Grants to rural areas for broadband expansion

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Rural Utilities Service have announced the availability of $4.8 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants and loans for broadband initiatives, the second funding round for the agencies' stimulus act programs.

Ten (10) U.S. states and 1 U.S. territory will soon launch comprehensive broadband mapping and planning initiatives based on ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) technology. They will use BroadbandStat, an application developed by ESRI and Connected Nation, to organize and display broadband service and related data on the Internet...