Great Plains Communications Awarded $3.54 Million in Nebraska Reverse Auction
GPC’s award will help expand high-speed fiber broadband access to rural locations in 10 unserved Nebraska communities
Blair, Nebraska, April 10, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Great Plains Communications (GPC), the Midwestern digital infrastructure provider with a growing, privately owned 18,000+ mile fiber network reaching 13 states, has been awarded a total of $3.54 Million as one of the winning bidders in the Nebraska Public Service Commission’s (PSC) 2024 Reverse Auction to expand broadband access to more than 1,100 households in unserved areas of Nebraska.
GPC’s funding will assist in providing high-speed fiber broadband services to approximately 310 unserved households in rural areas of Columbus, Hebron, Kearney, Madison, Mead, Monroe, Nebraska City, Palmer, Seward and Superior, Nebraska. GPC has begun engineering and design with all areas projected for completion in the next 48 months.
“We are looking forward to bringing high-speed fiber broadband services to more residents in these unserved areas of the state,” said Joe Pellegrini, President and COO of Great Plains Communications. “We applaud the Nebraska Public Service Commission for facilitating this reverse auction program to maximize available broadband funding to benefit more communities.”
The 2024 reverse auction was designed to provide broadband-capable voice service to rural areas where telecommunication carriers Frontier and Windstream have traditionally served by redistributing Nebraska Universal Service Fund (NUSF) support that was unused and subsequently withheld from the two companies. Bidding began on January 22, with the final round held on March 11.
About Great Plains Communications
Great Plains Communications is one of the largest privately-owned digital infrastructure providers in the Midwest and is headquartered in Blair, Nebraska. It has over a century of experience providing business and residential customers in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska and Southeastern Indiana communities with forward-thinking, fiber-based technology services including high-speed internet, Ethernet, GPC Cloud Connect, SD WAN, video and hosted and traditional voice solutions. The company also takes pride in its progressive approach to accommodating the unique needs of all regional and national telecommunications carriers, LECs, ISPs, wireless carriers and other service providers utilizing superior engineering and custom-build strategies. At the core of its service offering is an extensive, MEF-certified 18,000+ mile regional fiber network that reaches 13 states: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The network offers community access rings, last-mile and middle-mile solutions, all fully supported by the company’s 24x7x365 Network Operations Center. For more information, visit www.gpcom.com.
CONTACT: Laura Kocher Great Plains Communications 4024566429 lkocher@gpcom.com
