Auburn Development Council is pleased to share that yesterday, the Nebraska Public Service Commission awarded grants to  Pinpoint Communications, a fiber provider serving Southeast Nebraska, for broadband expansion in Nemaha County. These grants will be used to help connect 186 homes that were previously unserved. Through the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program (LB388), both Pinpoint and the state will be contributing $1,020,996 to the project totaling $2,041,993. 

The expansion will install fiber cable north along Highway 75 and connect with lines in Otoe County, to create a redundancy network and provide high-speed internet to those homes along that corridor. Currently, a single fiber connection out of Tecumseh, Nebraska serves the area.

Pinpoint, along with the Auburn Development Council, Lead for Nebraska Fellows and the Southeast Nebraska Development District, worked together to collect speed-testing data and letters of support for the project to demonstrate the need. Data collected suggested that many households in Nemaha County are underserved or internet providers aren’t providing the speeds they are selling.  As of today, according to the data available, average speeds Nemaha County residents are getting are 12.19m/b download and 10.86m/b upload.  In other words, our residents do not have access to high-speed internet. Pinpoint will offer, at minimum, 50/50 for $50 with even faster speeds available at reasonable prices. 

We highly encourage you to test your internet speed, to help us continue to reach other underserved or unserved households.  Please visit www.nebraskaspeedtest.org and type in your address or partial address and click the ‘Let’s Do It’ button below. Do this multiple times throughout the day to see if you are receiving the speeds as advertised . 

Our goal is for every home to be served in Nemaha County. Plans for further expansion and funding in 2022 are not yet identified, but we hope to work with towns’ and county officials to determine the best course of action to meet our goal.