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July 9, 2025 - Today, the Department of Management, Division of Information Technology (DOM DoIT) released a new broadband grant opportunity for internet service providers. $400,000,000 is available through the Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant Program with funding from the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) fund administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
This round of grant funds will be used to incentivize broadband infrastructure build-out to reach unserved and underserved locations throughout the state. NTIA defines unserved as any broadband serviceable location having access to internet speed of less than 25mbps download and 3 Mbps upload (25/3), and underserved locations as having access to internet speeds of 25/3 Mbps but less than 100/20 Mbps.
This will be the ninth Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the State of Iowa. Through eight previous grant opportunities, approximately $500,000,000 in state and federal funding was awarded to bring broadband service to over 100,000 homes, schools and businesses in Iowa. The total new broadband investment between public and private money is over $1 billion.
NTIA recently issued new guidance to the BEAD program that made changes to the program requirements and obligated states to complete the subrecipient selection process within 90 days. DOM DoIT has updated Iowa’s program documentation and mapping to conform to the new guidelines and issued this NOFA as quickly as possible. Documentation for potential applicants to NOFA #009 can be found at the link below.
DOM DoIT will be hosting a pre-application webinar for eligible applicants and consultants on July 11, 2025, from 9:00am – 11:00am. Please use the following link to register for the webinar: Webinar Registration. Please see the Iowa BEAD website (linked below) for a list of eligible applicants.
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