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Rural broadband service coming to Gage County [1]

['Scott Koperski Daily Sun News Editor', 'Scott Koperski']

Date: 2023-12 

High-speed internet is coming to rural Gage County.

The project, which is years in the making, kicked off this month and officials gathered northeast of Pickrell Wednesday morning for a groundbreaking ceremony of the rural broadband service.

Last September the County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with NextLink Internet for the rural broadband project. Project plans date back to more than a year ago, and are the result of Gage County receiving $4.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funds last year that are earmarked for water, sewer or broadband projects.

“This is huge,” said County Board of Supervisors member Emily Haxby, who spearheaded the project. “By partnering with NextLink on this project, we turned $4 million in ARPA funds into about a $13 million project covering about 40% of the county. It’s all rural homes getting fiber to the home. We’re hitting about 1,000 homes so it’s pretty awesome.”

The project is expected to be completed in around two years, but Aaron Clark, Regional Director of Operations with NextLink, said it’s being done in six phases and the first customers could have access to the high-speed internet service as soon as within two months.

“This is really the commencement of construction on the first phase of the Gage County fiber project,” he said. “It’s a public-private partnership between Gage County and NextLink internet. We are building approximately 400 miles of fiber to approximately 1,000 rural homes, farms and acreages in Gage County.

“Emily Haxby really took initiative with this to set up what hasn’t really been done at this scale in Nebraska before. This is really unique and a model that a lot of other counties will be looking at.”

It was previously stated that prices for customers would start at $49.95 for 100 Mbps service.

Fiber lines will be buried throughout the county. Initial plans called for wireless internet service to eventually be available in southern Gage County, though that’s not included in the agreement.

Under the agreement all of the funds awarded to Gage County would be put toward the project, with the company awarded the project picking up the remainder of the cost over time.

The total project was previously estimated to be a $13 million investment in Gage County.

Anyone interested in in more information or to sign up for the service can visit www.nextlinkinternet.com

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[1] Url: https://beatricedailysun.com/news/local/rural-broadband-service-coming-to-gage-county/article_4e7a2ffa-f4dd-11ed-b3d1-ff64c5580ba7.html

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