Section 77-19-11 - Criteria for awarding fundsThe criteria for determining the awarding of funds shall include the following:
(a) The applicant's experience and financial wherewithal to deploy, operate and manage the proposed project and broadband service offerings, including evidence of the applicant's successful operations of broadband services to retail end users;(b) The readiness to build, operate and maintain the project;(c) Projects that will deploy broadband service to the most unserved or underserved areas;(d) The scalability of the proposed project network to support the deployment of higher broadband speeds over time;(e) The likelihood that the unserved or underserved area will not be served with broadband service without such state or federal grant funding;(f) The applicant's ability to demonstrate the community's support for the project and a collaborated plan to leverage broadband services for community needs and economic development, such as rural development, education, tourism, new investment, or business attraction or retention;(g) A preference for those applications seeking to deploy and provide broadband services to areas in which there is currently no fixed terrestrial Internet access service available;(h) No discrimination or preference to applications on the basis of the type of technology proposed by any applicant to be used to provide broadband services so long as the technology proposed meets the federal guidelines;(i) The size and scope of the unserved or underserved area to be deployed; and(j) The broadband service speed thresholds proposed in the application and the scalability of the broadband service network infrastructure proposed to be deployed to provide broadband service to households and businesses.Added by Laws, 2022, ch. 397, HB 1029,§ 6, eff. 4/14/2022.