized and the county legal team had time to review the language.

The commission did not commit to a specific timeline for a letter and directed staff to circulate Pinpoint’s contact information and application schedule to the planning, legal and administration teams for review.

Pinpoint provided technical and planning details, including the March 9 OA deadline, the April 11 project deadline, a four‑year build requirement, the company’s preference for ducted fiber and its estimate of roughly 80% unserved/underserved addresses within the targeted areas. Commissioners asked the company to supply maps and permitting information to county staff.