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St. Tammany Parish uses $7M in ARPA funds to target last‑mile broadband gaps, aims to connect about 3,000 homes
Summary
St. Tammany Parish officials described a last‑mile grant strategy that uses roughly $7 million in ARPA funds to pay for home connections so private providers will build the middle mile, a plan officials say will directly connect about 3,000 homes and leverage service for many more.
St. Tammany Parish officials told the infrastructure committee that an ARPA‑funded last‑mile grant approach will pay for home connections so private providers will extend middle‑mile infrastructure, a strategy they say can address a roughly $72 million broadband coverage shortfall for about $7 million in local funds.
Grant, the parish technology director, said the parish commissioned an RFP and purchased speed‑test data to identify underserved and unserved pockets. "We identified it was about a $72,000,000 problem," he said, and then described narrowing investment to smaller, high‑need clusters that providers would then connect to the broader network.
The parish division of areas into seven so‑called "fiberhoods" follows a model used in…
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