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St. Tammany uses ARPA funds to accelerate rural broadband; 3,000 homes targeted
Summary
Parish IT staff described an ARPA-funded last-mile grant strategy that aims to connect roughly 3,000 households by paying per-house connections and leveraging private ISPs; staff said the parish stretched about $7 million to address what they characterized as a roughly $72 million network gap.
St. Tammany Parish officials on Tuesday described a phased broadband rollout that uses American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to fill persistent rural coverage gaps. Technology Director Grant told the Infrastructure Committee the parish purchased speed-test data and identified a rural “shadow” area that represented about a $72 million build problem. The parish had about $7 million available and adopted a last-mile grant approach to stretch that funding.
Grant said the parish divided the area into seven “fiberhoods” and offered per-house connection payments so private internet service providers would build the middle mile and serve the neighborhoods. “We were able to solve the…
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