HARDIN, MT – Situated on the banks of the BigHorn River and adjacent to the Crow Indian Reservation, Hardin, Montana boasts of a population of 4,664. Of those residents, just under half suffer from slow or no internet service at all, referred to as underserved and unserved. Visionary Broadband is proud to announce it has been awarded a $4.5 million grant to provide future-proof fiber Internet connectivity to homes, businesses and farms on the frontier of Hardin, Montana.
Visionary Broadband, a provider of high-speed internet service to communities in the rural West including Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, was recently awarded this grant through the competitive Connect Montana Broadband Program. The grant will allow Visionary to build high-speed internet service to 2,077 homes, businesses and farms around Hardin. Visionary contributed over $1.23 million of its own capital in a grant match to complete this project.
“We contributed Visionary’s own money to invest in this important broadband project through a significant grant match,” stated Brian Worthen, CEO of Visionary Broadband. “We did this intentionally to show how serious we are building out rural connectivity and doing the right thing for the communities we serve.”
Visionary pinpointed 2,077 users in and around Hardin that suffer from slow or no internet service at all, referred to as underserved and unserved. The grant award identified 2,072 as underserved and 5 as unserved, meaning these locations did not have acceptable internet speeds by the modern definition. To meet the new high-speed requirements of the federal government and the Montana Broadband Office, broadband constructed with the grant funds must provide upload and download speeds of 100 Mbps, or megabits per second. The old requirements were 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. The funding will allow Visionary to provide the infrastructure for Fiber to the Home (FTTH) internet service, which is state of the art technology.
“The project is entirely fiber, delivering a Fiber to the Home product capable of symmetric gigabit speeds. Fiber is the latest and most scalable technology and is expected to be the standard in Internet connectivity for years to come,” explained Brian Worthen, CEO of Visionary.
Federal funding for the program came as part of the American Rescue Plan, which provides money for local and state governments to build critical infrastructure in communities across the country. All projects must be completed by December 31, 2026 in order to receive full funding.
“We’re proud of the fact that in many of the communities we were awarded grants, work is already underway,” expressed Worthen. “In fact, work in Hardin should be 100 percent complete around November of this year.”
About Visionary Broadband:
Visionary Broadband was founded in 1994 in a rural community in Wyoming. It is a homegrown company that has developed technical abilities with a focus on reliability. Today, the rural internet provider serves five states and has a proven track record of connecting the most rural communities, bringing a commitment of efficiency, reliability and affordability to its customers. To learn more visit,
https://www.vcn.com/