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Broadband Infrastructure <br />In the final rule, Treasury expands eligible areas for broadband investment by requiring <br />that recipients invest in projects designed to provide service to households and businesses with <br />an identified need for additional broadband investment, including increasing access to high- <br />speed broadband, increasing the affordability of broadband services, and improving the <br />reliability of broadband service.394 Treasury considered multiple alternatives when selecting this <br />standard. The threshold for the interim final rule allowed benefits to accrue in a more targeted <br />manner to the approximately 9 percent of the country with access to speeds under the 25/3 Mbps <br />threshold.395 However, since SLFRF funds are distributed to tens of thousands of governments <br />across the country with a variety of broadband needs, Treasury believes that allowing recipients <br />greater flexibility to determine locations to serve in their jurisdictions — including considering <br />affordability and competition barriers — will lead to greater long-term public benefit. Further, <br />given that many federal broadband grant programs are focused solely on unserved and <br />underserved areas, Treasury believes that the final rule's flexibility enables these funds to fill an <br />important role in the overall federal broadband landscape. <br />In the final rule, Treasury also requires that broadband projects must meet a standard of <br />reliably delivering at least 100 Mbps download speeds and upload speeds, or in cases where it is <br />not practicable to do so, reliably delivering at least 100 Mbps download speed and between at <br />least 20 Mbps and 100 Mbps upload speed while being scalable to 100 Mbps upload and <br />394 Further, the final rule encourages, but does not require, that recipients pursue broadband infrastructure projects in <br />locations not currently served by a wireline connection that reliably delivers at least 100 Mbps of download speed <br />and 20 Mbps of upload speed. <br />395 Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows that as of June 2020, 9.07 percent of the U.S. <br />population had no available cable or fiber broadband providers providing greater than 25 Mbps download speeds <br />and 3 Mbps upload speeds. Federal Communications Commission, Fixed Broadband Deployment, <br />https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/#/ (last visited May 9, 2021). <br />395 <br />