Montana State Broadband Office

The 2021 state legislature passed and Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law SB297, which created the ConnectMT Act. The ConnectMT program will dispense $275 million in federal funding to broadband grant applicants. The money came from the federal American Rescue Plan.

Montana’s Department of Administration (DOA) is administering the state’s broadband infrastructure deployment program. The DOA’s Communications Advisory Commission will review all proposals and award contracts, which have to be approved by the governor.

Under the ConnectMT Act, "underserved area" are those where there's no access to broadband services with download speeds of less than 100 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps or less. 

“Unserved areas” are those at least 10 percent of locations have no access to broadband service at all, or have no access to services operating with a download speed of at least 25 megabits per second and upload speed of at least 10 megabits per second.

ConnectMT urges entities interested in submitting proposals “to stay up to date and follow the Commission meetings. For more information, please review both SB297 and HB632 and check this website often for updates on program development and Commission meetings.”