Aug. 8—New Mexico’s Office of Broadband Access and Expansion will give southern New Mexico internet providers more than $1.25 million to build and repair broadband infrastructure in parts of Lincoln County hit by fires and floods.
The state awarded $1 million to Peñasco Valley Telephone Cooperative and $251,300 to TDS Telecom, OBAE announced in a news release Thursday. The money comes from New Mexico’s $117 million allotment to increase broadband access from the American Rescue Plan Act, a COVID stimulus bill.
The grants will be used to build and repair broadband devices like cable lines, conduits, telephone poles and fiber connections, according to OBAE spokesperson Michael Curtis.
The South Fork and Salt fires in Lincoln County last summer damaged at least 1,500 structures. Burn scars from the fires led to deadly flash floods in the months since, and flooding in early July in Ruidoso killed three people and damaged hundreds of homes.
TDS — which provides wireless service to schools, businesses and government buildings in the area — lost its central equipment hub in the 2024 wildfires. Service has been restored to the majority of customers who lost it, though restoration efforts are not yet complete, in part due to cost, said TDS spokesperson Kit Beyer.
Flooding has further complicated restoration, Beyer said, but the company plans to use its grant money to fund construction in hard-to-reach and costly areas.
“The grant will greatly assist TDS’s efforts to finish rebuilding facilities that were destroyed in the 2024 wildfires and subsequent flooding,” Beyer said.
Peñasco Valley’s infrastructure did not sustain damage during the fires and floods, but the company will use its $1 million award to build a second backup fiber optic line to service the village of Capitan, said Peñasco Valley Chief Operating Officer Mitch Hibbard.
“When the fiber optic cable that served the village of Capitan was damaged in the fire, Capitan became an island without any internet, without any mobile service, without any 911,” Hibbard said.
The company will build about nine miles of new cable “to make sure Capitan stays connected when this happens again, because it will happen again,” Hibbard said.
In a statement, OBAE Director Jeff Lopez said his office was prepared to “support families and communities recovering from these devastating incidents.”
“Replacing and fixing broadband infrastructure is vital to communities as they work to rebuild,” Lopez said.
To qualify for grant funding with OBAE, projects must deliver service to locations that have little to no high-speed internet, characterized by download speeds of anywhere from zero to 100 megabits per second.