Three broadband companies received nearly $1 million to help improve broadband services to Carbon County.

On Thursday, Commissioner Chris Lukasevich highlighted a notice from the Federal Communications Commission on the successful bidders of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase 1 auction. The auction distributed a total of $9.2 billion across the country to help bring high-speed internet to millions of people, the FCC stated in its Dec. 7 release.

Lukasevich said that Frontier Communications Corp., Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Windstream Services LLC received funding for 727 sites in Carbon County.

According to the FCC, Windstream will receive $60,948 for 68 locations; Space Exploration Technologies, $159,969.10 for 359 locations; and Frontier, $778,948.12 for 300 locations.

Overall, 13 different vendors will get over $368 million for broadband improvement projects throughout the commonwealth.

Lukasevich said the three service providers who were successful in the auction will have three years “to be positively impacting 40 percent of those 727 (locations).”

Each year after that, up to six years, the providers must impact an additional 20 percent.

“The FCC is making a concerted effort to assist Carbon County with bringing enhanced broadband to underserved populations,” Lukasevich said.

According to a release from the Pennsylvania Utility Commission, the projects will reach an estimated 327,000 Pennsylvanians in every county across the state, except for Northampton County, which did not receive funding under the auction.

“Nearly all locations in Pennsylvania that were eligible for the auction will be receiving access to broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, with a majority (64%) getting gigabit-speed broadband,” the release said. “The auction unleashed robust competition that resulted in more locations being awarded at less cost to Americans who pay into the FCC’s Universal Service Fund.”

Neighboring counties also received funding through the auction to bring stronger broadband services to underserved communities.

• Space Exploration and Windstream received a combined total of $339,939 for 138 locations in Lehigh County.

• Commnet Wireless LLC, Frontier and Space Exploration received a combined $595,119 for 656 locations in Monroe County.

• Frontier, Space Exploration and Windstream received a combined $5,000,751 for 2,772 locations in Schuylkill County.

The Carbon County Commissioners had been looking at a broadband access enhancement project since last year, but rejected two proposals that didn’t meet the “basic requirement with what was requested.”

The commissioners had earmarked $500,000 from the Carbon COVID-19 Relief Block Grant for the enhancement of broadband in the county for the underserved and not-served areas, specifically the northern tier of Carbon.