HARRISBURG — Verizon Pennsylvania LLC has received a total of $17.1 million for broadband projects in Elk and McKean counties through the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority.

This inaugural round of grant funding from which the local projects were awarded was made possible by the federally funded Broadband Infrastructure Program. All funds must be used by Dec. 31, 2026. Grantees will be held accountable for the prudent expenditure of awarded funds. The PBDA has the ability to take back any unused or misused funds.

“Across the Commonwealth, more than 276,000 households, businesses, schools, and libraries don’t have access to broadband,” said Pennsylvania Budget Secretary Uri Monson, PBDA board chairman. “To create more opportunity for all Pennsylvanians, we must expand access to reliable and affordable high-speed internet. The broadband infrastructure awards made today are yet another step toward making that a reality while responsibly managing this funding to ultimately save Pennsylvanians money on the critical internet services they need for the best quality of life.”

Project applications were evaluated based on scoring criteria, including the size and scope of the unserved or underserved Pennsylvania community where the project will be deployed, the experience and ability of the applicant to successfully deploy high-speed broadband service, affordability standards that include a low-cost option, criteria to support Pennsylvania’s workforce, a plan to ensure high adoption rates in proposed areas upon the project’s completion, and more.

Funded through the federal Capital Projects Fund, the Broadband Infrastructure Program awards grants for line extension and development projects, as well as large-scale regional infrastructure projects. Upon completion, projects must deliver service that meets or exceeds symmetrical download and upload speeds of 100 Megabits per second, with prioritization given to fiber-optic deployment.

Projects are also required to include a viable sustainability strategy to maintain, repair, and upgrade existing networks to ensure their continued operation. Currently, 95 percent of the unserved and underserved households and businesses in Pennsylvania are in rural areas. Among the 42 Pennsylvania counties and more than 40,000 homes and businesses that will be served by these projects, rural areas in McKean, Adams, Blair, Cambria, Indiana, Jefferson, Juniata, Perry, Mercer, Schuylkill and Somerset will benefit from increased access and connectivity.