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Charter expanding broadband in Polk County

With its recent receipt of federal grants through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, Charter Communications is expanding broadband availability in Polk County.

Charter recently participated in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Auction #904 bidding under the name of “CCO Holdings LLC”.  This Auction was conducted by the Federal Communications Commission to make federal funds available to expand broadband service into completely unserved census block areas across the United States.

In Polk County, Charter was awarded 1,350 address locations and $1,050,622.40 in federal funds. For every dollar of federal funds, Charter Communications says it will be investing generally at least twice as much of private funding in these projects.

Attached is a map of Polk County that shows the RDOF award areas in green labeled “CCO Holding, LLC”.  An interactive FCC map of all the RDOF awards nationwide can be found at https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/0b324cabf7b94d9ca34caa9361122d94/.

In all the areas of Polk County where Charter will be expanding broadband service, the standard speed will be 200 Mbps with optional service up to 1 Gigabit. The network Charter will build should help enable consumers to engage in remote learning, work, telemedicine and other applications.

“This is exciting news for the citizens of Polk County,” Polk County Manager Marche Pittman said. “Lack of access to broadband Internet has been especially impactful to our citizens during the Covid crisis. This will allow us to continue to identify and fill the holes left by providers in our community.”

The initiative is part of Charter’s multiyear, multibillion-dollar broadband buildout to deliver gigabit high-speed broadband access to more than 1 million unserved customer locations nationwide, as estimated by the FCC and awarded to Charter in the RDOF Phase I auction.

“The pandemic has further highlighted the need for broadband availability and adoption and Charter is committed to furthering its efforts as part of the comprehensive solution needed to address these challenges,” said Tom Rutledge, Chairman and CEO of Charter Communications.

Preparation for the RDOF Phase I broadband buildout has already begun and will include Charter expanding its existing construction organization in order to focus on deployment of this new fiber optic network. Charter expects to hire more than 2,000 employees and contractors to support the RDOF and future rural buildout initiatives.

Submitted by PolkNC.info