Where Does Our Money Come From?

In response to our last update, we received a lot of questions about how we're funded. We are funded, in part, by a program in the United States Department of Agriculture. Our services offered to schools—which are unrelated to our consumer ISP rollout—are funded, in part, through the Universal Service Fund. It sounds magical that the government is paying us to improve the infrastructure in the area—sadly, this isn't the case. We really wish that was how things worked, but it isn't.

As you may know, getting funding disbursed from the government requires a fair amount of oversite. The average turn-around time we have experienced with each contract has been about 3 months. This federal money is not for our operating costs, it goes directly to the party the contract was with.

To stay in operation, we must bring in revenue equal or more than our expenditures each month. In other words, we're just like every other small business out there. We're not operating on money from government programs or unearned tax-payer dollars. Any government program money goes directly to our infrastructure projects and any money received through the Universal Service Fund is in exchange for services rendered (at a substantial discount) to eligible institutions in our area.