Oregon Office of Rural Health

Oregon Office of Rural Health

Rural Broadband Capacity Program

In Response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

Act Quickly! Applications are due July 2, 2020.

Through this unique program, the Oregon Legislative Assembly Joint Emergency Board has allocated $10,000,000 for grants from funds received by the state of Oregon under the CARES Act of 2020.

Who Can Apply

Oregon cities, counties, ports, tribes, cooperatives, non-profit corporations, public-private partnerships, school districts, education service districts, hospitals, health systems and private sector internet service providers.

Eligible Projects

  • Infrastructure construction capable of delivering basic broadband, a minimum of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream or better; and/or
  • Emergency response projects to provide increased broadband capacity internet access for telework, telehealth and K-12 distance learning applications.

Project Location

Unserved* and underserved** areas in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Project Timeline

  1. Applications are due July 2, 2020 by 5:00 pm Pacific Time.
  2. Award offers will be made as soon as possible until all funds are committed.
  3. All projects must be completed and grant funds must be expended by December 30, 2020.

Additional Information

  • This is a non-competitive rolling grant. Applications will be considered for funding as soon as they are received.
  • The application is not lengthy.
  • This grant does not need to benefit only COVID patients, but can be used to benefit anyone whose healthcare needs are not being met due to the lack of broadband.
  • Complete details and the fillable application form may be found on Business Oregon’s Rural Broadband Capacity Program website.

*Unserved area means a geographic area within which there is no service provider offering residential wireline or wireless terrestrial broadband service at a speed of at least 10 megabits per second for downloads and one megabit per second for uploads.
 
**Underserved area means a geographic area within which there is no service provider offering residential wireline or wireless terrestrial broadband service at a speed of at least 25 megabits per second for downloads and three megabits per second for uploads.