HB298 Alabama 2022 Session

Summary

Primary Sponsor

Juandalynn Givan Representative

Democrat

Session

Regular Session 2022

Title

Broadband, revising broadband accessibility grant program, increasing minimum threshold speed, expanding program to governmental entities, revising grant application process, Sec. 41-23-211, 41-23-212, 41-23-213, 41-23-214 am'd.

Description

Under existing law, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs administers a broadband accessibility grant program to award grants to non-governmental entities that provide broadband services.

This bill would increase the minimum service threshold for high-speed broadband services from 25 to 20 megabits per second of download speed and from three to 100 megabits per second of upload speed.

This bill would allow governmental entities to participate in the grant program and would require an entity to have contributed its statewide broadband service availability information to the Alabama broadband mapping program over the past year to qualify for a grant.

This bill would also require any federal or other funds expended by ADECA's grant program to be distributed according to the statewide connectivity plan.

Under existing law, grants awarded by ADECA for unserved areas may not exceed the lesser of 35 percent of the project costs or $1,500,000.

This bill would increase the amount authorized to be awarded by providing that grants awarded in unserved areas may not exceed the lesser of 80 percent of the project costs or $5,000,000.

This bill would provide additional criteria for the preference of awarding of grants to organizations incorporated, headquartered, or with a principal place of business in Alabama and to projects that include services that offer certain programs.

This bill would revise the window for applying for a grant and would provide exceptions to this timeframe.

This bill would remove the requirement for ADECA to publish grant applications online and allow persons to object to the eligibility of the project.

This bill would also provide for a one-year extension of the requirement that a funded project be completed within two years in certain circumstances.

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Subjects

Broadband