New government funding will boost the networks of eight rural Internet service providers, including five customer-owned ISPs in areas that aren't densely populated enough to attract major investments from big cable companies and telcos.

The US Department of Agriculture today announced the new loans and grants, totaling $85.8 million. La Valle Telephone Cooperative in La Valle, Wisconsin, a town of about 1,300 residents, is getting a $7.61 million loan to expand its fiber network "and replace a switch to provide rural subscribers with improved services, including voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the flexibility to connect to Gigabit Ethernet and IP interfaces," the USDA said.

The Washington Post highlighted the efforts of La Valle in a story today:

La Valle, like many rural communities in America, have been passed over by the country's major communications providers, leaving the small town to fend for itself. And it has done so tremendously: Residents can buy fiber-optic Internet from the customer-owned LaValle Telephone Cooperative at speeds of up to 60 megabits per second—fast enough to rival the connections many Americans enjoy elsewhere. "Being in a rural area, we've got hills, rocks," said Greg Rockweiler, an office manager and a 26-year veteran of the company. "Building fiber is difficult at times."

The USDA is also giving loans or grants to four other cooperatives that are owned and operated by their customers. The Triangle Telephone Cooperative Association in Montana will get a $29.95 million loan to upgrade its network with fiber. Minnesota's Northeast Service Cooperative will get $6 million in grants to expand broadband service. The Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative in Alaska will get a $1.4 million grant "to provide Point Hope subscribers with high-speed Internet service and prepare the network for an undersea fiber connection currently planned for construction within the next two years." And Virginia's Scott County Telephone Cooperative will get a $2.1 million grant to build a broadband network that will reach 540 locations.

The USDA is also giving loans of $12.63 million and $12.38 million to Garden Valley Telephone in Minnesota and FTC Communications in South Carolina, plus a grant of $1.5 million to AtLink Services in Oklahoma.

The grants follow last week's White House announcement of "ConnectHome," a public-private partnership to supply broadband to 275,000 low-income households. "While nearly two-thirds of households in the lowest-income quintile own a computer, less than half have a home Internet subscription," the White House said.