Vantage Point Solutions Helps Secure $50 Million for Indiana Broadband Providers

May 17, 2022

Grants from Next Level Connect Program will help serve more than 10,000 locations.

Vantage Point Solutions’ Broadband Funding team has done it again, helping secure nearly $50 million in grants for rural broadband providers in Indiana. The recently announced awards for Round 3 of the Indiana Next Level Connections Grants include 31 individual awards to providers whose applications were assisted by Vantage Point.

The Indiana Next Level Connections program was established in 2019 and in three rounds has awarded over $268 million to Indiana providers to provide broadband access to residential and commercial locations. This third round, announced April 18, provided $189 million to fund 154 projects that will connect more than fifty thousand Hoosiers. Of these, Vantage Point’s clients received $49,984,173 in grants; the associated provider match brings the total to over $86.4 million in new investment to serve over 10,500 locations – one fifth of the locations served by Round 3 awards. All of these will be served with fiber optic broadband networks.

“We’re very proud of the strong relationships we have with Indiana providers,” says Nathan Weber, VP of Engineering at Vantage Point. “It’s fun to celebrate their success, and it’s an honor to be trusted as part of their team when pursuing opportunities like the Next Level Connections grants.”

“Thanks in part to our strong relationship with Vantage Point, Great Plains Communications was again awarded state funding that will allow us to extend broadband to more unserved Hoosiers,” said Kevin McGuire, Vice President of Eastern Operations, Great Plains Communications. “Their team is knowledgeable on all facets of our business, and worked with us to develop a strategy that maximized our scoring while being realistic about funding requirements for these rural areas. We look forward to working with them again as we continue our mission of extending broadband further to bring fiber driven services to as many homes and businesses as possible.”

Jon Rich, CEO and General Manager at Jasper County REMC, agrees. “Vantage Point was confident in their engineering guidance and financial analysis throughout the grant application process. This made our team feel we were getting the best value for our cooperative and the results proved it! That’s how we were able to submit 4 individual program applications – and all 4 were awarded.” he says.

This most recent success adds to Vantage Point’s impressive funding accomplishments, which total over $2.6 billion in broadband grant, auction, and funds for rural providers. “I’m very proud of our team, and our clients,” says Kristy Szabo, Director of Consulting at Vantage Point. “Year after year we watch those dollars add up, and we know that each award represents one more win for our clients battling the digital divide.”